Author: Skylar Lines

When I research old houses, I always look for vintage photos, but they’re not easy to find. This time, I got lucky. I managed to find the grandson of Leland Morris Crawford, who sent me some photos of his grandparents.

The relatives and descendants of former owners of your home are some of the best sources of old photos. One way to find them is by checking genealogy websites. In fact, one chapter in my book Discovering the History of Your House is titled, “Take a Genealogist to Lunch.”

Most current owners of older homes love to find old photos of their home or the families who lived there years ago. If you have old family photos of a former home, why not send a copy to the current homeowner? You could make someone very happy. 

Leland Morris Crawford was a successful attorney and also served as deputy coroner. Mae was active in local groups such as the American Association of University Women and was a charter member of the Assistance League. The Crawfords had three children when they lived in the home. To accommodate their growing family, they built a large addition on the back of the home in 1929. They lived in the home until about 1934, when they moved to a home on Junipero Plaza.

After the Crawfords moved out, a series of families occupied the home until the mid-1960s when Neil and Dorothy J. Pier bought the home. They stayed here for 10 years. In the mid-1970s, Whitney Newland bought the home as an investment, and it was occupied by renters for about 25 years. Finally, in 2001, he and his wife, Judy, moved in. They like that the home is close to town, and they are especially happy with the home’s three fireplaces. “We feel spoiled,” Judy told me.

Adobe bricks usually measure 20 x 12 x 4 inches, are made of mud, water, and plant materials, and then dried in the sun. But by the 1920s, the traditional method of mixing the ingredients was no longer used. “The time-honored method of working the binder into the mud … is for the workmen to divest themselves of shoes and socks and work the mud with their bare feet. This method is not employed in the present instance, however … the earth is full of pieces of glass and other sharp objects which would play havoc with unprotected soles.” (Santa Barbara Morning Press, January 19, 1922)

The home’s first owners were Thomas G. and Frances E. Ross. Thomas was in the car business, and he also owned a couple of the nearby oil wells. At first, I was shocked by the proximity of the oil well in the old photo. But I suppose if you are pumping money out of the ground, those oil derricks can start to look attractive.

       Before the oil derricks sprouted up on the Mesa in the 1920s, the area was mostly farmland punctuated by a picturesque lighthouse (near today’s La Mesa Park), and the Dibblee mansion (near present-day Santa Barbara City College). The area where the 1528 Cliff Drive home sits today was a 50-acre farm that George and Emma Gaylord bought for $1,000 in 1868. At the time, Cliff Drive was simply called Mesa Road, and was the only access to the Mesa. An article in the local paper stated, “Mr. Geo. Gaylord’s farm … yields abundantly barley, corn and squashes.” (Santa Barbara Weekly Press, June 4, 1881) The Gaylord’s neighbor on the west was Peveril Meigs. George Gaylord died in 1923, and that’s about when Fred Roskop bought the property along Cliff Drive.

The family of James Augustus Blood built the home. Blood and his wife, Mary Josephine Hall Blood, had traveled from Illinois by covered wagon in 1870 and settled in Santa Barbara. The Blood family came here because a relative, also named James A. Blood, had settled on a farm in Carpinteria in 1867. (My research was made especially challenging because both men shared the same name and died within a year of each other. The James A. Blood who built this home was referred to as James A. Blood Junior to distinguish him from the Carpinteria farmer, although the farmer was his uncle, not his father.)

The Bloods raised six children in Santa Barbara — several of whom spent their adult lives in this home. The most prominent was Alice Mabel Blood, who was an accomplished painter and had been Saint Barbara and the Festival Queen in the Flower Festival parades of the 1890s.

James A. Blood was in the real estate business and was co-owner with Francis H. Knight of the House-Furnishing Emporium on State Street near Ortega. The store sold furniture — everything from baby carriages to coffins. The company once caused a controversy, according to Walker A. Tompkins. In his newspaper column in 1971, he wrote that in the 1880s, the firm of Blood and Knight put a huge sign on the side of a building facing Stearns Wharf that read: “BLOOD AND KNIGHT, UNDERTAKERS. COFFINS AT LOW PRICES.” “Since many of Santa Barbara’s winter visitors in the 1880s were in their terminal illnesses, the advertising of Blood and Knight — not too euphonious a name in itself — was enough to chill the marrow. So vociferous were the civic protests, that the controversial sign was finally removed.”

The 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia triggered the Colonial Revival style. Styles common prior to this time, such as Greek Revival, Italianate, and Gothic Revival, had used European styles as a starting point. But as our country celebrated its century mark, architects began to look back at our own past for inspiration. Colonial Revival was the most popular type of domestic architecture in the United States from 1910 to 1930. Here in Santa Barbara, however, the style was eclipsed by Spanish Colonial Revival, especially after the 1925 earthquake.

The home at 2405 Santa Barbara Street is a picture-book example of a Colonial Revival: a symmetrical facade with windows framed by shutters. The front door is topped with an elliptical fanlight window and flanked by sidelight windows. Four slender columns support a prominent entry porch.

When you walk in the front door, the main staircase rises grandly in front of you. Erin Graffy, who grew up in the house, told me that this staircase had been off limits for her and her siblings when they were kids. She led me through the kitchen and showed me the maid’s stairs in the back, which were the only ones the kids were allowed to use. The only exception was one time a year, when the children could use the main stairs to come down on Christmas morning.

The maid’s room, in the back of the house on the second floor, has a nice view of the large backyard. The room is next to the laundry chute that was used to send laundry downstairs. According to Neal Graffy, who also spent his formative years here, the chute was occasionally used for other purposes!

Most of the floors are white or red oak, and there is a small brass plate in the center of the dining room floor. It formerly held a button that could be stepped on to discretely summon the maid. The maid’s room has a floor made of fir — a type of conifer with a straight grain that was commonly used in kitchens and porches. The closets are lined with fragrant cedar wood — a natural moth repellent. Cove molding tops the living and dining room ceilings.

                                                                       A Troubled Time

Another source of information about older homes is newspapers – many of which are online now. I discovered several articles in the 19-teens about William and Louise Pestor, the home’s third owners. Pestor was German born, and ran into trouble during World War I because of anti-German sentiment at that time.

In 1917, Pestor applied for U.S. citizenship. He stated that he was doing so to benefit his American wife who had lost her U.S. citizenship when she married him. (Before 1922, a woman who married a non-citizen lost her citizenship status.) When asked about his attitude toward U.S. involvement in World War I, he gave some responses that were deemed unsatisfactory.

His request for citizenship was denied. The Morning Pressannounced on September 8, 1917: “WILLIAM PESTOR ALLEGIANCE IN DOUBT . . . William Pestor has been denied admission to citizenship because . . . he is not willing to give entire allegiance to our country.” In 1920, Pestor and his wife left Santa Barbara, and rented the home until selling it in 1944.