The Tea Gardens Protected From Development

The Tea Gardens, with its sprawling 350 acres, is an unmatched estate located next to Santa Barbara | Credit: Courtesy PLG Estates

Looking up at the Santa Ynez Foothills from various vantage points around Santa Barbara, you can see the outline of the three Romanesque stone arches that are the vestiges of the iconic Tea Gardens. Also known as Mar y Cel, “sea and sky,” the property is the largest undeveloped land remaining in Montecito with a history of lavish tea parties, all-night bashes, skateboard competitions, and the spark that set off the November 2008 Tea Fire.

The 350 acres recently changed hands after several years on the market and will be protected from development that carves the hills into building pads with mega-mansions. In March, the Schmidt Family Foundation purchased the property from Keith Schofield and Kay Robinson Schofield, who were the owners for the last 24 years. Whether it was the raw beauty of the hillside or its storied history that inspired the Schmidts, their appreciation of nature and conservation is well known.

The Schmidts have been active philanthropists since 2006, when they started The Schmidt Family Foundation to address challenges facing communities around the world, working for clean renewable energy, healthy food systems, healthy oceans, and the protection of human rights. They also founded Schmidt Ocean Institute to advance oceanographic research by offering scientists free access to the world’s first year-round philanthropic research vessel in exchange for making their findings publicly available. Their portfolio of environmental work is astounding.

eric and wendy schmidt — Eric and Wendy Schmidt. | Credit: Ben Gibbs / Office of Eric and Wendy Schmidt

Wendy Schmidt tells us, “We’ve been inspired by the Indigenous concept of stewardship — the idea that we each have a responsibility to care for the planet and its natural resources while we’re here. When we had the opportunity to purchase Mar y Cel, we knew we wanted to protect these historic and important lands as open space. We’re still determining how best to do that. Eric and I moved to Santa Barbara during the pandemic, and we’ve fallen in love with this community. It’s why I joined the board of Lotusland and why we’ve invested in Tri-County Produce to keep it open and operating as a family business.”

Wendy goes on to explain she had read an article in the Santa Barbara Independent about the market’s planned closure and she reached out to the owner and developers who planned to build a housing project on the property, to devise a transaction that would allow the market to continue under local ownership. As angel investors, they enabled two longtime employees to run and ultimately own the business, Jaime Desales Sr. and his son Jaime Desales Jr.

“I knew we had to find a way for this beloved market to continue serving the community,” she says. “With its 40 years of networked fresh produce suppliers across the region and a unique curation of other products, Tri-County Produce has become an essential part of Santa Barbara.”

Stewardship of land was also the lifetime work of Kay and Keith Schofield, an Englishman and professor of chemistry at UCSB who passed away last year. When the couple purchased the Tea Gardens property, they wanted to care for it and restore it to its original glory. Their tireless restoration work uncovered a water tunnel, exposed an old trail, and included the repair of crumbling stone walls. In 2018, they told Katheryn Barnes of KCRW that it was time to pass the torch.

“After 18 years of hard labor,” Keith said, “I think it’s time for somebody else to take over the management. It’s very rewarding to know you’ve done your bit up here, and we’ve improved the property somewhat, but it’s a lifetime’s job. You do your bit, and then you move on.”

Black and white photo of a patio with mountains in the background. — Henry Bothin built the Tea House for his wife Ellen to host lavish tea parties. | Credit: Courtesy of University of California, Santa Barbara

The Tea Gardens with playful structures and surrounding beauty was the original creation of Henry and Ellen Bothin, who hosted daily lavish tea parties for their friends in the spirit of the Gilded Age that was part of Montecito’s 19th century culture. Henry Bothin was a San Francisco steel industrialist, steely by reputation (pun intended) and generous by spirit directing some of his wealth to care for children with tuberculosis. He established one of the first family foundations in the country.

a black and white photo of the tea garden arches — The Tea Gardens are also known as Mar y Cel, which translates to sea and sky. | Credit: Courtesy of University of California, Santa Barbara

The Bothins hired famed landscape architect Lockwood de Forest, who later worked on the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and landscaped some of Montecito’s grandest estates. The Tea Gardens property included a 200-seat amphitheater, where the Bothins held shows including events in several pools, now dry, where synchronized swimmers performed. They built an aqueduct system throughout the property to irrigate their nearby residence known as Piranhurst.

After Ellen Bothin passed away in 1965, the Tea Gardens property changed hands between several private owners and became an oasis for teenage trespassers. Skateboarders, including local legends Tom Sims and Chucky Barfoot, gravitated to the property for its dried-up pools, according to the Santa Barbara Independent.

The property was the origin point of the 2008 Tea Fire, which burned 1,940 acres and destroyed 210 homes. Authorities believe the cause was a bonfire that college-age students who had snuck onto the property failed to properly put out.

In 2000, Cima del Mundo, the environmental investment group that owned the property at the time, placed 150 acres of the land in an easement controlled by the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County to protect that portion of the land from residential development. The deal also made legal a half-mile portion of the Cold Spring Trail that runs through the northwest corner of the property.

There is so much history in the hills above Montecito with the Tea Gardens being especially iconic. With the Schmidts’ purchase, the property will remain protected from the kind of development that would have marred the hills’ natural beauty. While they are uncertain about their plans for the land, we doubt they will reintroduce synchronized swimming, but it’s certainly fun to imagine.