30
summer
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fall
W
hen my family and I moved to Montecito some 30
years ago, we traveled up and down the entire coast of
California, investigating places such as La Jolla, Del
Mar, Carlsbad, San Clemente, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Santa
Monica, Brentwood, Malibu, Santa Barbara, Big Sur, Carmel, Monterey,
MONTECITO’S ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE
BY JAMES BUCKLEY
and call our own. Our standard was a full
usable
acre on relatively
flat land (similar homes at similar prices in, say, Marin County, were
almost always on hillsides or busy thoroughfares), a pool or tennis
court, guesthouse, a good school district, and walkable to the beach
and/or at least some shopping. We found what we were looking for in
Santa Cruz, Sausalito, Mill Valley, Petaluma; we even drove out to
Bodega Bay where Alfred Hitchcock filmed
The Birds
. By the time we
got to Mendocino, we’d had enough and settled on Santa Barbara, and
Montecito in particular because of its schools: Montecito Union and
Cold Spring are among the highest-rated elementary schools in the state.
But, it wasn’t just the schools. We also noted that we got more
for our money here than in virtually every other city and town we
visited. Here’s what else we discovered: the Santa Barbara area has
a near-perfect year-round climate and homes we could afford and,
perhaps even more importantly, places we would be proud to live in
Montecito, and we’ve been happy here for the past 30-plus years, in
the same house. Montecito isn’t the Garden of Eden... its floral variety
and abundance is probably similar, but the four rivers described in the
Bible are non-existent... In any case, it comes awfully close.
DAYS OF THE GREAT ESTATES
N
o doubt, early travelers, most from the Midwest (Chicago in
particular), rather than the East Coast, found what we found,
and they often invested heavily in land, landscape, and architecture.
Many of the nation’s leading architects and landscape artists, beginning
