Nestled among the hedges on one of the smallest streets in Santa Barbara, it’s not surprising that this cozy home appealed to an artist from a small town in England. More about him in a minute.
Most residential streets in the central area of our fair city are 60 feet wide. Only a handful are smaller. Loma Vista Avenue, for example, is a mere 30 feet wide. “Loma Vista” in Spanish means “mountain view,” and the home does have a view of the foothills. This street and nearby Carmelita Avenue are actual streets, not alleys. These streets were drawn inside a block and were created when Santa Barbara was smaller and less formal than now — these two tiny routes appear (see block 87) on an 1884 map of our city.
An early landowner on this block was Charles A. Storke, a prominent attorney and one-time mayor of Santa Barbara. These streets seem to have remained informal passageways until 1916 when a group of local property owners, including Storke, petitioned to have the streets given names.