Santa Barbara County Courthouse
Spanish Colonial Revival courthouse of 1929 with a mural room, sunken garden and clock tower deck.
The Santa Barbara County Courthouse was built between 1926 and 1929 to replace a courthouse wrecked by the earthquake of 1925. The disaster prompted the city to rebuild in a unified Spanish and Mediterranean idiom, and the courthouse became the largest and most exuberant result. William Mooser III, working with the local architect J. Wilmer Hershey, produced a group of white-walled, red-tiled blocks arranged around a sunken garden, with arcaded loggias, tiled stairs, wrought ironwork and a great arched gateway on Anacapa Street.
It remains a working courthouse, but much of the building is open to the public without charge. The second-floor Mural Room, formerly the board of supervisors' chamber, is lined with paintings of 1929 by Dan Sayre Groesbeck depicting Chumash life, Spanish exploration and the founding of the missions. A lift and stairs lead to an open observation deck in the clock tower, El Mirador, which gives views over the tiled roofs of the city to the Santa Ynez Mountains and the sea. Volunteer docents give free hour-long tours.
Highlights
- The Mural Room with Dan Sayre Groesbeck's 1929 history paintings
- El Mirador clock tower observation deck above the city roofs
- Sunken garden used for open-air events and gatherings
- Tiled stairways, wrought iron and painted ceilings throughout
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