It became the custom during Scandinavia’s pagan past for builders to place a tree on the top beam as a finishing touch for whatever structure they were erecting, to appease any natural spirits disturbed by the work. This week, a gathering of Santa Barbara movers and shakers assembled to watch 12 burley construction workers invoke that tradition.
The workers flipped a 45-foot-long steel beam — inscribed with the signatures of those assembled — on its side, planted an evergreen tree into a ceremonial aluminum bucket attached on one end with an American flag on the other, hoisted the whole thing skyward, and bolted it to the top of what will soon become Santa Barbara’s new Cancer Center.
The event marked the completion of the new three-story medical facility’s steel and concrete exoskeleton that was inspired, at least visually, by the sweeping stone walls and tall windows of Yosemite National Park’s iconic Ahwahnee Hotel. It also marked the end of an ambitious “silent” fundraising campaign that generated $33 million. When all is said and done, the new cancer center — to be named after philanthropist Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree — will have cost $68 million to buy, build, and equip with state-of-the-art radiation machines that will be safely ensconced behind concrete walls eight feet thick.