East Meets West on Mountain Drive

Whenever I start to feel a little edgy, I’ve learned to ask myself: What do you want? What would make you happy right now? The other day, the answer was loud and clear. A walk!

I parked on E. Mountain Drive, just off Cold Spring Road, and headed west. The entrance to the Montecito Tea Gardens, a.k.a. Mar y Cel, at 698 E. Mountain Drive looks as it always has. The family foundation of Eric and Wendy Schmidt bought the 350-acre property last March for $26 million, vowing to preserve it from development. No word yet on whether the public will be able to access the land.

A far less fancy gate nearby leads to the Montecito Water District Terminal Reservoir. According to Google’s AI overview, a terminal reservoir “is a water storage facility located at the end of a water delivery system, often serving as the final point of storage before distribution for drinking water or other uses.” I don’t know whether that’s accurate or not; Google adds the caveat that “all responses may include mistakes” to its results, and the description sounds like a what anyone (including a computer) would deduce “terminal reservoir” means.

Across the street, I found one of those hedge trimmers that look like a sawfish. I flagged down a landscaper leaving the property and pointed it out to him. And with that, my good deed for the day month was done.

This stretch of Mountain Drive is popular with walkers and cyclists because it’s pretty and winding and flat.

You do have to pay attention to the possibility of automotive traffic, particularly at a blind curve, such as when the road makes a hairpin turn as it crosses a ravine—at which point you’ll likely discover a neat stone bridge.

This one is called the Troll Bridge. (I did not see any commenters living underneath.) Besides the tile sign, there’s a small blue mosaic. This is a neighborhood that is not afraid to embellish.

The views are another key reason people like to stroll here. The sky over the ocean was a bit hazy the day I walked.

The view may occasionally get blocked—or enhanced, if you find transmission towers a turn-on. If we’ve learned anything during the Internet age, it’s that there’s a fetish for everything.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that I spent a fair amount of time looking up at houses on the hillside. The first one below is barely detectable, and I’m dying to know more about the second one. (That’s your cue, local residents.)

And this house has a little fillip at the crest of the roof. From a distance, it calls to mind Tintin‘s quiff. My phone camera couldn’t quite get a distinct close-up.

Near the top of the bare stretch below is what looks like a structure. But what kind? Is it a house? Those are not rhetorical questions—I’m sure someone out there knows about this, too. Mountain Drive is rich with quirky history, many details of which will surely come out in the comments. [“The structure at the top of the landslide was being marketed as a one-bedroom house and is now for sale as a lot with possible guest house,” says BillF.

Sometimes, you look straight out and see a house. Living on a promontory, with no immediate neighbors, sounds dreamy.

And naturally you also see houses down below—sometimes with stimulating roof choices.

Speaking of looking down, I was on alert for snakes—the higher up the hill, the hotter and snakier it gets. I didn’t come upon any, but I did find serpentine tire tracks, a memorial to what I hope were pets, and a marking on the pavement adorned with gold glitter. It doesn’t pop in the photo, but in person it’s relatively exciting.

Remind me to tell you about the time our neighbors removed a survey marker delineating our property line—and then, when asked about it, said not to worry because they were planning on putting it back.

Could this bench be designed for three kids who created the contours by sitting on it, akin to the handprints on the driveway’s edge?

There may have been more treasures on the roadside, but my walk coincided with a free community chipping day.

The area has many terrific stone walls…

…and someone gets points for trying.

I loved how this wall accommodates the utility meters.

And how about this midcentury-ish wooden fence? Or the one with a little door cut into it?

Because the road traverses the hillside, you don’t get a really good look at very many houses. And yet some make an impression anyway. Take 8 W. Mountain Drive, where rather a lot has been done with bottles.

And while the main house at 100 W. Mountain Drive isn’t super interesting, the garage at the street is one of my favorite buildings in town. Unfortunately, the olive tree makes it hard to get a shot of the roofline. (Update: T. points out that it’s a Jeff Shelton work.)

This Southwest-style home looks like it could be related. I normally prefer an uninteresting gate, but there’s something to be said for matching the architecture.

The metal bull at 231 W. Mountain Drive wouldn’t be out of place at that Southwest house, but instead it stands guard outside a sexy contemporary 2020 home by Jeff Shelton. “It looks like shipping containers left out to rust, with a bird-shaped hose rack the sole evidence of Shelton’s signature style,” I wrote when it was listed in 2021, selling for $5 million.

The green roof was a terrific idea, and I love the cactus hedge, but I’m not sure the bougainvillea trellis is going to achieve much.

Without a doubt, the most interesting building on the route is the Hermitage Santa Barbara, Theodore Roosevelt Gardner II’s profoundly whimsical museum devoted to art by himself and others. The two-hour tour is a lot, but you get a much better look at the building shaped like a stack of books, as well as at Gardner’s house next door. I don’t recall if there was an explanation for the misspelling of Sheboygan, if that’s what it indeed is.

Both properties have truly remarkable mailboxes.

The mail carrier must get a giggly thrill out of the bicyclist—and maybe it makes up for dealing with this.

Remember what I said about embellishment?

I feel like these directions don’t quite nail it.

The banks of mailboxes often have cameras, and when I see one, I tend to stick out my tongue or flip it the bird. (That’s what you get for surveilling on public property.) The notices below included one about a mountain lion that might snatch your toddler.

This mailbox could be systematic, hydromatic, ultramatic…. This mailbox could be greased lightning!

There’s always that person who has to be different.

You’ll have to explain to your kids that the cubbies were probably for newspapers—and possibly what newspapers were.

Hyde Road, which extends above and below E. Mountain Drive, is a mailbox bonanza. (I should’ve walked both Upper and Lower Hyde, but I didn’t. So sue me.)

Just look at all of it. Let’s break it down.

First, there are the mailboxes—so many that you might want to put a tassel on yours so you can find it.

Embellishments abound. If I were the mail carrier, I might accidentally knock that “yay” stone into the weeds.

And then there’s the altar-like moment with a water fountain and an overflowing Little Free Library. Hilary Mantel’s trilogy of novels about Thomas Cromwell is riveting stuff, once you get used to her oblique style of writing.

The few signs along the way include one about entering Santa Barbara city limits. You’d think that the east/west divide of Mountain Drive would happen at the same spot, but it’s over at Coyote Road.

Ceci n’est pas plus une pipe.

So polite! I’d follow it up with a warning that your ass will be prosecuted.

The road wasn’t very busy on the afternoon I walked, which is always nice. A car appeared now and then, but not so frequently as to be annoying. And this truck schlepping boulders was quite an event.

And I only encountered a handful of cyclists…

…along with two pedestrians. One was a woman as happy to be out and about as I was, and the other was a guy on a work call with his speakerphone on. He was behind me, walking at a similar pace, so I had to listen to way too much of him and his colleague. What is it with people and speakerphones? Nobody wants to hear it. I stopped and let him pass. Why let stuff bug you when you can just get out of its way?

P.S. Pucker up!

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Walk With Me…

Downtown Santa Barbara
• Downtown and a Little to the Left
• The Gritty Glamour of the Funk Zone
• The Upper Upper East Is Busting Out All Over
• The Presidio: In the Footsteps of Old Santa Barbara
• Brinkerhoff, Bradley, and Beyond
• Mixing Business and Pleasure in East Beach
• It’s Only Milpas Street (But I Like It)
• The Haley Corridor Is Keeping It Real
• The Small Pleasures of Bungalow Haven
• Is There a Better Neighborhood for a Stroll Than West Beach?
• E. Canon Perdido, One of Downtown’s Best Strolling Streets

Eastside
• Where the Eastside Meets the Lower Riviera

Oak Park / Samarkand
• The Side Streets and Alleyways of Upper Oak Park
• The Small-Town Charms of Samarkand

The Riviera
↓↓↓ The Ferrelo-Garcia Loop
• Scaling the Heights of Las Alturas
• High on the Lower Riviera

Eucalyptus Hill
• On the Golden Slope of Eucalyptus Hill
• Climbing the Back of Eucalyptus Hill

San Roque
• Amid the Saints of South San Roque
• Voyage to the Heart of the San Roque Spider Web

TV Hill / The Mesa
• Higher Education on the Mesa
• The Metamorphosis of East Mesa
• The Highs and Lows of Harbor Hills
• Walking in Circles in Alta Mesa
• West Mesa Is Still Funky After All These Years
• A Close-Up Look at TV Hill

Hidden Valley / Yankee Farm / Campanil
• Campanil is a Neighborhood in Flux
• An Aimless Wander Through Hidden Valley
• The Unvarnished Appeal of Yankee Farm

Hope Ranch / Hope Ranch Annex / Etc.
• A Country Stroll on El Sueno Road

Montecito
• A Relatively Modest Montecito Enclave
• Strolling Under a Canopy of Oaks
• Out and Back on Ortega Ridge
• The Heart of Montecito Is in Coast Village
• Quintessential Montecito at Butterfly Beach
• Once Upon a Time in the Hedgerow
• Where Montecito Gets Down to Business
• In the Heart of the Golden Quadrangle
• Up, Down, and All Around Montecito’s Pepper Hill
• Montecito’s Prestigious Picacho Lane
• School House Road and Camphor Place

Summerland / Carpinteria
• On Summerland’s Western Fringe
• A Stroll in the Summerland Countryside
• Admiring the Backsides of Beachfront Houses on Padaro Lane
• Whitney Avenue in Summerland

Goleta / Isla Vista
• In the Shadow of Magnolia Center
• A Tough Nut to Crack in Goleta
• Where the Streets Have Full Names
• The Past Is Still Present in Old Town Goleta
• Social Distancing Made Easy at UCSB

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