Wednesday, June 17, 2009
It is one of Santa Barbara’s hidden gems, tucked away in an oaken canyon in the city’s foothills. The Santa Barbara Bowl, formerly known as the County Bowl, was constructed primarily as a venue for the plays produced for the city’s annual Old Spanish Days Fiesta. Workers were still putting the finishing touches on the Bowl in August 1936 in a rush to have the facility ready for that year’s celebration. Today it welcomes performers of international stature to its stage.
In 1935, County Supervisor Sam Stanwood, one of Santa Barbara’s most influential public officials, paid a visit to the office of Wallace Penfield, engineer for the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission. Stanwood told him that George Batchelder, one of the primary developers of Santa Barbara’s Riviera neighborhood, had a piece of land to donate as a site for an outdoor theater. The property was located in Quail Canyon, just east of where Anapamu and Milpas streets met. The idea was that this new amphitheater would replace Peabody Stadium at Santa Barbara High School as the venue for the Fiesta pageants.
Stanwood and Batchelder initially envisioned filling in most of the canyon to construct the facility, but Penfield saw that just a little farther up the canyon was an area that formed a natural amphitheater. Constructing the Bowl there would cost less and preserve much of the natural beauty of the area.
Stanwood was skeptical. Santa Barbara was still in the throes of the Great Depression and he hoped to put a lot of people to work on this project. Penfield’s more efficient scheme might cut employment opportunities. Finally, Stanwood was convinced and came around to Penfield’s idea. In August 1935, the county purchased 14 acres next to Batchelder’s property to serve as the actual site of the Bowl.
Stanwood, Penfield, and Charles Pressley journeyed to the Los Angeles area to get design ideas for the Bowl. Pressley was the writer, producer, and director of the annual Fiesta plays. He insisted the new facility be equipped with a revolving stage similar to the type he had been using in earlier productions, while Stanwood wanted a path cut down the side of the canyon to allow horses to be used in future Fiesta extravaganzas.
Construction began in January 1936. The county secured some $7,000 in federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) funding and hundreds of area residents were put to work. One of the outstanding features of the project was the beautiful sandstone masonry placed throughout the area.
The stage measured 150 feet by 84 feet, while the revolving portion was 72 feet wide. An electric motor turned the stage. In contrast, a crew of 10 had manually done this job at Peabody Stadium. Leopold Stokowski, the famous symphony conductor who was staying in Montecito, urged that a shell be placed over the stage to improve acoustics, but Pressley nixed the idea. Workers rushed frantically to put the finishing touches on the Bowl and have it ready for that year’s celebration.
In August 1936, the community was treated to the premiere of Pressley’s Las Memorias of Santa Barbara, a series of historical vignettes with a cast of 300 actors and featuring more than 100 horses. By all accounts, the production was a huge hit.
Time was not particularly kind to the County Bowl. Poor drainage undermined the foundations of the revolving stage and eventually it was taken out. Maintenance was neglected and problems mounted throughout the facility. Beginning in the mid 1990s, a large-scale renovation/restoration campaign was launched, and more than $20 million has been raised so far. A number of upgrades and improvements throughout the Bowl have been completed, with more to come. Thus this hidden gem, newly polished, will remain one of the outstanding entertainment venues in Santa Barbara.