This residential enclave of free spirits, located in the hills above Montecito in an area bounded by Gibraltar Road on the north and Coyote Road to the south, with Mountain Drive forming the spine, began to coalesce in the years following World War II. The driving force behind its formation was Robert McKee Hyde, known to all as Bobby.
Hyde was the son of Robert Wilson Hyde, who was a major figure in the West Coast arts and crafts movement shortly after the turn of the 20th century. Bobby Hyde was born in Chicago in 1900 and, upon the family’s move west two years later, spent part of his childhood in Santa Barbara. After traveling in Europe, Hyde settled in New York state and into a career as a writer. In 1932 he returned to Santa Barbara to reunite with and marry Florence Tuckerman, with whom he had fallen in love when he was 21.
In 1940, Hyde began buying property in the Mountain Drive area but did not start to build until after the end of World War II. In the late 1940s, Hyde began selling one-acre parcels to folks he felt would be compatible neighbors. In these days before uniform building codes, residents were free to build as the spirit moved them, using whatever was at hand for construction material. By the mid-1950s some 20 families had joined the Hydes, increasing to around 40 families by the early 1960s.