----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 12:23
PM
Subject: Quien Sabe Garden
Many thanks to everyone who's helping on the hunt for this mysterious
garden. I hope and think most of you are finding it fun, even those who, like
me, are unlucky enough to live thousands of miles away from California!
So that everyone knows where we've got to, here are some recent
additions to our information - sent by garden historian Susan
Chamberlin (with my particular thanks to Bill Grant who passed on my queries
to her):
>> Quien Sabe, also known as the Wright estate, still exists in
Montecito, California on Buena Vista Ave. (Montecito is an
unincorporated area of Santa Barbara County.) I don't know how much the
estate or its buildings have been altered or how much property has been
subdivided and sold off. Nowadays the old estate names are applied to
the houses, so even if they sit on 1/4 acre they retain their grand names.
Owned and developed by John D. Wright and his wife beginning around
1918, it had a famous cactus collection. Landscape architect Peter
Riedel is credited with the design of the gardens, although Mrs. Wright seems
to have played a role too. Riedel lived at Quien Sabe from about
1921-1925. The Wrights left Santa Barbara for New York in
1941.
In 1927 Wright and another gentleman represented Montecito on the
newly formed Santa Barbara County Planning Commission.
From 1907-1909
Riedel was associated with Dr. Franceschi in the latter's Southern California
Acclimatizing Association, which Riedel acquired when their partnership
ended. <<
From messages to this list, we also now know who the architect of the
house was.
What we don't know, and what I'd dearly like to know, are the answers
to the following questions:
1. Why did the Wrights leave in 41?
2. How was it that the Peatties were able to rent, not buy, the
house and garden later in the 40s?
3. When did the Peatties themselves leave and what happened to the house
and garden between then and now?
4. And what, finally, is the state of the property now? Has the
garden been subdivided and built over, as Susan Chamberlin seems to
suspect, or does it still to some extent remain as described by Peattie
in Flowering Earth? Does anyone on the list live close enough, and
have enough interest, to go to Buena Vista Avenue and find out? (How I wish I
could do that on-site research myself!)
(I haven't posted here Peattie's extensive and atmospheric
description of it in that book because I hesitated to trouble
everyone with a lengthy download which might well only interest a few: but if
there's general interest, just let me know and I will.)
Tim
