Battistone Foundation Puts Edgerly Apartments in Santa Barbara Up for Sale

Nonprofit Getting Out of Affordable Senior Rentals, Getting into Grants for Housing

Long a “comfortable, elegant and secure living environment for people in their ‘Golden Years,’” the Edgerly Apartments on West Sola Street (above) and the Battistone Foundation’s other properties are up for sale. | Credit: Courtesy

A one-bedroom apartment renting for $1,550 in Santa Barbara is as rare as hen’s teeth, but for a senior on a fixed income, it’s the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow that accepts Section 8 vouchers. Or it was until the residents of the Edgerly Apartments learned that the owner, the Battistone Foundation, planned to sell its properties.

The nonprofit is no ordinary landlord. Founded in Santa Barbara in 1968 by Sam Battistone Sr., it’s a private charitable trust dedicated to providing a “comfortable, elegant and secure living environment for people in their ‘Golden Years,’” backed by millions made in the restaurant business. Three generations of Battistones have managed the antiquity known as the Edgerly Apartments, as well as two newer sets of apartments on the same block and the Palm Tree Apartments up De la Vina Street.

Even the tenants losing sleep over the possible sale affirm that the Battistones take excellent care of their properties and their tenants. So why are they selling?

The Palm Tree Apartments on De la Vina Street is another of the Battistone properties for sale. | Credit: Courtesy

“Now, to ensure continued and even greater support for our community, the Battistone Foundation is transitioning from operating apartment buildings to providing rental subsidies, with priority given to our current tenants so they can maintain low-cost housing,” wrote the foundation’s chief executive, Cindy Battistone Hill, in a statement to the Independent.

“Through the anticipated sale of the buildings and creation of a rental assistance program, the Foundation anticipates being able to serve at least twice as many people — or more — throughout the community and possibly beyond for decades to come.”

Hill said much the same thing to her tenants at a meeting in January to announce that their homes were being put on the market, and that the foundation planned to pay the difference in rent their tenants would encounter. That difference closes in on $1,000 a month in the current rental climate.

Among the tenants attending the meeting in January, the reactions varied widely — from distress to a calm certainty that the Battistones would take care of their tenants, as they have for 56 years.

Josephine Hyde, one of the Edgerly’s newer tenants, described the living situation there as “ideal.” | Credit: Courtesy

Around 190 tenants would be affected if the properties sold. For those living on the 100 block bounded by West Sola and Victoria streets, it wasn’t just the possibility of losing their homes that concerned them. It was losing the grocery store, movie theaters, and buses within walking distance, alleviating the need for a car.

“This is an ideal situation,” said Josephine Hyde, who’s lived at the Edgerly for only six months. “The cost of being here and the upkeep, you couldn’t guarantee that if people had to leave.” Once tenants snag a spot at the Edgerly, they stay as long as they are able. Hyde said she’d met a couple of women in their nineties who had lived there for decades.

The Battistone Foundation and its mission were a tribute to Sam Sr.’s parents, who immigrated from Santo Stefano di Sessanio, Italy. The foundation was endowed out of the great success of the restaurant chain named for Sam Sr. and his partner, Newell Bohnett — Sambo’s, a name that created its own issues but became a chain that grew to 1,200 restaurants out of its beginnings on Cabrillo Boulevard.

The first building Battistone’s foundation bought was the faded pink and brick building that takes up most of the 100 block of West Sola. Occupying a site that was once the Harrison House lodgings built in the mid-1880s, the Edgerly itself dates back to 1912. The Edgerly famously housed the employees and actors of the Flying A Studios and formed a hotel district with the Upham and New Arlington hotels. Its three stories, in a “Swiss Chalet” style rare for Santa Barbara, are faced with shingles and timbers on the upper floors and brick on the bottom, each floor dotted with large windows that let sunlight into the rooms and stairwells.

The Edgerly had its roof replaced a few years ago and was seismically retrofitted a few decades back. The building is on the city’s list of Historic Resources, so any demolition would go before the Historic Landmarks Committee and require environmental review, said City Historian Nicole Hernandez.

Large windows on each floor of the Edgerly let sunlight into the rooms and stairwells. | Credit: Courtesy

Across the properties, residents must be over the age of 62 and demonstrate a limited income. The foundation accepts Section 8 tenants, one of whom told the Independent they paid $347 a month while we spoke in their front room, sparsely furnished with a card table and a folding chair.

A Section 8 tenant would be protected in the event of new owners, even though the property has no covenant that restricts rents, said Rob Fredericks, who heads the Housing Authority for the City of Santa Barbara. He had talked with the Battistone Foundation about taking over the properties, but when they spoke about nine months ago, they had been unable to come to terms.

“The Battistone Foundation has done an amazing job taking care of the place,” Fredericks said; the condition of the building had been one of the Housing Authority’s concerns about the Edgerly. “It takes a lot of funds just to keep up those older buildings. It’s in good shape for its age.”

The Battistone Foundation’s most recent tax returns show their assets as $40 million, but Fredericks thought the asking price was somewhere around $80 million. If the foundation obtains a high price and invests it, the return could help far more than the 190 tenants it currently has.

The Edgerly’s interior courtyard | Credit: Courtesy

Understanding that some of her tenants were fearful of the pending changes, Cindy Battistone Hill told the Independent in an email that any new owner would have to obey state and local laws that limit rent increases and provide rights to continue leases and control eviction. As a charitable trust, any sale proceeds would be retained by the Battistone Foundation, she added, and would be used to administer the rent subsidy program.

“Today, we believe providing rental subsidies through a dedicated assistance fund is the most effective way we can ensure the long-term stability of our mission of providing low-cost housing,” Hill wrote in her statement. “A percentage of the proceeds from the property sale will be allocated annually to the rental subsidy program, providing financial assistance for housing year after year.

“By moving away from property management, we will not be limited to providing low-cost housing just in the apartments we own. This approach strengthens the Foundation’s mission. The Foundation’s ultimate hope through this transition is to be able to help many more people, including our current residents, well into the future.”