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Yahoo!Of Montecito’s many storied and grand estates, one of the most renowned is Las Tejas. Once internationally known for its magnificent gardens, it also has the distinction of being one of the oldest estates in this affluent community.
In 1867, Confederate veteran William Alston Hayne, left his native South Carolina and moved to California with his family. The post-war Southern economy was in a shambles, and Hayne was also hoping to improve his delicate health. In 1868, he bought some 175 acres in Montecito, between what is now Hot Springs Road and Picacho Lane, for a bargain basement price of $17 an acre.
He built a large adobe home, and the Haynes became one of the first Anglo families to settle in Montecito. Hayne farmed the property, raising a variety of crops including olives, walnuts, and lemons. He became active in the Democratic Party and was the first Democrat to represent Santa Barbara in the state assembly.
Courtesy S.B. Historical Museum
The gardens at Montecito’s Las Tejas, which was founded by a Confederate veteran in the mid 1800s and has since passed through many different owners.
His son, William Alston, Jr., also took up farming. In anticipation of marriage, he built his own adobe house on the property. Designed by Francis Underhill, it was an expansive home with a central, open courtyard. Reportedly, he obtained more than 8,000 roof tiles for the house by negotiating with other owners of adobes in the area, and he paid to have new shingle roofs put on their homes in exchange for the old tiles. He christened the residence Las Tejas (The Tiles).
He did not hold onto the house for very long, however, selling it to his brother Robert in 1898, perhaps due to debt problems. He then went off to the Alaska goldfields in the attempt to recoup his fortunes, but he was unsuccessful and settled back into farming as his livelihood.
For a time the estate remained in the hands of the Hayne family, although Las Tejas was often rented to visitors from the East Coast. In 1917, Helen Thorne purchased the property. Her husband, Oakleigh, had made his fortune in banking. Helen, a dedicated and talented horticulturist, had transformed the gardens of their New York estate into a wonderland. She determined to do the same with Las Tejas. Architect Francis Wilson was engaged to do a major remodel of the house, which he based on the design of a well-known palace outside Rome. The gardens firmly remained the domain of Helen Thorne. Her designs necessitated the demolition of the original Hayne house. The various gardens she planted included a heliotrope garden, a Japanese garden with pond and teahouse, and a eucalyptus forest.
In the mid 1920s she hired a friend of hers, architect George Washington Smith, to further remodel the house. He transformed the central courtyard, installing a motorized glass roof to make the space both an outdoor and indoor one. He also had his hand in the design of the front gardens, giving them a more intimate feel through the use of fountains, trees, and hedges. The proud owner made a tradition of opening up her gardens for weekly tours.
The shelling of the Ellwood oil fields by a Japanese submarine in February 1942 so frightened Thorne that she sold the estate later that year, including all the furnishings, to the Frederick Leadbetter family, after whom Leadbetter Beach is named, for $40,000. The Leadbetters had previously owned the Thomas Dibblee mansion, located on the bluffs where Santa Barbara City College is today. That residence was badly damaged in the 1925 earthquake and was eventually razed.
Caroline Leadbetter lived at Las Tejas until her death at age 102, in 1972. By that time, the estate had faded to a shadow of what it once was. The next owners, the Rojas family, did much to restore the estate. It proved to be a daunting task; some 800 truckloads of brush and rubbish were removed from the overgrown gardens in preparing them for restoration. The home was also heavily reworked. Further owners came and went and the gardens suffered. The present owners, the Sperlings, have succeeded in the bringing the gardens back to their former glory.
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Michael Redmon, director of research at the Santa Barbara Historical Society, will answer your questions about Santa Barbara’s history. Write him c/o The Independent, 122 W. Figueroa St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101.
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