914 Olive Street: A Home Full of Mysteries

When the owners of this home contacted me, one of their first questions was, “Who was Gladys?” This name was written in the concrete along the side of their driveway. There was also a date in 1945. I love a mystery, so I started combing through local newspapers and other historical resources online.

Once I started my research, I encountered another mystery. I found a building permit for this home in the Santa Barbara Morning Press in 1924 for an estimated cost of $4,500. My next step was to look in the local city directories. These were basically phonebooks, with an important difference — they generally included a reverse index in the back — listings of street names and house numbers with the names of residents at each address. Once you discover the name of the resident at an address, you can look for that person’s name in the alphabetical listing of names in the front of the directory. City directories often included the wife’s name, the husband’s occupation, and whether they were owners or renters. Santa Barbara city directories are available in person and online via the Historical Museum’s Gledhill Library website, in person at the SB Genealogical Society’s Sahyun Library, and online at Ancestry.com.

[Click to enlarge] 914 Olive St. interior and fireplace. | Credit: Betsy J. Green

Another Mystery

However, when I looked through the reverse directories, I did not find anyone living at 914 Olive Street until 1931. I also checked a 1928 aerial photo, and the 1930 building map created by the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company. No house yet. Hmm. I searched some more and found another building permit for the property in 1931 for $3,750. Why the delay? We’ll probably never know. Sorry folks. I could not solve this mystery.

In 1931, when the home was built, the street had its present name of Olive Street. If the home had been built six years earlier, the street would have then been named Canal Street. The street’s original name meant that it led down to the Santa Barbara Channel (canal in Spanish). The name was changed in 1925 shortly before the big earthquake, in part because Canal Street in other cities had a bad rep. “A resident … said that because of the unsavory surroundings of ‘Canal’ streets in several Eastern cities, the local thoroughfare was regarded in an unfavorable light by many who hear of it in the East” (Santa Barbara Morning Press, January 3, 1925). And maybe — here’s a Betsy theory — the residents of the street got tired of visitors asking, “Where’s the canal?” 

The olive trees along the street were planted in 1919 and were intended to be money-makers. It was predicted that “The trees will not only be a source of constant beauty, but of profit as well, in fact, residents, who are delighted with the completion of the tree planting, declare that within a few years, sufficient income should be obtained from the olives to keep the street in splendid repair” (Santa Barbara Daily News & the Independent, April 24, 1919). However, residents eventually found that olives needed a lot of processing before they could be eaten or used to make olive oil.

The family who built this home and lived in it until 1940 were John Thomas Reilly and his wife Ada (Addie). His occupation was listed as driver and sightseeing auto, so he probably owned a car. Car ownership allowed the growth of our city to spread beyond the reach of the streetcar system.

Mystery Solved

By the 1940s, Mrs. O.W. Anderson lived in the home with — wait for it! — her daughter Gladys V. Jana. In April 1945, Gladys and Corp. Kenneth M. Stone became engaged and were married in 1946. The inscription may have appeared when Kenneth proposed.

Present owners Reid and Victoria Beermann told me they love the character of their house — with its distinctive fireplace and the abundance of arches. They also appreciate having a clear view of the mountains, and the ability to walk downtown.

Please do not disturb the residents of this home.

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Betsy J. Green is a Santa Barbara historian, and author of Discovering the History of Your House and Your Neighborhood, Santa Monica Press, 2002. Her website is betsyjgreen.com.