Florestal, Then and Now – An Architecture, Garden and Family Chronicle

Florestal: Then and Now
An Architecture, Garden and Family Chronicle

A presentation by Marc Appleton at the historic Lobero Theatre

Wednesday, April 18
5 pm Reception (Lobero tent)
6 pm Talk (Lobero Theatre)

General Admission Tickets:
$25/per person available now at lobero.org

Patron Tickets:
$200/ per person include VIP seating at the Lobero Theatre and dinner at Wine Cask (and a special gift!) following the talk.
To purchase call the Museum at 805.966.1601 or click HERE.

In 1925, Mr. and Mrs. Peter Cooper Bryce built a Spanish Colonial Revival house designed by architect George Washington Smith on fifty-two acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Hope Ranch in Santa Barbara, California. Known as “Florestal,” the late historian David Gebhard considered it “one of the great houses of the era and one of Smith’s finest masterpieces.” The house and surrounding gardens, which were developed by Mrs. Bryce with input from the horticulturalist Peter Riedel, became the family home to their children and grandchildren and endured intact and unchanged until Mrs. Bryce’s death in 1980. In his talk, Marc Appleton (one of the grandchildren) recounts Florestal’s story and describes the magical influence it had in its heyday, as well as what has recently happened with the property’s renovations.