••• The September 25 agenda of the Historic Landmarks Agenda includes the 22-unit townhouse complex proposed for 1 Hot Springs, the triangular lot between the freeway/train tracks and the Santa Barbara Cemetery. As you can see from the new rendering above, it will be quite visible from the roundabout currently under construction at Los Patos Way, Channel Drive, and Cabrillo Boulevard.
••• The HLC agenda also has fresh renderings of the mixed-use development at 1533 State (a.k.a. 1529 State), at the corner of Arrellaga, and home to the Isla Vista Food Co-op (a.k.a. where Cantwell’s used to be). The plan calls for 27 units, and the store will be on the State Street side. The design is Spanish, which is not exciting, but there are some welcome decorative flourishes at the edges.
••• The self-guided ArchitecTours 2024, organized by AIA Santa Barbara, is October 5: stops include “a modern ranch-style home in Hope Ranch, a timeless masterpiece overlooking Santa Barbara, a contemporary residence on the Mesa, and a modern home that exemplifies preservation and sustainability. In addition, tour-goers will have the opportunity to visit the Community Environmental Council’s Environmental Hub.”
••• “An emotionally wrenching and intellectually fulfilling experience” was how the New York Times described Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s 2021 film, Memoria, starring Tilda Swinton, which caught my attention, but then there was this: “You have to see it to believe it, and to see it you’ll have to go to a movie theater. Memoria is opening in New York this week and then making its way across the country, one cinema at a time.” So I gave up on it—until now. UCSB’s Carsey-Wolf Center is screening the film for free on October 1, along with a discussion with sound editor Javier Umpierrez.
••• I was surprised to come across this sign on the Edison Catway, at the top of the Hot Springs Trail, since Southern California Edison said full trail closures are unlikely while the road gets rebuilt. I walked right through, and the workers were unperturbed by my presence, so maybe it’s just for liability protection.
••• The neat office building at 25 W. Cota Street is for sale for $8.725 million.
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Why can’t they reduce the height of the 1 hot springs ? It seems too imposing.
On the plus side for those two projects – hooray more housing. On the minus – more generic “Spanish Revival.” Am I the only one who thinks the more ubiquitous this style becomes, the less special the actual historic structures become?
I hear what you are saying, but just head south to Ventura and you’ll see what a town looks like when the ABR lets ANYTHING go through. Touring towns in Spain and Italy you find more harmonious construction. I think that is what they are trying to achieve here. After all, we are considered part of the California Riviera!
OMG, the size bulk and scale of the four story building over the former Cantwell’s is awful! It should be “birthday cake” style, with one floor stepping into another, as they recede from the street. But the true horror of this design is the second floor condo’s that are behind the current building. Those poor owners will look up at two stories on their lot line while now they have beautiful mountain views.
re “neat office building at 25 W. Cota Street”. Does this serve as an example for old buildings that were not worth saving, but can be made worse by an awkward expansion?
I love the building on Cota. For me, it’s a very successful example of architectural styles that are fitting of the town but not Spanish colonial. I adore the corrugated exterior. It lends character and texture our urban fabric needs. I’m in favor of keeping a largely Spanish colonial look for Santa Barbara, but buildings like these slot in well and are a cut above the black and white generic block architecture that unfortunately seems to be proliferating.
I could not agree more with BW!
Spanish style is why I came to Santa Barbara not boring at all. It makes this place unique.
There’s a world of difference between actual historic structures – which are wonderful, to be celebrated and preserved – and whatever that 1533 State Street proposal is though. There’s a difference between an architectural style, and simply slapping a “theme” on a modern structure. Take that last rendering of the proposal – the view from Arrelaga. I guarantee what happened was that an architect was handed off the massing model of the building, and was told “add a bunch of Spanish Revival stuff to this.” It’s a jumbled incoherent mess, like a three year old decorating a birthday cake. It’s like they are playing a game of bingo, trying to check off every type of detail for this style. Tile roof? Check. Exposed beams in the eaves? Check. Iron work? Check. Breeze blocks made from terra cotta tile? Check. Arches? Check. A tower? Check. The issue I have is that so many of these new building made like this have this stink of inauthenticity to them – like a cheap kit car pretending to be something better than the chassis it’s built on. If you look carefully in this town, you’ll see endless examples of this – architectural details that are serving no point beyond theme. Balconies that are decorative only, so small no one can even stand on them. Concrete painted to look like wood. Towers no one can reach. Seriously, what’s the point of that tower in that render? It doesn’t even have windows. So while I wholeheartedly agree that there’s lots of wonderful Spanish Revival architecture in this town, I find these modern structures with a theme slapped on them only cheapen those actual historic structures. Also, as someone who cares deeply about more than one style of architecture, it’s maddening to see this Borg like takeover of the town by one single style, at the expense of others. If you dig up old photos of 834 State Street, where the current BofA now is, you’ll see it was a lovely piece of mid century modern architecture. Go to page 42 here:
https://issuu.com/santabarbaramuseum/docs/noticias_17_4_winter_1971
Someone, at some point slapped a new “theme” on it. Why? That’s not historic preservation, it’s the creation of a theme park, to the level that Disney imagineers would be proud of. Like, what’s the purpose of the space between that front wall with the arches and the original? The back fascade only makes sense when you realize a new theme was slapped on the existing structure. Or take a look at pages 26-27 from the same link. I think the original is a really cool piece of history. It’s been given the same treatment. I don’t fault the developers one bit on this – they’re simply looking to minimize the number of hoops they have to jump through to get a permit, and they know that the various design review boards won’t object to some vague Spanish Revival theme. But I truly think this approach dilutes and cheapens the actual structures worth preserving. Instead of getting something that might be exciting to look at, we get something bland, generic, designed purposefully to blend into the background. All of this becomes a self reinforcing loop, where the more of these we see, the more likely we are to see more of them. It’s not historic preservation, it’s the creation of a theme park.
I both do and don’t agree with you. I’m with you that a lot of the “Spanish” architecture going up around town looks cheap and post-modern. But the alternatives we get served seem worse. The big stucco box with black windows and grey siding masquerading as “modern” when they’re just soulless crap (and are the same “architecture” seen going up in every city in America) seems like what we get served when we opt out of Spanish. It’s the architecture of everywhere and nowhere. I’d love to see more buildings playing into other styles that are relevant to our history (Cota mentioned in this post is a win in my book), but imagination seems lacking. I’d rather we not end up a sloppy hodge podge. Look at Goleta. The architectural clashes and mishaps around the big commerce hub at Storke and Hollister seem like a lesson in everything that can go wrong with creating any meaningful or memorable sense of place (or in this case, failing to do so completely).
To be clear, I think very high standards should be held for the downtown core and the beach area. Take for example 5-over-1’s, which seem to be the herpes of the developer world. I don’t think this style should be let anywhere near Santa Barbara, and I’d fight against it tooth and nail. They looked ugly and dated when they first showed up 20 years ago, and only look worse since. As an example of a way forward – I personally really like most of the Linden Ave project in Carp. It clearly takes some old elements, and adds a modern twist to them. It feels….coastal? Modern, yet with some vintage lines.
So much of this comes down to financial realities – part of why I think modern “Spanish Revival” looks so cheap is that it’s trying to mimic a style from when labor and materials were vastly cheaper than they are today. I think good architecture is forward looking. It takes the realities of the current economics of building structures, and finds ways of creating something beautiful within those constraints. That should be the goal at least!
Do readers believe that this housing will be occupied in large part by existing SB residents in need of housing? My opinion is that high income SB residents already have housing. These types of developments will attract high income residents from outside the area putting further demand on SB housing stock.
Re Spanish architecture, this is what Pearl Chase envisioned. Its ubiquity is what gives a cohesive appearance to SB. This is the look of SB and is why tourists want to come here. Visit the downtown areas of other communities and contemplate why their aesthetic is unappealing.
If you follow this logic far enough, you end up with downtown Solvang – a theme park for tourists. Apologies if I think that’s not what I want from the city I live in. I took some of my visiting family to Solvang once, my cousin looked around, paused for a moment and said “wow, I guess this is what you get when you build a downtown strictly for tourism.” My point that I made before and I’ll make again – I am all for the preservation of historic structures. There’s a difference between historic preservation and the creation of theme park for the sake of tourism.
Are you confused on what Solvang is? It is a wonderful place to stop for a coffee & a sweet, stay longer if you choose. It’s grown into a lovely place to spend a few days exploring the SYV and beyond.