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Historic Val Verde

Santa Barbara is rich in gardening history and is resplendent in work by a collection of internationally renown landscape architects, arborists and horticulturalists. Alice Keck Park Garden, Francheschi Park, the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden, and Madame Ganna Walska’s Lotus Land are some of the best known public venues for exotic specimens and landscape design. Private gardens grace all neighborhoods from the low chaparral of the Riviera abundant in oaks, manzanita and succulents to the mixed tropical ornamentals that cascade easterly along the coastline from the orchid farms of More Mesa through the palms of the Santa Barbara Zoological Gardens to the Village of Montecito. Of the private estates, the Henry Dater House, “Val Verde” is a landmark of the Gilded Age both in architecture and landscape design.

Curiously, Henry Dater, the New York coffee broker who commissioned cathedral architect Bertram Grosvernor Goodhue to build the house in 1915, never took residence. In 1924, “Val Verde” was sold to Philadelphia lawyer, Charles Ludington who, in turn, willed the estate in 1927 to his flamboyant and aesthetically-acute son, Wright S. Ludington. Wright Ludington retained the celebrated landscape architect, Lockwood De Forest, Jr., and together created the terraced 9-acre garden estate, which contained at one time the largest collection of rare and exotic trees in the Western Hemisphere, including 85 varieties of palm.

The estate in its entirety is an experiment in Modernism, an artistic form that appeared in the early 1900’s. Lockwood De Forest’s garden design followed the geometric resolve of the architecture by cutting citrus trees into pleasing cube shapes and placing old-specimen camellias in parallel regiment to the expansive reflecting pool. Linear terraces of evergreen and ornamental plantings, Romanesque columns and a grand stairway promenade played greatly on the theatrical influence of young Hollywood as the film industry became the herald of new glamour and wealth. By 1955, W.S. Ludington’s ability to maintain the estate was spent, and “Val Verde” was sold to Marjorie Buell of Denver, Colorado. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Buell decided that the location was not suited for horses, and sold the property to Chicago Bridge and Iron Company heiress, Florence “Bunny” Heath Horton, who was the fiancee of Dr. Warren R. Austin, the personal physician to the Duke of Windsor. Under the stewardship of Dr. and Mrs. Austin, “Val Verde” increased in size to 17.4 acres.

“Val Verde” has been named one of the nation’s most influential landscapes, and is in the National Register of Historic Places (PCAD ID 3586). Residents and visitors to Santa Barbara owe a debt of gratitude to the early owner, Wright S. Ludington, for his commitment to landscape design and horticultural, and for his endowment to the Santa Barbara Art Museum of its ancient Greek and Roman collection.

The estate of “Val Verde” was represented for sale by Prudential California Realty, and sold for $15,300,000.

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