The Big Battle: When Santa Barbara Community Members Fought High Rise Development — and Won! 

If you’ve ever enjoyed a quiet afternoon among the koi ponds and lush blooms of the Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden, you have a group of fiercely determined Santa Barbara locals to thank. The peaceful, sun-dappled block—bounded by Micheltorena, Garden, Arrellaga, and Santa Barbara streets—might look entirely different today if not for a definitive, grassroots battle over the soul and skyline of the 805 region.

Back in the late 1960s, that very block became the epicenter of a fierce debate between inevitable progress and historic preservation. As detailed in a recent retrospective by the Santa Barbara Independent, the clash determined the future of the city's development. It all centered on the faded remains of what was once known as El Mirasol.

From Pasture to Luxury Resort

To understand the weight of the battle, you have to look back at the layered history of the land. At the turn of the century, long before it was a botanical garden, the block served as a pastoral setting where local horses grazed. According to historical accounts, prominent civic leader Pearl Chase fondly remembered gazing out at the pasture from her bedroom window in a rental house across the street.

In 1904, Mary Miles Herter, a wealthy New York City widow, purchased the entire block. She commissioned an extravagant mansion and planted beautiful gardens. After she passed away in 1913, her son Albert and daughter-in-law Adele—both accomplished artists—transformed the estate into a luxury hotel. They named it El Mirasol, meaning "The Sunflower." With a grand lobby and scattered guest bungalows, the resort became a discreet haven for ultra-wealthy vacationers, attracting names like Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Guggenheim.

But time and economic shifts took their toll. Following the Great Depression, the hotel changed hands repeatedly, eventually losing its luxurious luster. By 1966, the final owner, Jacob Seldowitz, faced two devastating electrical fires in a single week. The old wiring was shot, and the resort was no longer viable.

Desperate for a solution, Seldowitz pitched the city three large-scale projects: a high-rise apartment complex, a massive 2,500-seat conference center, or a sprawling luxury hotel featuring five 11-story towers. The city denied all his requests. Seldowitz eventually sold the property, reportedly warning locals that a Los Angeles developer might swoop in to build a "three-story ghetto" downtown.

The High-Rise Proposal

The fate of the block took a sharp turn in 1968 with the formation of the El Mirasol Investment Company. This group of well-heeled locals—including publisher Thomas M. Storke, banker Louis Lancaster, and developers Jerry Beaver and William Alexander—purchased the site with a singular vision: building a luxury high-rise condominium project.

The investment group was a who’s-who of Santa Barbara’s elite. In promotional materials, they branded themselves as "29 longtime local citizens," boasting over a thousand combined years of residency. However, their proposed design—two nine-story, 107-foot condominium towers—clashed directly with the city's zoning. The neighborhood code only allowed for three stories at 45 feet. To proceed, they needed the city to grant a height variance.

Because they were among the city's most influential figures, the investors expected a smooth approval process. The day before the crucial hearing, the local News-Press—then influenced by publisher and project investor Storke—ran an editorial urging the Planning Commission to prioritize "imaginative planning," arguing the project would be a boon for the area.

A Community Pushes Back

What the investors hadn't counted on was a swift, organized, and passionate grassroots movement. On February 20, 1969, everyday citizens packed City Hall to make their voices heard. During a tense three-hour meeting, community members fiercely defended the character of the neighborhood, which had organically grown up around the historic hotel's modest bungalows and gardens.

Pearl Chase, by then a towering figure in local historic preservation, was the last to speak. Looking at the architect's glossy renderings, she pointedly noted that the beautiful, unobstructed views of the condos were "not a view that any one of us would see except from an airplane." With a knowing smile, she added, "I believe it is one of the tricks of the trade."

The crowd's persistence paid off. The Planning Commission voted 4-3 to deny the height variance, prompting the investment group to appeal to the City Council. The grassroots organizers launched a low-cost but highly effective campaign, taking out ads in the local papers to rally the public against the appeal.

Ultimately, the community won. The high-rise appeal failed, and the block was spared from the dense, vertical development that has come to define so many other California coastal cities.

Today, the legacy of that hard-fought victory is written into the landscape of Santa Barbara itself. The land that once housed the sunflower-named resort eventually blossomed into the Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden. Thanks to the vigilance of locals who refused to let their skyline be swallowed by concrete, it remains a cornerstone of the 805's unique, human-scaled charm.