Santa Barbara – part three – historic estate

August 3, 2019 by RMW 9 Comments

This was an interesting place to stay to say the least. I really enjoyed it as opposed to staying in a slick, cookie cutter hotel. F.R. Bains bought the Historic Montecito Estate (aka The Peppers) in 1913 while he was President of the Gas Company, to spend the winters away from Los Angeles.

The estate is built on 1.65 acres of land a short drive from the hot spots of the Santa Barbara coast. The 1885 buildings contain 9,000 square feet with nine bedrooms and 11 bathrooms.

The Estate provides assisted living accommodations for seniors but they are allowed to rent out a certain number of rooms for visitors.

We arrived in the Santa Barbara/Montecito area on Wednesday to visit Lotusland (see blog post) and stayed here overnight before driving back to LA. I had brought my own avocado with me (along with a banana) as I wasn’t sure what the breakfast situation would be like. They provided a continental breakfast so I made some toast, mashed up the avo, took my coffee and sat outside at this table while BG was getting up. I’m an early riser and I love that time of the morning to myself.

It was soooooooooooo peaceful sitting out there in the garden. Like all of California, the Estate suffered through an extreme drought for many years. Recently they had to deal with evacuations from fire and mudslides. Management is doing as much as they can to get the Estate back to a pristine condition. But I liked it the way I found it. Elegant ramshackle.

I ambled around the rest of the Estate looking for photo opportunities. As I’ve said many times before, walking around with my camera forces me to really SEE as well as look.

I mistakenly thought this was an abandoned building. That was before I learned the whole Estate is really an assisted living facility. I started to walk up the ramp. Then I heard the sound of a TV… uh oh… I nearly intruded into a resident’s living room!

Please click on an image below to start slide show of the grounds:

There are several shared areas in the main building:

We had a two-bedroom suite with one bathroom. The TV didn’t work (no huge loss) and BG reported there was no hot water or soap. As we were only there for one night I decided I could wait until I got home to take a shower! Despite those shortcomings I thought we got a good deal for the price.

I took the little room with a window overlooking the garden. It was very cozy and I enjoyed the breeze that wafted in all night. BG was in the main room. This worked out well for both of us.

After breakfast we headed out for Stearn’s Wharf by way of State Street and the Santa Barbara Golf Club…. in other words, all around the mulberry bush… just so we could get a lay of the land. It is indeed a beautiful city. Just one more post to come!