Address: 833 Knapp Drive
Status: For Sale
Price: $5,350,000
Last week, I was invited to tour the home at 833 Knapp Drive; the original home on the historic Arcady estate in Montecito. The Italianate Mission-style villa was built in 1905 by artist Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead, who established Arcady, a 70-acre estate named after Arcadia, a pastoral wilderness of Greek mythology. This is the stuff local legends are made of.
In 1911, George Owen Knapp, president of Union Carbide, moved to Santa Barbara from Chicago with his wife, Louise, after his doctors suggested that the climate would benefit his health. They purchased Arcady from Whitehead and spent a year expanding the estate, with the instruction to architect E. Russel Ray to “not to disturb one timber” of the original construction. One of his stated goals of the renovation was “substantial comfort rather than gaudy embellishment,” and the home as it stands today bears witness to that.
