The Home Page | The Highest Hot Tub in Town

This edition of The Home Page was originally emailed to subscribers on January 19, 2025. To receive Sarah Sinclair’s real estate newsletter in your inbox each Sunday, sign up at independent.com/newsletter

Help for the L.A. fire victims is taking all shapes and sizes. Arlo, a local 5th grader shown above, was thinking about what it would be like to lose his house in a fire, and what he would miss the most. He decided that he would miss his Legos more than any of his other possessions. So Arlo started a Lego drive. He’s collecting Legos from his friends and his friends’ friends. Arlo’s mom Paige is a member of The Hall Team who started spreading the word. They’re collecting loose Legos, old sets, new sets, and Lego accessories, which will all be donated to kids who have lost their Legos in the L.A. fires. Lego donations can be dropped off to the Hall Team at Compass, 801 Chapala Street, Mon.-Fri. 9am-5pm, until January 31st. Or text 805-403-3878 to arrange pick-up.

In this week’s real estate section, our Great House Detective, Betsy J. Green defines one of the grandest home styles to be found in our little berg — the Queen Anne. Often confused with Victorian style homes, Queen Anne’s pile on the details: fish tail scaling, roof cresting, towers, bay windows, stained glass, and decorative spindles and brackets galore. In addition to showcasing several local examples of Queen Anne–style homes, Betsy’s article also mentions the most famous representation of the genre in the U.S. — The Carson Mansion in Eureka, California, shown above. Betsy has written about two of these homes in previous columns: 519 Brinkerhoff Street and 324 North Soledad Street. Betsy is always looking for her next local house to profile; contact her here if yours is the one.

Loft style–living in Santa Barbara? Solar panels on the front of the building? Hot tub on the roof? Downtown space without traffic noise? Four stories tall? All of this — and more — exists in an amazing new listing that I was privileged to tour this week. 414B Anacapa Street is a residence/office combo designed by architect Robin Donaldson as his own primary residence. The home is now for sale, for the first time ever, by David Kim and Devin Wong of the DK Group. It has at once a raw, rustic feel and a sophisticated, cosmopolitan vibe. They knew they had me at “hot tub on the roof” when describing this four-story unicorn in our city center, but I didn’t know I would be as taken as I was until I saw it in person. The mountain views out the kitchen window might have been my favorite aspect, or possibly the suspended steel fireplace in the living room, and the huge balcony patio on the third floor was captivating as well. Listen to Donaldson describe his vision in this video, check it out on the front page of this week’s issue, and contact David and Devin for more info.