••• Maison K is having a sale with deep discounts before closing shortly after Christmas. Owner Kimberly Hayes is looking for a new, smaller space in Montecito; she has “decided to lean into and focus on designing more product for the company’s own brand while keeping some tried and true favorite labels.” And the word on the street is that Orlando-based women’s swimwear brand Everything But Water will be taking over the storefront at 1253 Coast Village Road. The company has around 30 stores across the country.
••• “Bungalow Haven’s application for listing on the National Registry of Historic Places will be heard by the California Office of of Historic Preservation in Sacramento on February 8,” emailed a resident. “This would be the first such designation of a Santa Barbara neighborhood and a real step forward for the neighbors who have worked so hard to preserve and protect it for more than 20 years. We started out as a social group meeting to share ideas and information about caring for our old homes, and quickly became a grassroots movement to preserve it from overdevelopment.” If you’re not familiar with the Bungalow Haven area, it’s super charming. Go walk it!
••• MOXI museum now has an exhibit at Santa Barbara Airport: “Passengers can explore a hands-on sensory experience with an Airplane Color Mixing Wheel, Talk Tubes, and a Tactile Marble Wall while watching airplanes take off.”
••• In a fundraising letter, the Bellosguardo Foundation said that in 2025 it will start “offering new sets of tours showcasing Bellosguardo’s vintage cars, gardens, and the more personal spaces of the house. We will offer more musical performances, lectures, and programming, as well as open additional areas of the estate for the public to enjoy such events.”
••• B. was surprised to discover that a bridge on the county path down to the beach near Lookout Park in Summerland has been painted in the style of a rainbow. The county Parks department said the paint job wasn’t its doing.
••• According to the Montecito Trails Foundation, the county anticipates finishing construction on the new two-lane Cold Spring bridge by mid-February (weather permitting). And here are some trail updates:
The first steps toward restoring Romero Road will begin with Southern California Edison in February/March 2025—weather permitting. Edison’s work will restore Old Romero Road to approximately 2.2 miles, allowing for a partial reopening once complete. Looking ahead, the Forest Service has allocated resources to oversee MTF’s planning and executing the full restoration of the road throughout 2025/26.
Similar to Romero, repairs to the Franklin Trail will be made much easier once Edison completes their project. Balancing accessibility with weather, there is hope that Franklin will see significant progress in the coming year. The Franklin project, conducted entirely with hand tools, and not requiring any realignment, is expected to gain approval faster than some of the other pending trail projects.
Beyond Romero and Franklin, major strides have been made on the San Ysidro Trail. Restoration work began in June with an all-agency volunteer day to assess the trail’s needs and begin work. The greatest challenges remain three major trail failures within the first mile and a half. One of these has already been fully repaired, while the remaining two require oversight from Los Padres National Forest. The Forest Service is expected to provide the necessary resources in early January, allowing the final repairs to move forward.
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