A late afternoon sun graced another lovely event at Bellosguardo on Thursday, September 21. That day, the Bellosguardo Foundation hosted a reception and book talk by Liz Brown, author of Twilight Man: Love and Ruin in the Shadows of Hollywood and the Clark Empire. As guests mingled and explored the estate, docents were on hand […]
The Land Trust for Santa Barbara County has given us an amazing Valentine’s Day gift. A thousand red roses could not compete with the nearly 50 verdant acres the Trust has just added to its Arroyo Hondo Preserve. Since the Preserve’s founding in 2001, more than 1,600 visitors have walked its trails and 26,000 students […]
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by Hercule Beresford Italian-born Giuseppe (José) Lobero loved his adopted country so much that he opened his opera house, the first theater in Santa Barbara, on February 22, George Washington’s birthday. With such deep patriotic sentiment, it seems likely that it was he who hung a symbol of our nation above the proscenium arch of […]
“Clarence Mattei painted a portrait of our nation from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Shoreline… His portraits formed an album of an era which was melding the personalities of the fearless, rugged stagecoach drivers of the Wild West to the quiet confidence and well-bred sophistication of East Coast Philanthropy,” Erin Graffy, local historian, wrote […]
It was Shuku when a band of nearly 300 Chumash lived on the point of land that today marks the boundary between Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. It became Rancheria San Mateo after the Spanish settled the area in 1782. It became El Rincon (the corner) after the Mexican governor of Alta California granted the […]
In 1854, Pope Pius the IX consecrated Thaddeus Amat y Brusi as bishop of Monterey. The reluctant prelate (he had tried to ditch the papal appointment) moved the headquarters of the diocese to Santa Barbara where he planned to build a cathedral for the relics of the newly beatified Saint Viviana. Arriving in December of […]
An impressive fountain sprays high into the sky at the point where the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers converge to form the Ohio River. The waters from the fountain come from yet a third river that runs underground to add its own effluence to la belle rivière. Here, at this historic confluence in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is […]
The town is awash with the news that Betsy Green, local historian and author, has published a book about the “pictures” that were filmed at some of Montecito’s most notable estates. Betsy, a transplant from the Chicago area and former staff editor of World Book Encyclopedia, has written an encyclopedia of moviemaking in Montecito during […]
Lockwood de Forest (Sr.) was already considered one of the best-known landscape painters in the United States when he made his first appearance in Santa Barbara in late 1902. Captivated by the landscape, he painted over 100 oil sketches of the countryside by February 1903. That month, 112 of them were exhibited at Mrs. Tadd’s […]
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In 1854, Pope Pius IX consecrated Thaddeus Amat y Brusi as bishop of Monterey. The reluctant prelate (he had tried to ditch the papal appointment) moved the headquarters of the diocese to Santa Barbara where he planned to build a cathedral for the relics of the newly beatified Saint Viviana. Arriving in December 1855, the […]
Fifteen years ago, gripped by the idea of initiating a dig into my peoples’ past, I flew straight to the very big and famous (in genealogical circles) Family History Library in Salt Lake City. My plan was to spend a few days immersed in productive research and come away with a nicely-plumped-out family tree full […]
Laura Bridley comes by her affinity for Casa del Herrero honestly. A native of Montecito, Bridley has a lot of memories of connection with the land and structures in the community that channeled into a career in city planning that has included positions with the Architectural Board of Review, the Historic Landmarks Commission, the City […]
In 1886, the Santa Barbara waterfront was connected to three, often odiferous, esteros and littered with dilapidated shacks and the detritus of the hide and tallow industry. Despite the fact that there were several crude wooden bathhouses, the area was generally a “wild waste of sand, tin cans, and dead animals,” according to historian C.W. […]
Above the riparian corridor of Arroyo Hondo, a bleak Daliesque landscape reveals the aftermath of October’s Alisal Fire. Chaparral that hadn’t burned in too many years fed the wind-driven fire into the canyon from the east. Despite the grazing program of sheep and cattle on the hills flanking both sides of the lower canyon, the […]
