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64
winter
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spr ing
that the problem is difficult.”
Two philanthropic women stepped forward to rescue the beach
park. One, Martha Platt Gray, widow of David Gray, offered to finance
driving 300 creosoted pilings to a depth of 20 feet across the entire
front of the Pavilion. These would be covered by a triple layer of wood
planking and fronted by some 500 tons of granite rock. The cost was
$17,000.
The beach and boulevard east of the Pavilion was still at risk,
and Mayor Harvey T. Nielson stated the situation was a municipal
MOGULS
&
MANSIONS
emergency. The council, he warned, might have no alternative than
to pass the unpopular and previously repudiated occupational tax to
finance this and other emergencies that might arise. He ordered the
Harbor Commission to go ahead and safeguard the beach east of the
Pavilion and hoped to find some way to pay for it later.
Anna LaChapelle Clark, widow of Senator William A. Clark,
had paid for a steel groyne to be built on the sand below the cliff of
her estate as protection from erosion. She now offered to pay for two
more groynes for East Beach. City council accepted her generosity,
and the East Beach emergency disappeared from the news. During
November and December, the newspapers turned their attention to
the ever-worsening Depression. Clearly the new piling, groyne, and
rip-rap system was working, and the ocean held at bay. Santa Barbara’s
beautiful new beach park was saved.
(Sources: Stella Haverland Rouse,
News-Press
15 June 1980; “East
Cabrillo Boulevard: How it Happened 1924-1927” by Pearl Chase;
Major
Traffic Street Plan Boulevard and Park System
by Charles H. Cheney,
Consultant in City Planning, and Olmsted Brothers, Landscape Architects;
The Morning Press
, hundreds of articles from 1925 through 1931; maps of
the waterfront, 1923, 1924, 1925, etc.; architectural plans;
California Knight
on a Golden Horse
by Edward Hartfeld. Thanks to Justin VanMullem and Jill
Zachary of City Parks and Recreation for sharing resources and to Michael
Redmon of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum for his assistance. Thanks
also to John Fritsche and John Woodward for sharing images.)
(top) Lillian Child’s estate lay on the hill east of Por la Mar
Avenue. She donated land to reroute Cabrillo Boulevard
(bottom) Advertisement for the new Vista Mar Monte Hotel.
(Courtesy Santa Barbara Historical Museum; John Fritsche)