Like many of California’s coastal cities, Santa Barbara began with a Catholic mission and a military Presidio in the late 18th century, when Spain began taking more of an interest in the wild northern parts of its territory—not least because Russia was starting to take an interest in the extreme northern parts.
In Santa Barbara, as in many others, the mission has long outlasted the presidio, but the presidio and mission together have left their mark on the city’s appearance; in the city’s downtown area, the dominant style is white stucco or adobe and the dominant roofline is red Spanish barrel tiles.
And that goes true even for buildings going up today; just as Solvang clings to looking Danish, in a slightly more subtle way Santa Barbara is clinging to its origin appearance, and is working to rediscover and remember that past.
19th-century city fathers missed a chance to align the street grid with the Presidio; the future interested them more than the past, it seems…
It’s easy to get a good look at the city, both historic and faux-historic by walking a nine-square block area that contains remains of the Presidio and a state historic park. While many interiors have been closed by Covid, there’s plenty to see from outside, and the city has a handy map for what it calls the Red Tile Walking Tour.
The tour actually starts blocks away at the wonderful Santa Barbara County courthouse complex, but that’s a story of its own for another day. Near it, though is the gorgeous facade of the Public Library, and next door a Masonic temple.
One of the first private ‘adobes,’ a term used for a low building built of, wait for it, adobe bricks was this one, built in 1826 by a Massachusetts man, Daniel Hill, who married the grand-daughter of the first commandant of the Presidio. In 1850, the recreated living room above saw the first meeting of the city’s City Council. The house boasted Santa Barbara’s first wooden floor.
Another, below, was the home of the Carillo and Covarrubias families in the 19th century and is now home to part of the Santa Barbara Historical Society Museum. The other side of the sign in the second picture has images of historic men.
A short walk away from the museum is a one-block street with the impressive name of Presidio Avenue. Once the site of the Presidio parade ground, it now offers a quiet spot to rest and in my case, to finish a take-away breakfast.
Here and there are little garden entrances leading to buildings not directly aligned with the street; they are likely aligned rather with the original axes of the Presidio.
Another historic adobe, the Orena Adobe, was originally built in 1849 as a storehouse for goods brought up from the harbor. The Orena family bought it in 1858, and still own it. Over the years, they added several wings to the now-sprawling building still in commercial use.
Orena was a son-in-law of the original owner, Don Jose de la Guerra, whose family compound was nearly next door and sizably impressive. Depending on your interpretation, the owl on the roof either is a symbol of imminent death or a protection against it. The city’s main post office, built 1937, also adopted the ‘official style,’ but with an Art Deco touch to the interior.
Santa Barbara’s City Hall follows the architectural pattern, but it wasn’t always so. This building went up in 1926, after the Greek Revival building before it was destroyed in the 1925 earthquake that also leveled the county courthouse.
But my true Santa Barbara favorite was this little ‘mission-style’ office for a palm reader, set at the edge of a parking lot, and with a dignity that cannot be denied…now or in the presumably foreseen future.
This ‘before-and-after’ shows the one remaining original Presidio building, El Cuartel, a small apartment, built into the outer wall, and assigned to a soldier as a combined residence and guard station. Near it, a tile tribute to a later occupant of the neighborhood, Santa Barbara’s old Chinatown.
At the northern end of the section, more recent buildings have been cleared over the years by the state historic park, opening the way for reconstructed or in some cases restored-from-remnants parts of the Presidio, including its chapel. one of the raised blockhouses along the walls, and some other buildings. The illustration should help make it clear where these pieces fit.
This restored building houses a visitor center, which had not yet re-opened after Covid when I was there.
All in all, a pleasant couple of hours walk with an informative map guide, and a clearer picture of the path from early Spanish settlement to slowly-growing town to modern city.
And bonus trivia: Santa Barbara sits on the longest section of south-facing ocean coast on the U.S. west coast.
