Santa Barbara, for me, is like a beautiful woman: I didn't realize just how beautiful she was until I done left her. I grew up in Santa Barbara, but it wasn't until leaving and traveling the world that I came to realize how spoiled I had been living in one of the world's most beautiful cities.
Santa Barbara takes it's name from the Spanish mission church--called "the Queen of the Missions" for its elegant beauty--built by the Franciscans in the 18th century. Its distinctive twin bell towers are unique to Mission Santa Barbara. The city itself is unique in that it is located on a coastal plain, about 90 miles north of Los Angeles and 300 miles south of San Francisco, which juts out in such a way that the ocean lies to the south of the city--not the usual situation on the West Coast, and which is bounded on the north by the Santa Ynez Mountains, a transverse range that runs from east to west rather than the usual north to south orientation. Wedged between the mountains and the sea as it is, Santa Barbara is a long and narrow city--about three miles in width and 30 miles in length. About 20 mile off the coast of Santa Barbara lie the Channel Islands. The five islands visible from the mainland constitute a national park that gets around 30,000 visitors a year.
With the mountains to the north, and the ocean and sandy beaches to the south, Santa Barbara offers beautiful vistas in whichever direction you look. The architecture is also easy on the eyes, in no small part due to the fact that downtown Santa Barbara was rebuilt in 1925 in the Spanish Colonial Revival style after being devastated by a powerful earthquake. Actually, civic leaders such as Pearl Chase had been advocating for a unified architectural style based on design elements inspired by the Mission and Santa Barbara's historic adobes even before the earthquake. In 1922, the Civic Arts Association's "Plans and Planting Committee" began specifically promoting the Spanish Colonial Revival style, which, in Santa Barbara's case, incorporates Andalusian, Moroccan, and Italian influences. The new Spanish Revival structures had held up well in the earthquake, and this further convinced Santa Barbarans of the style's advantages. As part of the rebuilding effort, blueprints of designs in the Spanish Colonial Revival style were provided free of charge for structures ranging from shops, to factories, to gas stations.
The crowning achievement of the rebuilding and beautification of Santa Barbara was the County Courthouse, which was completed in 1929. In my opinion, the courthouse is a must-see, if for nothing else then for the view from it's clock tower. The highest building in Santa Barbara is the eight-story Granada Theater, so the courthouse's eighty-five-foot tower offers panoramic views of Santa Barbara's red-tiled rooftops, as well as the mountains and the sea. Another thing worth seeing is the Mural Room with its stunning hand-painted murals depicting scenes from Californian history. The courthouse is open to the public from 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday, and from 10am to 4:30pm on the weekend.
Look for wines from California's Central Coast (an enormous region that runs from Contra Costa down to Santa Barbara) to take their place alongside the hallowed bottlings of Napa and Sonoma valleys. No viticultural region in America has demonstrated as much progress in quality and potential for greatness as the Central Coast, with its Rhône varietals, and the Santa Barbara region, where the Burgundian varietals Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are planted in its cooler climates.
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