Montecito Lifestyle :: Recent Sales

Summer has been hot in Montecito and so have Property Sales...

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Contemporary Country Estate: This is the stylish country inspired ocean view home you have dreamed of. Sophisticated, charming and beautifully finished.Extensively remodeled 2010. The garden setting is extraordinary: Beautiful rose and flower gardens, stone walls, spacious wrap around ocean and island view dining deck, kitchen BBQ patio, outdoor shower.

Bob Easton designed home offering a sophisticated contemporary ambiance and keen architectural details. The condo is one of two units, with one common garage wall. Remarkably private behind garden walls, all rooms open to generous outdoor spaces with beautiful Zen gardens. This designer owned home has been beautifully remodeled with gorgeous high quality stylish finishes throughout. The living room offers a large fireplace and walls of glass with oak vistas. The home has wonderful light quality with beautiful sky lights, glass brick walls, custom light fixtures and mirrors throughout. Two Bedroom/Two Bath. One car garage attached.

Set on what may be the most dramatic and premier location within the prestigious Birnam Wood Golf Club, this highly refined home offers spectacular mountain and lake views from its expansive rooms along with the finest examples of superior construction and design. The 3-bedroom plus den home offers high ceilings, handsome moldings, stone fireplaces, warm parquet oak floors and generous marble baths. One of the largest and most inspiring homes in the club.

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A Golf Centre Grows in Harlem

Students in the Bridge Golf Foundation program, based in Harlem, make their way to the golf course at the Bridge, a club in Bridgehampton that is owned by one of the foundation’s creators. Image: JOHNNY MILANO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Power of Golf to Bring Change

At Compass, we're all about helping people find their place in this world. A growing golf centre in Harlem is doing exactly that! Helping underprivileged and mostly young minority men find their place in this world through the game of golf. As a progressive real estate brokerage, we aim to do the same.

By PAUL ROGERS | NEW YORK TIMES

Two years ago, Juan Cortorreal had never held a golf club. And now here he was, a freshman from the Eagle Academy for Young Men of Harlem, competing against the top player from the Bronx High School of Science, one of the city’s best teams.

As his team’s No. 1 man, Juan had to tee off in the first group, in front of a crowd, at the Mosholu Golf Course in the Bronx, toward the end of the school year last May. Everyone fell hushed as he settled into his stance. With a patient backswing and whiplike follow-through, he sent his ball flying up the tree-lined fairway. He outdrove his opponent, a far more seasoned player, but proceeded to lose the hole and, eventually, the match, just as he had every other match all season. Afterward, though, he was practically ebullient.

“It was probably the most competitive match I’ve had,” Juan, 15, said. “It was fun; it was really fun.”

Juan and his identical twin, Antonio, are two of 20 Eagle Academy students who are avidly learning the game — and studying science, math and character lessons — with the Bridge Golf Foundation of Harlem. The group’s mission is to improve the lives and opportunities of young minority men through golf.

An instructor, Brian Hwang, drives at the Bridge club. Antonio Cortorreal, 15, is one of his students. Image: JOHNNY MILANO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The golf program is the latest in a growing number of organizations in New York and across the country devoted to introducing minority youths to sports traditionally played mostly by whites and to providing mentoring and tutoring programs. Harlem alone has StreetSquash; Ice Hockey in Harlem; Harlem Lacrosse; and Dream, formerly Harlem RBI, which focuses on baseball and softball.

At a time when Harlem is undergoing rapid change — to the disappointment and outright disgust of some longtime residents — Farrell Evans, the primary architect of the golf foundation, said the program represents a model for progressive gentrification.

“People get too caught up on the idea of displacement,” said Mr. Evans, who has lived in Harlem for 17 years. “We’re an example of how you can make it work for everybody.”

The foundation, located on West 117th Street between Fifth and Lenox Avenues, is part of a neighborhood that bears little resemblance to how it looked just a few years ago. A Whole Foods opened at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue in late July, a capstone to a boulevard of restored brownstones where bistros and upscale coffee shops now outnumber the remaining dollar stores and bodegas.

Whole Foods Market opened in Harlem in July. Its arrival is one of the changes that has longtime residents of the neighborhood concerned about gentrification. Image: CHANG W. LEE / THE NEW YORK TIMES

It’s not hard to find Harlem residents who lament the influx of wealth and newcomers in a neighborhood that once held the heart of black culture in America.

A community effort — backed by Adriano Espaillat, the Democrat who represents the 13th Congressional District — is afoot to thwart the real estate industry’s effort to rebrand the area between West 110th and West 125th Streets as SoHa (short for South Harlem).

Mr. Espaillat, who was unfamiliar with the Bridge Golf Foundation, said in an interview that any after-school program that provides academic enrichment, especially in science and technology, could be of great help to students anywhere. But he also said the foundation’s mission struck him as being “somewhat paternalistic” in what he considered to be an effort to “take students out of the basketball court and teach them a game where they can brush elbows with the very rich and elite of this city.”

“SoHa, Whole Foods, displacement,” he said. “Is success coming at the expense of people that are living there?”

“SoHa, Whole Foods, displacement,” he said. “Is success coming at the expense of people that are living there?”

Antonio Cortorreal, left, and his twin brother, Juan, during a golf lesson; STEM subjects are part of the curriculum. Images: LEFT: CHANG W. LEE / THE NEW YORK TIMES RIGHT: JOHNNY MILANO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Bridge Golf Learning Center, also the headquarters for the foundation, opened in May 2016. The center occupies a street-level space in the rear of a luxury condominium called the Adeline that was built in 2014.

The facility has three hitting bays. Cups for putting are sunk into the carpeted floor. When the foundation isn’t in session with the students, the center is open to the public — generally a high-paying clientele — for lessons with golf pros, club fittings, fitness screenings and open play on state-of-the-art simulators that spew data such as club speed and carry distance.

Juan and Antonio know all of their numbers.

“Today I hit 275,” Juan said on a recent afternoon at the learning center, referring to how many yards he hit the ball off a tee with his driver. It was his longest drive yet. Antonio’s was 266. Either would be the envy of most recreational golfers.

The students at the center are seventh through 10th graders. All of them have enrolled by choice, but as a requirement of enrollment they must go to the learning center at least four days a week after school.

The organization also offers a seven-week summer program. Many of the students spent July and the first half of August preparing for state Regents exams. The twins focused on geometry, Juan in hopes of improving upon a 72, Antonio with the goal of passing. Each passed the earth science exam with ease.

Students must attend classes after school four days a week at the learning center. From left, Charlie Cohen, an instructor, works with Jacob Scarborough and Braylan Stewarts. Image: JOHNNY MILANO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sitting in their fourth-floor walk-up, above a West African grocery and a shuttered pizzeria, the twins’ father, Hector Cortorreal, said the golf center, along with Eagle Academy, the public school his sons attend, has provided much-needed focus in their lives. “I always see them doing their homework,” he said, gesturing toward the dining table in the narrow apartment.

The Eagle Academy for Young Men of Harlem is one of six schools — one in each New York City borough and another in Newark — run by the Eagle Academy Foundation. The Bridge Golf Foundation chose to become partners with Eagle Academy, Mr. Evans said, because their missions align. Each is dedicated to providing educational opportunities to urban young men of color. He said his foundation drew inspiration from the national movement to better address the needs of this at-risk group, citing former President Barack Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative and the Young Men’s Initiative spearheaded by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

Both the Bridge Golf Foundation and the Eagle Academies include character education in their curriculums to encourage students’ social and emotional development. This summer, for example, the Bridge students read “The Pact,” a memoir about three young black men who, while growing up in Newark, promised one another they would become doctors and overcame hardships to fulfill their dream.

The Cortorreal family emigrated from the Dominican Republic when Juan and Antonio, the youngest of five siblings, were 7 years old. Their father is a porter in a building around the block. Their mother, Marisol, works as a home health attendant. The parents are no longer together, and the boys are living with their father.

As talented yet underprivileged young men, the Cortorreals are just the kind of the students the Bridge Golf Foundation was made for, Mr. Evans said.

Stretching before play at the Bridge. Image: JOHNNY MILANO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Mr. Evans, a former journalist who grew up playing golf in a black middle-class family, started the foundation with Robert M. Rubin, a retired commodities trader who came from a white working-class background and is now the principal owner of the Bridge, a lavish country club in Bridgehampton. The two men met in the fall of 2014 while playing golf with a mutual friend in Westchester County.

As they strolled the fairways, Mr. Rubin and Mr. Evans shared stories of their backgrounds in the sport.

Mr. Evans, 42, grew up in Forsyth, Ga., a small town 60 miles south of Atlanta. He started playing as a youth with an old set of clubs of his father’s he found in the family barn. Although his dad no longer played, his extended family was deeply involved in the sport. His uncle, J. P. Evans, was a scratch, or expert, player who in the early 1970s helped desegregate the public course where his nephew would learn the game 15 years later.

In high school, Mr. Evans competed in predominantly black junior tournaments in Detroit, Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio. In college, he played on the golf team at Florida A&M University.

When he met Mr. Rubin, Mr. Evans was writing about golf for ESPN.com. His connection to the golf industry began when he landed an internship with the PGA Tour as part of an effort to increase opportunities for minorities in the sport. The Tour began the program in response to the controversy surrounding the 1990 P.G.A. Championship, which had been held at Shoal Creek, then an all-white country club outside Birmingham, Ala.

Farrell Evans, left, a co-creator of the Bridge Golf Foundation, works with Juan Cortorreal, 15. Image: JOHNNY MILANO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Mr. Rubin, 63, came to golf later in life. The son of an appliance repairman, he grew up in Monmouth County, N.J, with zero ties to the sport. After college, he went to work on Wall Street. Only then did he learn what currency golf has in the business world.

Mr. Rubin founded his club, the Bridge, in 2002. It self-consciously shirks tradition. The rolling grounds unfurl across the site of an old racetrack, relics of which, including flag stations and a spectator bridge advertising Chevron gasolines, still dot the property. The initiation fee is $975,000.

When Mr. Evans and Mr. Rubin strolled along the fairways of Westchester County that day, trading stories, Mr. Evans asked him, “Have you ever thought about doing something around golf with kids in the city?” Mr. Rubin was interested. Within a week, Mr. Evans had come up with a plan.

The two men established the nonprofit foundation in January 2015.

The annual budget is roughly $1 million, Mr. Evans said. Most of the funding comes from donations, with the major benefactor being Mr. Rubin. His motivation in underwriting the organization, he said, comes from what he considers a growing inequality of opportunity in America.

“I think there is a self-reinforcing, protectionist mechanism among the elites, and I’m thinking about ways to crack that,” Mr. Rubin explained. “The system that gave me my opportunity is broken now. So this is a way to create little openings in the armor that the elite have built around themselves.”

While President Trump, with his gilded private clubs, has become for many the face of golf in America, the foundation reflects a far different mission within the game.

Along the walls of the learning center are sculptures made from old leather golf bags by the conceptual artist Charles McGill, who was black (he died in July after a brief illness). The golf bag, he wrote in an exposition on prominent display, is “a very political object due to its historical associations with class inequality and racial injustice.”

Tariq Washington attempts to leave the sand trap at the Bridge. Image: JOHNNY MILANO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Not only were many country clubs and municipal courses once segregated, so, too, were the ranks of professional golf. The Professional Golfers Association of America, the precursor of the PGA Tour, maintained a Caucasians-only policy until 1961, forcing pioneering black pros, including Ted Rhodes and Charlie Sifford, to play for years on African-American circuits. Sifford became the first black professional golfer to break the color barrier, but although he went on to win two PGA events, his best years were behind him.

It was in light of this history, and the ongoing plight of minority men in America today, that Mr. Evans came up with the idea of a youth golf program with an academic track in Harlem.

Early on, Mr. Evans recalled, people asked him why he was focusing exclusively on young, male minorities. “I said, ‘All you have to do is read the newspaper, look at your nightly news.’ It doesn’t take rocket science to see what’s going on in America.”

The Bridge students have examined issues of race through STEM as well as golf. Antonio was part of a team of students who researched the water contamination crisis in Flint, Mich. They presented their findings at a water-themed fair at the foundation in June.

The scandal’s disproportionate effect on Flint’s poor black population made an impression on Antonio. “It just seemed unfair to me that they had to drink that water,” he said.

The majority of the foundation’s STEM lessons are designed around the physics and statistics of golf. The students explore physics principles like the magnus effect, a lift force that determines the flight of a spinning ball. They also design their own experiments to determine, say, mean, mode and median and the correlation between two factors, like a golf club’s loft and the rotation of a ball.

Brian Hwang, right, works with Noah Folks at the Bridge. Image: JOHNNY MILANO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

“You learn statistics in school and you think that it’s boring and why the hell are they making me do this?” said Veeshan Narinesingh, a co-leader of the Bridge’s STEM program. “But they see it in an actual application to something they care about and it sticks in their head more.”

The foundation began working with Eagle Academy students in September 2015. The learning center was still under construction, so the classes met at the Harlem Y.M.C.A. The boys swung plastic clubs until the center opened eight months later.

“As soon as we put a real club in their hands, they wanted to swing it,” said Brian Hwang, one of the foundation’s two full-time teaching pros. “And then they started to hit their first shots into the screens. That was it — they loved it.”

As the only boys’ high school golf team in Harlem, one composed entirely of freshmen, Eagle Academy lost every match last spring. Still, the boys said they gained valuable experience. The season produced highs as well as lows.

“Look at this shot!” Randy Taylor, the foundation’s other full-time pro, said during the Bronx Science match last spring as a drive of Antonio’s flew toward the green at Mosholu’s third hole, stopping 10 feet from the cup.

Mr. Taylor, 35, grew up in a family of modest means in Bridgeport, Conn., and took up the game at the insistence of his mother, who enrolled him in an after-school program that combined golf and academics. When he was 14, Mr. Taylor met Tiger Woods, then a rising star, who awarded him a scholarship to a Nike golf camp.

“I tell the boys all the time,” said Mr. Taylor, “that changed a lot for me and put me in a situation where I could learn this game of golf, be good at it and teach it for a living, and pass it on to them.”

Juan Cortorreal on the fairway at the Bridge. Image: JOHNNY MILANO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A few times a year, the foundation hosts the students at the Bridge, Mr. Rubin’s club.

Their most recent visit, in late July, combined hands-on lessons on how a golf course is maintained with sumptuous food, an instructional clinic and time spent playing on the course.

After a work session in the morning and a lunch of quesadillas, cheeseburgers and push-up pops on the club’s patio, the boys limbered up for golf lessons. Then they hiked to the first tee.

Zion Smith, 14, hit his opening drive and then took a moment to admire the verdant tableau, with its views of Peconic Bay in the distance. “It’s different than every other course I’ve played,” he said. “Everything is just so clean.”

Far more than just offering the occasional day in the country or an introduction to golf, Zion said, the foundation has become a second family to him after his father died of cancer.

“It’s very helpful to have people around to support me, that want me to be successful just like my father was,” he said. “They’re kind of stepping in as a parent figure in my father’s shoes, treating me special. Like I’m someone and not invisible, not being ignored.”

Article by: Paul Rogers - New York Times

At Compass, we're all about helping people find their place in this world. 

Billionaire's Trailer Park Hotspots

Malibu and the Hamptons have something in common, million-dollar views, billion-dollar residents and a location on one of the world's most iconic beaches. Image | New York Times Style Magazine

America's Most Affluent Trailer Parks

More and more, there's a growing trend in America of trailer parks with million-dollar views on prime real estate drawing the affluent. But why would the wealthy invest in boring rows of modular mobile homes squeezed onto tiny plots of land? We find the answer hidden in Paradise Cove, a private waterfront community of 265 trailers in Malibu and Montauk Shores, a trailer park in the  Hamptons, both built in the 50's.

Montauk Shores, Hamptons. Image | New York Post

Paradise Cove, Malibu

Paradise Cove was first developed in 1950, when fishermen began parking their trailers and campers down by the water. In the ’70s, the Cove’s owners graded the bluff above their original plot, which at that point had 100 trailers, to make space for an additional 165 double-wide units. A buyer bought one of these larger mobile homes for around $70,000 (the going rate at the time). Thirty-six years later, the mobile homes sell in the millions.

And yet despite that stunning appreciation, Paradise Cove remains very much what it was when buyers first moved there: a laid-back, humble 85-acre classic California beach scape populated by people who want to live within walking distance of a secluded stretch of the Pacific Ocean. The difference (besides prices, of course) is that although people once came here because it was all they could afford, the Cove’s new generation of residents — entrepreneurs, financiers and a handful of actors, designers and filmmakers — come here because they want to, because the area represents an antidote, and at times a rebuke, to the sprawling estates of nearby Los Angeles (where, in fact, some of them maintain their primary residences). The other thing that attracts these newcomers to the community is its coziness, its very sense of community (hard to avoid when your neighbors are just 10 feet away) and the unlikelihood that it will ever be developed: There are still just 265 trailers here, and no room nor plans to add more.

And while the newcomers may drive nicer cars and trick out their old trailers — most of which date to the 1970s and which range between 400 and 1,000 square feet — with clapboard siding and Viking stoves, for the most part they respect the spirit of the Cove, its peaceable lack of ambition. They see the same thing that drew Carter so many years ago — a place that is nearby but feels far away. Here are a few members of the next generation of Paradise Cove.

Paradise Cove Cafe, Malibu. Image | Laura Csorta

113 Paradise Cove Road
Malibu CA 90265

Welcome to the "Seaside Cottage" located in Malibu's famed Paradise Cove. Charm best describes the ambience. A white picket fence with a morning glory-covered arch leads you through a lovely garden straight out of a Thomas Kinkade painting. Start your day with a spectacular ocean view from the spacious master bedroom! French doors lead to a generous deck with spa. This 3 bedroom 3 bath home includes 6 parking spaces, 3 of which are covered. Features include: gated community, hardwood floors, skylights, charming sunroom, lush gardens, ample storage. The expansive tree covered common area gives a feel of an extended yard with a path leading to Paradise Beach and restaurant. Enjoy a meal at the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe with your toes in the sand while waves crash on the beach. The 'Seaside Cottage' is ready for you to experience a little piece of Paradise!

3  Beds  |  3  Baths  |  1,700 Sqft

Offered for:

$3,200,000

Paradise Cove Malibu - Seaside Cottage for Sale

Paradise Cove Malibu - Seaside Cottage for Sale

Paradise Cove Malibu - Seaside Cottage for Sale

Paradise Cove Malibu - Seaside Cottage for Sale

Paradise Cove Malibu - Seaside Cottage for Sale

Paradise Cove Malibu - Seaside Cottage for Sale

Paradise Cove Malibu - Seaside Cottage for Sale

Paradise Cove Malibu - Seaside Cottage for Sale

Paradise Cove Malibu - Seaside Cottage for Sale

Paradise Cove Malibu - Seaside Cottage for Sale

Montauk Shores, Hamptons

Montauk Shores in the Hamptons has become a billionaire's hotspot and owning a trailer at the park has become the ultimate status symbol for the tony Long Island town’s summering rich and famous, many of whom use their relatively modest mobile digs as a second pad to escape with the family or even as a glorified changing room after a long day of romping in Montauk’s waves.

"Owning a trailer at the park has become the ultimate status symbol...There’s also the indescribable cachet that comes with shabby chic."

“All you own is the box of air above the land,” noted a former Montauk Shores trailer owner. “Whoever buys here is essentially buying a 24-foot-wide-by-50-foot-long box of air.” But for some deep-pocketed denizens, that’s all they want. So many wealthy people have infiltrated the trailer park that it now has its own “Billionaires’ Corner,’’ a local Realtor told The Post.

“It has definitely become a thing — it’s epic,” he said.

Montauk Shores wasn’t always a refuge for the rich. Originally created as an impromptu campsite with tents in the 1940s and ’50s, the trailer park eventually drew public servants — especially police and firefighters — along with some teachers and fishermen. In 1976, 152 of its residents banded together and bought the 20-acre property — with its 900 feet of shoreline at the end of Long Island — rescuing it from bankruptcy. The move made Montauk Shores the first trailer-park condo association in the state.

Life was good. Blue-collar workers who wouldn’t normally be able to enjoy an expensive oceanside view got one, local surfers landed access to the gnarliest waves, and retirees searching for peace and quiet were rewarded with unspoiled coastline, with only Dick Cavett’s Tick Hall home and the late Andy Warhol’s estate far off in the distance. Helping to keep the park’s development under control was an unspoken rule: Anything new had to be wheeled in. But as improbable as it seems, the trailer park has been increasingly pulling in billionaires by the boatload.

There’s Vitaminwater co-founder Darius Bikoff, hedge-fund manager Dan Loeb, film producer Karen Lauder — whose ex-husband is billionaire William Lauder — and wealthy socialite Bettina Stelle and her starchitect hubby, Fred, not to mention their house guests, who include Jimmy Buffet.

“I know quite a few billionaires here,” Fred Stelle said. “The most appealing aspect is the park’s quality of life. It’s a classic throwback to a summer community — relaxed and low-key in a funky way, like what Southern California must have been like in the 1950s, and it’s safe for kids.” The park’s cast of characters also includes a “legendary” retired ConEd lineman who taught Stelle’s son how to spearfish. Most of the trailers are from 200 square feet to double-wide models of up to 1,400 square feet. Some owners have tacked on second floors, but they can’t build out and widen the footprint of their original lot. Depending on whether they’re leased or owned, the homes currently go for from $200,000 to $1.495 million. Owners shell out around $150 a month in dues, which pays for grounds upkeep as well as security and maintenance of its pool and clubhouse.

Montauk Shores, Hamptons. Image | New York Post

Of course, the billionaires are huddled together in the coveted oceanfront lots, by one of the best surfing beaches on the East Coast, with Ferraris and Porsches parked by their trailers. Rich residents aren’t settling for basic white siding and tired interiors for their new nests, either. One homeowner replaced his trailer’s plastic siding with mahogany. The inside is all “Italian marble, a kitchenette, a bathroom, a sitting area and a place to hang his surfboards,” a source said. “It’s completely decked out to the nines in a way that would make James Bond blush.”

The trailer also comes with a tiny plot of irrigated grass with Zen-like stones that were hand-polished by the billionaire’s advance team, the source added. Leaving no stone unturned, his workers make sure the trailer and its plot of grass are spotless before the billionaire’s arrival, the source said, buffing the stones to remove sandy footprints. Some of the wealthy leave their mansions for the trailer park to escape their families. Others bring their children to “reconnect.” And some use their mobile homes to shower in comfort after a day at the beach.

Bikoff has reportedly never slept in his trailer, which doesn’t even contain a bed. He uses it as a swanky “changing room and storage locker for his surfboards and as a place where he can hang out with his friends,” a source said. Bikoff did not return calls for comment.

Montauk Shores has become a symbol of the creeping change that is transforming the area, locals say.

Article & Images by: Jennifer Gould Kiel (New York Post) & Tom Delavan (New York Times Style Magazine)

Interested in becoming apart of America's most affluent trailer park in Paradise Cove? 

Fiesta: Old Spanish Days 2017

The 92nd anniversary of the Fiesta Historical Parade featured floats 600+ horses depicting episodes from the history of the Santa Barbara and California by descendants of local Native Americans, Spanish Pioneers, the Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West, and local service clubs and organizations | Image: Paul Wellman 

Viva La Fiesta 2017 

It’s that time of year for cascarones and castanets, pozole and parades, margaritas and mariachis, and most of all, pride in this annual celebration for natives as well as those new to the city and those visiting. Let the Santa Barbara Independent’s annual guide to Old Spanish Days help you get the most out of your Fiesta experience. This year’s special guide will introduce you to 2017 La Presidente Rhonda Ledson Henderson, Spirit of Fiesta Norma Escárcega, Junior Spirit of Fiesta Eve Flores, and Saint Barbara Robin Emily Hill Cederlof. Get ready for the entertainment, food, fun, and tradition that is Old Spanish Days.

Rehearsal for opening night at the Mission | Image: Scott London

Meet the Spirits of Fiesta 2017

2017 Spirit of Fiesta, Norma Escárcega (right), and Junior Spirit of Fiesta, Eve Flores | Image: Montecito Lifestyle

Every year, two young dancers are chosen as the Spirit and Junior Spirit of Fiesta, and this year, it’s a graceful, strong, leaderly spirit that 2017 Spirit of Fiesta Norma Escárcega and Junior Spirit Eve Flores carry with them to the stage.

2017 Spirit of Fiesta Norma Escárcega at La Fiesta del Museo | Image: Paul Wellman

It’s been a year of milestones for Escárcega. Besides the Spirit coronation, she graduated from San Marcos High School as their senior class vice president with AP and honors classes under her belt. The Hearts Therapeutic Equestrian Center volunteer and future probation officer hopeful has danced flamenco for 15 years. “It is definitely an honor,” Escárcega said of the Spirit title. She hopes she can be a role model to other dancers, showing they “can be true to who they are, no matter the style of dance or personality. When you dance with passion and love, you can accomplish anything.”

2017 Junior Spirit of Fiesta Eve Flores at La Fiesta del Museo | Image: Paul Wellman

For Flores, the Junior Spirit life has been very exciting. “I’m super excited to go place to place, to take it all in and learn what I can accomplish at Fiesta,” said the ambitious 5th grader, an environmentally conscious Hope School student who enjoys spelling bees and math competitions. “I know there’s so much in store for me.” She spent her first three years of school in Mexico, where she learned ballet, hip-hop, jazz, and more, but found the perfect fit in flamenco when she moved here in 3rd grade. Flores says she loves dancing because “I can express myself without using words and share my personality onstage,” and hopes she can inspire young dancers like herself. “If you try your hardest,” she said, “you can get it, no matter what.”

Article by: Terry Ortega & Richie Demaria | Santa Barbara Independent

Make Old Spanish Days in Santa Barbara a yearly tradition and live the Montecito Lifestyle

Latest Press Release

The property at 511 Las Fuentes Drive at Birnam Wood Golf Club in Montecito was listed by Compass for $5.2 million.

Interview by The Real Deal Los Angeles

It was my absolute honor to be interviewed by the ever-talented Kavita Daswani from the The Real Deal Los Angeles. The Real Deal Magazine provides cutting edge news on the real estate market. A journalist from the magazine contacted me for insight on the Montecito Market.

"Today, there are approximately 3,600 single-family houses in Montecito, averaging about an acre each. As of the end of May 2017, the city had 92 active listings ranging in price from $3.5 to $85 million. The most eye-popping property in the current Montecito portfolio is Rancho San Carlos, a sprawling 237-acre estate that has been owned by the same family for a century and has been on the market for two years. Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing."   - Susan Pate

Doing so-so in Montecito

Demand for mid-priced homes remains high, but the top of the market is going soft

July 14, 2017 
By Kavita Daswani

Montecito has a well-established reputation as one of Santa Barbara County’s glitziest celebrity enclaves. Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Bridges, Natalie Portman and serial home buyers Ellen DeGeneres and Portia Rossi are just some of the famous people who have property there. The area’s quiet streets, sprawling estates and relatively small population (about 9,000 people over a 9.2-square-mile area, according to the most recent Census data) provide plenty of attractive draws for potential home buyers. But local experts say that some indicators point toward an impending downshift in the residential market.

Long considered the crown jewel of Santa Barbara, Montecito was inhabited by the Chumash Indians until the Spanish arrived in the 18th century; remnants of that history can still be seen in the gracious Mediterranean- and Spanish-style homes. In the 1920s, the wealthy families in the multi-acre estates dotting the area banded together to push for strict zoning laws to prevent overdevelopment and discourage an influx of people from elsewhere. Other laws were introduced to prohibit commercialization and anything else that would damage the city’s small-town character. One will not find tract housing or cookie-cutter homes in Montecito, and there are very few condominiums.

These persisting conditions created a low-inventory market that’s virtually always hot at certain price points; however, a broad slowdown has been apparent from the start of this year. “In the first quarter of 2017, the number of sales is drastically down by 27 percent compared to the same period in 2016,” said Jon Gilkeson, a realtor with Keller Williams and the Zia Group in Santa Barbara, whose family has been in the area for four generations. He compared that drop to neighboring cities like Carpinteria and Goleta, where sales have ticked along at a steady rate over the past year compared to the previous year.

Most illustrative of a flatlining in the Montecito market is the median home sales price for 2017, which was $2.88 million in the first quarter, down 13 percent from the same period last year, according to a recent report by Santa Barbara Association of Realtors.

The market’s sluggishness may be a result of the soaring appreciation in the market between 2013 and 2015, which began to taper off last year, Gilkeson said. “That growth just couldn’t sustain itself,” he added.

Susan Pate, a realtor with Compass in Montecito, said a decline in foreign interest may also be partially responsible for the slowdown.

“We used to have a lot of buyers in from Russia and China. We’re not seeing that anymore,” Pate said. Instead, young families looking to take advantage of a top-rated school district and the community’s proximity to Los Angeles are snapping up anything that comes in at under $3 million, which will only buy about 2,500 square feet — among the smallest homes in the enclave.

While inventory is low on those mid-priced homes, “anything over $3 or 4 million isn’t selling as quickly,” Teresa McWilliams, a broker at Coldwell Banker Previews International’s Montecito division said. “And the sales in the $10 to $20 million range have slowed.”

Unrealistic asking prices may have something to do with it, even if sellers are slowly learning their lesson.

“Some sellers may know that they are asking too much,” said Gilkeson. “They are hoping to get that great price, but if in a month or two the offers aren’t there, the market calls their bluff,” he said.

Don’t expect to see a rise in home sales — or inventory — any time soon, experts said. “[The local authorities] made it as difficult as possible for people to buy homes here,” says McWilliams, whose family moved to the area in 1949, when the population was just 943 people. “They wouldn’t give water or sewage hookups. And these were extremely large properties, hundreds of acres, which eventually got broken down little by little.”

Today, there are approximately 3,600 single-family houses in Montecito, averaging about an acre each. As of the end of May 2017, the city had 92 active listings ranging in price from $3.5 to $85 million. The most eye-popping property in the current Montecito portfolio is Rancho San Carlos, a sprawling 237-acre estate that has been owned by the same family for a century and has been on the market for two years. Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing.

This 3,000-square-foot Montecito home at 1547 La Coronilla Drive sold for $2,991,500 last year by Keller Williams Realty.

“[Montecito] became a place for people who wanted to get away,” said McWilliams, citing the city’s “no-growth-policy” for its enduring appeal — alongside the climate, of course. Over the decades, the area has been home to legendary chef Julia Child, mega-selling novelist Sue Grafton, The Eagles and The Beach Boys, among others.

Portman is one of the latest celebs to seek escape there. The Oscar-winning actress and her husband, Benjamin Millipied, recently paid $6.5 million for a contemporary 4,000-square-foot home on more than 10 acres with ocean views; it had been listed for $7 million. The steel, glass and concrete house was designed by Barton Myers.

On the commercial front, development is still very restrictive in Montecito. A decade ago, Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso bought the historic Miramar Hotel in Montecito, which had fallen into disuse, and its redevelopment is still in the approval process. It is expected to be a cottage-style luxury resort. In addition, the renovation of the Montecito Country Club is expected to be completed by next year. The property was purchased by billionaire businessman Ty Warner in 2004, and it will reopen with more of a resort and spa feel, according to one local.

Although new hotels may boost interest in the town, brokers such as Gilkeson acknowledge that there are challenges up ahead for residential sales. “You’re going to have those buyers who are willing to take their money elsewhere,” he said, citing a client who opted for the hills of Santa Barbara after looking at properties in town. “And he was able to buy a house for a fraction of the price than [one in] Montecito.”

Needing an expert on the Montecito Market? 

Your Best Summer Yet in California

Get the most out of your summer by exploring all California has to offer. 

An Insider’s Guide to Your Best Summer Yet: California Edition

Spend every day al fresco in LA, scour San Francisco for souvenirs, and cycle the Santa Barbara coastline, guided by the Golden State’s knowledgeable Compass agents.

Sip the best Bay Area cocktails

“If you want to enjoy a truly creative libation, you can’t beat Trick Dog in the Mission. There’s no sign; just follow the sound of shakers. Once inside, encounter drinks named for local street artists like the “Jeremy Fish” (Banks 5 rum + chai liqueur) and “Rogelio Martinez” (Aviation gin + papaya “som tam” liqueur). The bar commissioned 13 works around town by the muralists themselves; check the menu for the location of each, then tour the sites after kicking back a couple.”

— Compass SF agents Derek Chin and Natalie Rome

Cycle through the Central Coast

Santa Barbara agents Bridget Murphy and Paul Suding routinely pedal through the coastal terrain. Follow their path to find the route right for you.

“Our favorite ride is not for the faint of heart, but offers an endorphin-boosting, 3,000-foot climb and fantastic city views. Starting from El Cielito, you’ll take Gibraltar Road all the way up to Camino Cielo.

To fully enjoy Santa Barbara’s stunning real estate, cycle along Mission Ridge Road on the city’s Riviera. The Spanish-inspired homes on this stretch are dramatically set into the hillside.

If you’re looking for a less-strenuous option, start at Stearns Wharf and take the marked bike trail in either direction to enjoy the beachfront. Bonus: Bike rental is available all along the water.”

Score the ultimate San Francisco souvenir

Looking to bring home a piece of the Bay Area? San Francisco agent Danielle Lazier shares her favorite local boutiques around town.

Rare Device
This quirky store has locations in both NoPa and Noe Valley. Its products range from graphic San Fran-themed tea towels and stained-glass trays to contemporary jewelry and floral-printed planners.

Heath Ceramics
Founded in 1948, two designers took over the family-owned pottery in 2004. Though they’ve since expanded throughout the state, each sculptural vase, plate, and coffee cup is still handmade in the Bay Area.

Establish
This store features off-the-rack goods — macramé plant hangers, vintage clothing, and energy-cleansing palo santo wood — as well as classes, from graphic design to fermentation-focused cooking workshops.

San FranPsycho
Screen-printing is this firm’s claim to fame; their tanks and caps are inscribed with everything from political sayings to ’80s pop lyrics. Sold in the Sunset, the motifs celebrate their city of origin.

Scour Pasadena for buried treasure

“If you’re willing to rummage, Pasadena has a very active antiques scene. The second Sunday of every month is the Rose Bowl Flea Market; with no fewer than 2,500 stalls and crowds of up to 20,000 or more, it’s not unusual to spot a celebrity or two in the aisles.

If vintage music is more your style, the Pasadena City College bazaar, held the first Sunday of every month, is known for its 50+ vinyl vendors. Can’t swing a Sunday? The 40,000-square-foot Fair Oaks Avenue Antique Mall has peddled furniture, memorabilia, and housewares every day of the week since 1976.” — Compass Pasadena agent 

Enjoy a day of dining in Newport Beach

When Orange County restaurants are good, they tend to stick around, say agents Mark Taylor and Dylan Mason. And with the youngest of their recommendations having already clocked 27 years of business, it stands to reason. Here’s where they suggest recharging between trips to the beach.

Breakfast
Located in nearby Costa Mesa, Haute Cakes Caffe’s specialty is — you guessed it — from-scratch pancakes. Snag a table in the courtyard and choose from varieties including classic buttermilk, blueberry cornmeal, and orange ricotta.

Lunch
Situated on the harbor’s edge, Newport Landing serves up the area’s top seafood alongside views of coastal community Balboa Island and the cloud-capped twin peaks of Saddleback Mountain. Enjoy Fanny Bays on the half shell or an order of Pacific cod tacos, Baja-style.

Dinner
From within an iconic Newport building that’s housed restaurants since 1925, A Restaurant has garnered accolades for its superlative steaks, including the exquisitely-marbled Imperial Wagyu Coulotte and Japanese A5 Miyazaki Beef.

Soak in the SoCal sunshine

When you live in a city like Los Angeles, why not spend every minute al fresco? Beverly Hills-based agent Tori Horowitz recommends the city’s hottest spots.

Recharge
Not only is open-air coffee hub Go Get ’Em Tiger designed for walk-up, bar-style service, but they make their own almond and macadamia milks in-house, and the breakfast biscuit with soft eggs is to die for. Check them out in Larchmont or Los Feliz.

Refuel
Located in the coolest LA neighborhood, known by the locals as Frogtown, Salazaroffers amazing tacos al pastor alongside potent cocktails like the whiskey-and-mezcal-based “La Anticuado,” all while channeling a casual backyard-BBQ vibe complete with communal tables.

Relax
In the shadow of the famous Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Hollyhock house, evening wine tastings take place at Barnsdall Park in East Hollywood. Picnic, sip, and sway to local DJs as the sun goes down, grabbing a snack from food trucks including gourmet hot dog purveyor Let’s Be Frank and inventive ice creamery Coolhaus.

Editor: Hannah McWilliams
Illustrations: Ping Zhu

 Contact Susan Pate to find out all California has to offer including the Montecito Lifestyle.

4th of July in Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara Harbour displaying gorgous Fireworks Display | Image by: SBFourth 

Celebrating the Fourth

There's no better place to watch fireworks than on the pacific coast beachfront of Santa Barbara. It's happening here! The City of Santa Barbara's traditional Fourth of July celebration is back again and ready to build upon the fabulous events in years past! Join in on the festivities at Santa Barbara's beautiful waterfront along West Beach on Independence Day for an afternoon and evening of food, music, fireworks, and fun for all ages.

What's Happening

Tuesday, July 4, 2017 

12PM to 9PM

Festivities at the Santa Barbara waterfront and Stearns Wharf (11AM - 9PM), including favorite food vendors, and a music variety show featuring local musicians hosted by John Palminteri, as well as local shops, face painting, and live band, Tequila Mockingbird, on the wharf. End the day with fireworks and music at West Beach, plus the return of the radio simulcast, courtesy of 92.9 KjEE. New this year - extended festivities! Bands begin performing on Stearns Wharf at 11AM and on West Beach at noon!

Other Fourth of July Festivities   

Stearns Wharf Merchants Association Live Music & Fun

Enjoy live Music beginning at 12:00 p.m. and hang out and enjoy the festivities until the City's fireworks show begins at 9 p.m. where visitors will have one of the best views in Santa Barbara. While waiting for the fireworks show tobegin, the wharf offers many attractions including live music by Tequila Mockingbird and others along with face painting; ice cream, sherbet, candy, popcorn, fudge, and cotton candy; jewelry, hats, leather goods, art, crafts, gifts, toys, shells, mineral, and fossils; wine tasting; bait and tackle along with fishing gear rentals; palm reading; fresh fish, shellfish, steaks, prime rib, fish and chips, burgers, cocktails, exotic tropical drinks, and more! You can even enjoy a child-friendly water taxi ride and interactive Sea Centermuseum. There's something for everyone!

Live music and fun for 4th of July | Image by: SBFourth

These Colors Don't Run

The 4th Annual "These Colors Don't Run" event will take place at the Veterans' Memorial Building on Sunday, July 2nd (12 p.m. - 7 p.m.) featuring live music, military car show, an art show, silent auction, and pinup show. Event benefits Santa Barbara volunteer-run veteran groups. For all the details visitwww.thesecolorsdontrunsb.com.

 

4th of July Art Show

Visit the Old Mission Santa Barbara (2201 Laguna Street) for a special 4th of July Art Show and view 80 incredible artisans for one of the largest and longest running art shows in California! Grab a bite to eat and enjoy the sights and sounds of this long running art show. Free parking and admission! 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

 

4th of July Parade

The 54th Annual 4th of July Parade begins at 1:00 p.m. at Micheltorena Street, proceeding down State Street to Old Town Santa Barbara, concluding at Cota Street. Over 175 agencies will parade to a patriotic theme for the community to enjoy. This event is coordinated by the Pierre Claeyssens Veterans Foundation. Contact www.pcvf.org or (805) 259-4394 for more information.

4th of July Parade is coordinated by the Pierre Claeyssens Veterans Foundation | Image by: Non profit Resource Network

4th of July Sunken Gardens Concert

Another community favorite is the free Annual July 4th Concert held at the Santa Barbara Courthouse Sunken Gardens starting at 5:00 p.m. The 4th of July Concert will feature American song favorites performed by the West Coast Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Christopher Story VI and Dr. Michael Shasberger. More information may be found at cieloperformingarts.org.

Santa Barbara City College 4th of July

Santa Barbara City College is proud to host a family-friendly 4th of July viewing at their Main Campus. Bring your lawn chairs and enjoy views of the fireworks show at the Santa Barbara Waterfront. Food Trucks will be on site from 4 - 8 p.m. Guests are welcome to bring their own food, but please be advised that no alcoholic beverages are allowed on campus or in parking lots. Campus rules regarding alcohol and smoking will be enforced. Viewing areas will be located on the West Campus Great Meadow and the East Campus Winslow Maxwell Overlook. For more information, including a map of the campus, click here.

Content by: The City of Santa Barbara

Interested in living the Montecito Lifestyle?

George Washington Smith

Original sketches & drawings by George Washington Smith found at the  Architecture and Design Collection of the Art Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara | Image: by Isaac Hernandez

Architect of Spanish Colonial Revival

Late in 1929, Santa Barbara architect George Washington Smith was interviewed by the New York critic John Taylor Boyd, Jr., who was conducting a series of interviews with America's most famous architects for the magazine Art and Decoration. The inclusion of Smith was perfectly understandable--buildings designed by this Santa Barbara architect had been, from the beginning, a favorite of the country's leading architecture and design magazines.

New Yorkers had been exposed to his buildings through photographs and drawings in annual exhibitions of the Architectural League of New York. In a review of the 1925 League exhibition, Matlack Price wrote of Smith's ability to realize buildings of "exquisite simplicity of design...of proportions," together with a sensitive use of "the fine patterns of trees and shrubs made by sunlight and shadows on the walls of the house."

George Washington Smith designed home in Montecito | Image: by Amodio.com

Smith's work was equally appreciated in California, where he was always mentioned as the leading exponent of the Hispanic and Mediterranean revival of the 1920s. Although her house was never built, the Hollywood film star Mary Pickford selected Smith to design a ranch house for her and husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr. "His homes, whether large or small, are remarkable in their directness," she said in an interview in Pacific Coast Architect in 1927, "in the simplicity with which they speak the truths of this old architecture as something eminently suitable to the creation of a tradition of beauty."

When these New Yorkers and Californians, and certainly many of his clients, characterized Smith's designs as simple, they were responding to two important qualities: the purity of geometric abstraction in his volumes and surfaces, countered by a strong sense of the primitive. As Smith himself frequently pointed out, he thought in terms of the primitive in his own art, just as did the painters Paul Cezanne and Paul Gauguin, two 19th-century artists whom he very much admired. The impressive impact of his buildings was also an outcome of his sensitive response to each site and his high regard for landscape architecture.

His houses and other buildings throughout California, in Arizona, Texas and New York, played a fascinating visual game between strong historical reminiscences and the developing modern idiom of those years. In Europe, Smith had seen not only the wonders of Spain's historic white cities, but also the work of many early modernists, including the Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. "Le Corbusier," he noted, "is a tonic. Too severe, but a pioneer with vision."

GWS Entrance

Before he turned to architecture in Santa Barbara in 1919, Smith had experienced several divergent careers in business and in art. He was born in East Liberty, Penn., on Feb. 22, 1876, and since the day was George Washington's birthday, he was given his name. His father was a successful and highly respected engineer, who designed bridges and elevated railroads. Smith was sent to Harvard to study architecture, but was unable to complete his formal education because of his parents' financial reverses. He worked briefly in a Philadelphia architectural firm, but found, as he put it, that his wages did not provide him with the lifestyle he was used to. He then joined a bond firm, and was so successful that he abandoned the world of business to become a painter.

He and his wife Mary Greenough went off to Paris, where they lived for three years while he studied and painted. With the advent of the First World War, he returned to the United States in 1914 and established himself in New York City, where he exhibited with William Glackens, John Sloan, George Bellows, Robert Henri and Eugene Speicher. His paintings were shown at the McDowell Club in New York, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C., and the Chicago Art Institute.

He came to California in 1915 to see his paintings exhibited at the Gallery of Fine Arts at the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, and decided to stay for the duration of the war. It was Smith's intent to return to Paris, but through Philadelphia friends he was attracted to Montecito. Since he and his wife were going to be here for a few years, he decided to design and build a studio residence. The design sources for this 1916 house were the Andalusian farm houses he had experienced on a trip to Spain in 1914.

GWS Interior

The house was an instant success in California and nationally--it was published and republished throughout the country, and illustrations of it were used by the manufacturers of Portland Cement and by tile makers. Locally Smith "found that people were not really eager to buy my paintings, which I was laboring over, as they were to have a white-washed house like mine. So I put away the brushes and have not yet had a moment to take them up again."

Smith's architectural career lasted only 12 years, from 1919 to 1930. But during these years he (with the assistance of his draftsperson, Lutah Maria Riggs, who joined his office in 1922) produced a remarkable array of buildings, both in quality and quantity--of 80 designs for new or substantially remodeled homes in Santa Barbara County, 54 were built. Many were based on Spanish, Mexican and Hispanic California precedents, but he also designed in the Italian, French Norman, and English Tudor modes. His 1926-28 Crocker Fagan house at Pebble Beach is America's one and only example of a Byzantine house. In Texas, for the Van Wyck Maverick family (1926-28), he created one of the most impressive courtyard-oriented houses built during these years, and he introduced the world of Spain to, of all places, Fisher's Island off the coast of New York (in his Cheney house of 1928-29). At the time of his death he was just beginning to explore modern architecture in his unrealized Art Deco-inspired Crocker house (1929-39) in Pebble Beach.

White Stucco with red roof top tiles and arched doorways | Image: by houzz.com

Like many architects of his generation, Smith continually explored and expanded his knowledge of historic as well as contemporary architecture. He visited throughout Mexico making measured drawings and taking photographs, and in the 1920s he returned several times to Europe, examining and recording buildings and gardens in Spain, Italy and France. He amassed an impressive library devoted to architecture and landscape architecture--if one pages through these books one frequently comes across notes indicating individual buildings or details that interested him.

In the 1925 exhibition of the Architectural League of New York, Smith's work was commended for achieving "an effect that is at once original, personal and distinctly American." Although taste in architectural imagery has shifted radically in one direction and another from the late 1930s to the present, Smith's buildings have continued to be discussed and admired on a regional and national level. In recent years architect Charles Moore has written appreciatively about Smith. In his 1990 volume on The Architect and
the American Country House, Mark Alan Hewitt wrote that Smith "stood above his peers as a genius whose work epitomized and extended the limits of the Mediterranean idiom."

George Washington Smith (1876-1930) Image: lobero.com

A visit today to any one of his houses in Montecito, Pasadena or Woodside will easily reveal why writers and critics have always responded so strongly to his designs. Smith was one of that rare breed of architects who was able to produce buildings that were both subservient to their environment and at the same time able to project strong, beautiful forms into the landscape.

Above with permission from Santa Barbara Magazine

To learn more about George Washington Smith:

George Washington Smith: Architect of the Spanish Colonial Revival

By Patricia Gebhard

I Madonnari Festival - Santa Barbara

Image by: Rob Laskin 

Each year chalk fills the air in front of Santa Barbara's Mission Plaza. Thousands of visitors come from far & wide to enjoy this Italian Street Painting Festival. There's nothing quite like enjoying your Memorial Day weekend taking in the vivid colors of each artist overlooking the picturesque ocean views of Santa Barbara. Plus there'll be an Italian Market with Italian cuisine, music and festivities.  

Image by: David Iranpour

May 27-29, 2017 [ 10:00am - 6:00pm ]

Madonnari, or street painters, transform the Mission plaza using pastels on pavement to create 150 vibrant and colorful, large scale images. We are proud to be the first to bring this romantic festival to the western hemisphere from our sister festival in Grazie di Curtatone, Italy. The festival benefits the Children's Creative Project, a nonprofit arts education program of the Santa Barbara County Education Office. The Project serves 50,000 children in more than 100 schools with visual and performing arts workshops and performances throughout Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. 

Festival hours are 10-6 daily. Admission is free.

Image: iMadonnariFestival.com

The Santa Barbara Mission is located at the corner of Los Olivos and Laguna Streets.

From the 101 Freeway, take Mission Street exit and travel east to Laguna Street, turn left and continue two blocks to the Mission entrance. Additional parking is available on the Mission field.

Image: Endangered Species of the World highlighting Nature Conservation | Photo by iMadonnariFestival.com

The Italian Market

To engage the other senses, live music and an authentic Italian market will be held adjacent to the painting. Enjoy a fabuloso array of Italian cuisine and specialty items. Join the 25,000 visitors who attend this celebration of color and creativity.

Image: Italian Market | Photo by iMadonnariFestival.com

Endless Summer in Santa Barbara? Enjoy the Lifestyle, Live the Dream!

Summer in Santa Barbara? The Best Tech for Travelers

You may be headed for vacation, but that doesn’t mean your house can take a break. Invest in these seven smart devices and prepare for liftoff knowing your home is in good hands.

Words: Paulina Pinsky | Illustrations: Arina Shabanova

Maintain the grounds with Rachio

This smart sprinkler system and connected app allow you to specify grass type, shade levels, and soil by zone. Worried about unpredictable weather? Rachio automatically adjusts, taking into account the forecast as well as current conditions. Available at rachio.com; compatible with Amazon, Google, and Nest products.

Protect your property with Canary

This security camera is programmed to automatically activate when you leave the premises and disarm upon your return. If tripped, you’ll receive an alert on your smartphone with the option to sound a 90-decibel siren and notify the authorities from afar. Available at canary.is.

Secure the perimeter with August Smart Lock

Double-check that your entrances are secure from your phone — and, if not, lock them from thousands of miles away. The device, which integrates with your deadbolt, can create virtual keys for the house-sitter; it even logs who was there and what time they arrived. Available at august.com; compatible with Amazon, Google, and Nest products.

Light up the night with Wink + GE Link

Pair GE Link’s LED bulbs with the Wink app to set up an automatic schedule mimicking your daily routine, and even the neighbors won’t know you’re gone. From table lamps to garden lights, the bulbs work indoors and out. Available at wink.com; compatible with IFFTTT and Amazon products.

Cool your home with Ecobee

Control this smart thermostat’s temperature settings from your phone, reducing energy usage while you’re gone and ensuring a temperate climate upon arrival. Better yet, the device will issue an alert should it detect any problems with your heating or cooling systems while you’re away. Available at ecobee.com; compatible with IFFTTT, Amazon, and Apple products.

Pamper the pets with Rover

Whether your dog or cat likes to stay on their home turf or they’re ready for a mini-vacation of their own, find a top-reviewed caretaker for house visits and boarding alike, backed by premium insurance for any accidents. Book at rover.com

Stock your fridge with Instacart

Who wants to return home to a bare cupboard? As you taxi down the runway, open the delivery app on your smartphone and order some fresh staples — milk, fruit, yogurt — to arrive within the hour. Order at instacart.com; compatible with iPhone andAndroid phones.

How will you be spending your summer? Come see all Santa Barbara has to offer, leaving your home in good hands.