Episode 50: The History of The Samarkand Neighborhood

Scott Williams: Sweet home, Santa Barbara, where the skies are so blue. Sweet home, Santa Barbara. What’s worked for me can work for you.

Jonathan Robinson: Welcome friends, to another episode of Sweet Home Santa Barbara. I’m your co-host, Jonathan Robinson. I’m with my friend, real estate broker, and co-host

Williams: Scott Williams.

Robinson: Today is another history exploration. I love these, Scott, because I always learn interesting things about Santa Barbara, and today it’s about the Samarkand community. Let’s start off. Samarkand is a weird name. How did they even get that name?

Williams: Most of our neighborhoods, San Roque, that sort of thing, Montecito, they come out of our Spanish historic past in Mexico, and this is definitely a non-Spanish name. It’s an old Persian word, meaning, the land of heart’s desire and the city Samarkand, mid Asian city is famous for being the site of the thousand and one Arabian nights. Those tales took place in a city called Samarkand.

Robinson: It’s kind of in a certain area around the Las Positas, De La Vina, Oak Park area.

Williams: That’s right.

Robinson: Is it clearly defined or is it kind of nebulous where it is?

Williams: No, that’s where it is and the Samarkand connection to that city in Asia. Is that a boys school in 1915 called Boys’ Land-2 it moved over from the previous boys land in Santa Barbara was built there and it had these really Persian themed gardens. That is the beginning of where the Persian comes in. Although the fellow who started that school up in World War I was a conscientious objector, did a lot of objecting to the war and got himself arrested, and basically caused the failure of his school. His mom took it over and she said, not, we’re not going to do a boy’s school and she built it into a Persian themed hotel called the Samarkand. That became the landmark that the whole area became connected to. This was in 1920.

Robinson: Interesting. Take us back to that beginning of Samarkand, what was happening in the 1800s.

Williams: We’ll come back to the hotel in a bit here. In the 1800s, it was mainly grazing land, and by 1920, it started to be subdivided into the Casa Loma tract. Earl Ovington, who was a very early pioneer in flying airplanes, bought the very first house there and he went over to what now is the 11th fairway of the Santa Barbara Golf Club and built a 1500 foot long runway versus landing airplanes out there, and of course, in its day, this is back in the 1920s, it was a famous place. It played host to people like Charles Lindbergh and Jimmy Doolittle and Amelia Earhart.

Robinson: Did that almost become the Santa Barbara airport at that time?

Williams: For a while, the airport was right there in Samarkand, kind of close into the town and we’ll, we’ve got an airport connection we’ll deal with a little bit later on. They built that school in the 1920s and then his his mom took it over as the hotel and this was on a 32 acre parcel of land and she really wanted to make it a go of it as a hotel, and this is an intrinsic story to real estate. It’s about location. At the time, in the 1920s, there were four major hotels in Santa Barbara that were luxury hotels. This location turned out to be far away from the beach, a little bit harder to get to, and the mom lavished a lot of money on it, that Persian thing was played up, she had lots of social events, she was trying to keep it a profitable place like the glittering hotel, but the location was difficult and finally, with a stark market crash in 1929, the hotel failed.

Robinson: Oops!

Williams: That’s right. It was oops. But the 1930s were not a prosperous time in America and this once splendid multimillion-dollar hotel sold at auction for $55,000, including the whole 32-acre grounds.

Robinson: Can I buy that today for that price? The 32 acres?

Williams: Only through the lens of history can we do things like that?

Robinson: Damn. That would be a good[?] investment.

Williams: Pretty good. Although you would think so but here there is a story, a cautionary tale in this good investment because a millionaire sugar tycoon widow poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into restoring the glory of the hotel and after years of high overhead and continual losses, she decided to give the hotel away for tax purposes. Richard Dimes wouldn’t take it and UCSB wouldn’t take it. They said, well, we can’t have a women’s dormitory off campus too far away, they turned it down, and she finally swapped it for a dairy farm up in Marin County worth $80, 000. Now, that person at least had some sense about them who took it over. They cut off a whole bunch of lots, which they sold off individually, about half the property, and reduced the hotel down to 16 acres, but they sold it to another guy from Lake Tahoe who said, I’m going to make a run at it as a hotel, and plowed right into the same problem that it was off the beaten path and hard to get to and it wasn’t next to the beach and there was really a lot of competition and they failed miserably at the same thing that the previous people had failed at. They weren’t paying attention.

Robinson: What they do with all that at that point?

Williams: They sold it to another person who wanted to operate the hotel. Optimism is always birth in and hotel people. It was a beautiful facility it just didn’t make any money, but then 1941 came along, 20 years of failing hotel had gone by, and World War II started, and the military came in and said, we’re going to take over all the hotels in Santa Barbara, including this hotel. They moved the hotel owner out of his job, brought in a lot of officers and airmen who where the UCSB is out there. There was a Marine base that had a bunch of landing fields for airplanes and they took it over and put the officers in here. Now they only allowed the hotel owner to get the income from the bar. That was it. The rest of it was just that they had nationalized the hotel spaces.

Robinson: They have kind of an airport where UCSB is and they have administration buildings[inaudible]?

Williams: They took over the Marine base. They were the at this location here in the not just the hotel, but around what we call Samarkand they built, which eventually was a hospital. They did the administration had all the fellows from the Air Corps staying at the hotel.

Robinson: Then UCSB became the airport.

Williams: Well, not quite that way yet. Let’s go here for a second. Back in World War II. They took over the hotel, but around that, they started to build a hospital because soldiers were coming back during World War II and needed hospital spaces in America. They got all shot up in the war, where they got shot up. Eventually, they built more than a hundred buildings. It housed more than 1,300 rooms for hospital rooms, and more than 27,500 soldiers were treated in what’s called Hoff Hospital, and that was all built on this area that was where, today, we have the golf course and McKenzie Park. The whole area of Samarkand was all used during World War II as a giant hospital complex.

Robinson: They had a big hospital there, which eventually became where a lot of elderly people live at this point. Was there any connection there?

Williams: Well, so after World War II, they tore down basically the temporary hospital, and the hotel went back to being a hotel. It went back to the Samarkand Hotel, and the next guy took it up through 1953, failed as a hotel again, and in 1955, it was finally taken over by a group that decided, let’s not be a hotel anymore. They were smart enough to say, stop this madness. And they became a senior retirement community, which clicked. It actually worked. They have a long, many years waiting list to get into the place. They still call it the Samarkand, but now it’s quite popular. It’s become a place to want to retire.

Robinson: After a few failures somebody got wise and it seems like as a hotel, it was a little bit off location, but as a retirement community and such, it seemed to work just fine.

Williams: It worked just fine. The white elephant finally ended its curse. But in the all those transitions, they had sold off a lot of lots and the area around the hotel got subdivided and by 1958, about 80% of the lots had been built out. This was not an area where they did subdivisions. These are all customers, similar to San Roque. To kind of across state street from San Roque. That is by the 1970s, it pretty much was built out.

Robinson: There was a happy ending for that area. It was a Samarkand hotel. What happened to that?

Williams: Well, the Samarkand hotel became the Samarkand retirement community.

Robinson: I see.

Williams: Was all built out and this part of town is now occupied by 630 homes, making it with 184 acres. It’s the smallest location of a neighborhood in Santa Barbara, and it’s a density of only about 11 homes per acre, making it the least densely populated neighborhood in Santa Barbara. It sits up high with beautiful views out over the community, and it’s a very well-liked neighborhood.

Robinson: Wondering how they managed to put a golf course there, rather than more homes, because I’m sure that golf course is worth a lot.

Williams: Well, that’s true at the end of World War II, that was a hospital operated by the federal government, and the government sometimes like to get together and this is a case where the city approach, the federal government said, you guys are leaving we’d like to take it over. This is after World War II, we think we could make a golf course out of it. At that time, that was going to be a money-making operation and I think the golf course is actually self-sustaining. It may make a little money, and the city of Santa Barbara owns the whole thing.

Robinson: That’s interesting. It’s not a private golf course.

Williams: It’s not a private golf course.

Robinson: Now I would imagine that Samarkand houses are worth a fair amount of money.

Williams: That’s true. I’m sure that the median priced house is above $2 million right now. It’s esteemed as it has really nice outlooks. Many of the homes have views up to the hills. A few of the highest locations in Samarkand have beautiful views, including the mountains and the water. It’s a nice place. It’s a good neighborhood. One of the favorites for people who like custom homes.

Robinson: I really should have bought those 200 acres for $55, 000 dollars. That would have been a deal.

Williams: We liked it. We like that idea that we’re all real estate magnets and we’re all going to get rich. But the story of the hotel also tells us that you got to get your location right, it has to be the right time, it’s a good lesson. That not everybody did great with all that hotel doing that they were doing. That’s the story of Samarkand.

Robinson: As they say, location, location, location, and then also timing.

Williams: Also timing.

Robinson: Well, great. I appreciate the history is really puts everything in perspective and gives me a feel for the different areas of Santa Barbara. If people want to get in touch with you, what’s the best way?

Williams: I’m Scott at scottwilliams. com.

Robinson: Thanks for another great lesson, Scott. Thanks for listening to our listeners. We’ll catch you next time as Sweet Home, Santa Barbara.

Williams: Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to our podcast on your favorite app. If you know someone preparing to sell their home, please tell them about the podcast. Visit scottwilliams.com to contact me and download the two free e-booklets. Is My House Saleable Now and How Not to Buy a Money Pit? Thank you for listening.