bjgreen
(Image: House & Garden, April 1, 1906)
By Betsy J. Green
Santa Barbara’s Nature Study Club was fortunate enough to be allowed to wander around one of Montecito’s grandest estates in March 1919. In the words of the local paper, the excursion “was not a bird trip, but it certainly was a lark.”
The estate was “Riso Rivo,” on Cold Springs Road belonging to Charles Eaton. “Riso Rivo” means laughing stream. The local paper wrote, “Charles Eaton has added to the beauties of nature by marvelously devising grottos, rustic bridges across baby canyons, and ferneries of infinite charm.”
“Riso Rivo” was used as the location for three “Flying A” movies. You can read more about them in my forthcoming book about silent movies made in Montecito.
Betsy’s Way Back When book — 1918 — is now available in local bookstores and at Amazon.com. This is the fifth book in her series of the history of Santa Barbara, one year at a time. Learn more at
Did this later become El Mirador at 800 Cold Spring Road? (Cold Spring being singular).
Thanks, Betsy. This is one Montecito estate I’ve never heard of.
I have 12 photos of the “Riso Rivo” estate in the early 1900s – the pond, the home, and forest paths, as well as some scenes from the movies that were filmed there. So far, no pix of grottos or baby canyons, but I’m still hunting for photos.
Thanks! I always wonder whether there are connections when I see ‘familiar’ but uncommon names. History is fascinating!
Hi Rex – to answer your question about the relationship between Riso Rivo and El Mirador, I turned to David Myrick’s book “Montecito and Santa Barbara,” vol. 1. On page 216, a chapter about the Garden Club of America visiting Montecito in 1926, mentions the club members visiting the Riso Rivo and Piranhurst estates in the morning, and then going to El Mirador in the afternoon. So, that takes care of the first part of your question.
Now on to the Cold SpringS Road v. Cold Spring Road question. Google Maps uses the singular. Other maps use the plural. I pulled out the second volume of Myrick’s book, p. 503, which muddies the waters by stating that although there are two springs, the U.S. Geological Survey uses the name “Cold Spring Creek.” The book notes, “The road uses the plural term, and until formal steps are taken, Montecito will have Cold Spring Creek and Cold Springs Road.”
Are you still with me, Rex? I say we should all meet in a park, put the COLD SPRINGS proponents in one line, the COLD SPRING folks in another line, and settle the discussion once and for all with water balloons!
Hi, Betsy—thanks for the information! Wow, I had no idea that the Cold Spring/Springs situation was a real thing. I’d always thought it was Cold Spring (singular) exclusively, but as you say, a Google search for residences there reveals both spellings. Lotusland chooses the singular. I like the idea of a water balloon fight. Manning Park would be a good venue. Oh, and to further add to the mix, the bridge near the top of 154 is officially the Cold Spring (singular) Arch Bridge, and the nearby bar on Stagecoach Road is the Cold Spring Tavern, although pretty much everyone calls them both by the plural.
Charles Frederick Eaton was an artist and landscape architect. His large estate, Riso Rivo, extended from Cold Spring Road (then a private road called Palm Avenue) to Ashley Road and from Mountain Drive down almost to what is now Lotusland. (Parts of that estate are still preserved at El Mirador). He collected plants from around the world for his own garden and designed other gardens such as those around the old El Encanto Hotel. He and Italian horticulturist Francesco Franceschi founded the Southern California Acclimatizing Association in 1893, which intended “to introduce plants from other countries having a climate similar to ours, and through appropriate culture, make them thrive and bear.”
According to Myrick’s book – the Riso Rivo estate was sold to Lolita Armour in 1916. At some point after that, the name was changed to El Mirador, so Rex and El Barbareno are right about that. (Not sure why the 1926 Garden Club visit considered them two different estates. Hmmm.)
Are you ready for more naming conundrums? There was another estate in Montecito named El Mirador judging by three articles in “The Morning Press” in 1912 that predate Ms. Armour’s acquisition of Riso Rivo: https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=q&hs=1&r=1&results=1&txq=%22el+mirador%22&dafdq=&dafmq=&dafyq=1912&datdq=&datmq=&datyq=1912&puq=MP&txf=txIN&ssnip=txt&oa=&oa=1&e=——-en–20–1–txt-txIN——–1
Can anybody clear that up for me?
Curious: Was CF Eaton a scion of the Eaton paper people and was L Armour related to the Armour meat people? A lot of the early estate owners seem to be descendants of Eastern industrialist families–I suppose b/c their families vacationed here. Fascinating.
Good questions! Lolita Armour was related to the meat-packing Armours of Chicago. I can’t find any link between Charles F. Eaton and Eaton paper. (I used to live in Chicago, and after I moved here, I was surprised to find a number of Chicago names in the history of Santa Barbara, such as McCormick, Oakleigh Thorne, and Hobart Chatfield-Taylor.)