I’ve also tried to explain the unique situation of the SBTHP drawing from both public and private sources. Through an operating agreement with the California State Parks Department, for instance, SBTHP was allowed to keep rental income from El Presidio de Santa Bárbara State Historic Park to operate and develop the park.
This public-private partnership also enabled SBTHP to receive funds from a special joint powers agreement with the City of Santa Barbara and Santa Barbara County set up by civic leader and conservation and preservation pioneer Pearl Chase. Although the county dropped out after the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, the city continued to earmark money for the presidio in its annual budget, not to mention grants that were to come from the city’s since disbanded Redevelopment Agency.
Santa Barbara underwent an architectural rebirth after the destructive 1925 earthquake. The town was rebuilt in the Spanish colonial Mediterranean architecture that distinguishes its downtown landscape to this day.
One of the models for its rebirth was El Paseo, a complex of shops, restaurants, offices and apartments built in the early 1920s, prior to the quake.
Occupying most of the first block on the north side of East De la Guerra Street between State and Anacapa streets, it was constructed around the historic Casa de la Guerra, at 15 E. De la Guerra St., and incorporated the adobe into the complex.
El Paseo had come through the earthquake with only minor damage but, from the 1920s to 1970, it had had a series of owners, none of whom had done any major renovation since its opening.