Four historic Santa Barbara buildings getting a facelift
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- The Santa Barbara area has a long, colorful history that started thousands of years in the past, when a vast Native American population resided there, to the arrival of the Spanish on her shores 240 years ago.
The Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation is working to maintain that history. They're working to restore parts of four structures in the El Presidio de Santa Barbara.
The Trust for Preservation team recently finished building housing shops on East De la Guerra Street. Inside are Make Smith, Warbler Records, Beads and Mail Box Express. They restored the facade in the front, as well as the woodwork and refinished an arch design in the building.
Next, the team plans to work on the Panino building, also known as the Moullet House. They will do streetscaping in front of the building on Santa Barbara Street as well as renovate the historic light at the corner.
The biggest project will be the renovations on the Cota-Knox House which sits across the street from the Lobero Theatre on Anacapa Street. The estimated cost for restoration work is $1.3 million dollars.
The goal is to make the building seismically sound and refinish it, to make it look the same as it did on the day it was built.
The fourth project involves roof and gutter work on the former Santa Barbara School of the Arts building. The building's current tenants, La Playa Azul, have been serving food there since 1989.
All four buildings are part of the El Presidio de Santa Barbara. The Spanish built El Presidio back in 1782 as a second military district in California.
