Just in time for your new year’s reading list, architect Robert Ooley is out with a new book, A Guide to Santa Barbara: Architecture and Points of Interest.

As he reminds us, the city’s rich history, architectural beauty and cultural diversity explain why Santa Barbara stands apart. 

A familiar face in California architecture, Ooley is locally famous for overseeing restoration of the historic Santa Barbara County Courthouse while serving as the county architect.

Enhancing the guide’s credibility, he invites author and historian Jarrell Jackman, director emeritus of the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation, to open with an engaging foreword, itself reminding us of the scenery that inspired civic leaders: grandly, the sweeping views from the Santa Barbara Mission steps. 

Last, but certainly not least, Los Angeles preservationist Valerie Smith contributes an essay on the Small House Movement (1919-1945).

Unfortunately, even these three experts cannot guarantee the city’s beauty will survive.

A high-rise overshadowing the Mission? Who would even think of such a thing?

“Today, Santa Barbara is at a crossroads,” Jackman observed.

He should know, having restored El Presidio de Santa Bárbara State Historic Park and the Presidio Chapel over a 35-year career, only to have his successors paint a Chinese dragon on the wall of a park property.

Ooley’s antidote to these false fronts springing up in Santa Barbara is an honest look at its architectural heritage.

Guide in hand, pick a bright Sunday afternoon and get started. Thirteen neighborhoods are featured, beginning with downtown and ending with the waterfront.

Warning: It may take you a month of Sundays per neighborhood — in some cases two months — so rich are the architectural treasures in most.

Hands down, my favorite is the Riviera. I can just taste the martinis at El Encanto Hotel, here described as “an iconic destination known for its refined ambiance, exceptional service and spectacular views of the Santa Barbara coastline.”

Amen! El Encanto evokes so many memories I can’t begin to count them.

As for the overarching story, it is also well represented — how the great earthquake of 1925 inspired Pearl Chase to found the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation and begin the city’s stunning revival.

The point remains: That history is but the tip of the iceberg. There is still so much more to learn.

And see. To be sure, the guide lists more than 50 architects and landscape designers with a hands-on vision for Santa Barbara.

Ooley gives us a short biography of each, adding by type, name and dates of popularity the styles of architecture for which they were best known.

The major styles include an artist’s sketch, making their identification fast and easy, and, just so you don’t get lost, the book has a generous assortment of maps, several per neighborhood in most cases.

I further counted 200 illustrations, and I know I missed a few, ranging from thumbnails to full-page images, all topped off with a glossary, bibliography and index.

Yes, there is an index and a good one. That itself is rare in publishing these days.

Admittedly, the book is a little pricey ($40), but the value and effort are there. There is nothing like it on the market today.

Nor did Ooley forget it is a guide. Offering a pleasant vertical format, it fits comfortably in the hand, and will slip easily into a jacket pocket as you move from street to street.

The more you do the more you will agree. America’s built environment has enough high-rises, apartment buildings, fast-food joints, billboards and strip malls.

Santa Barbara is different, and deserves to be different, having for the most part avoided such dulling repetition.

The geography of nowhere, it has been called. The geography of somewhere takes time — and civic pride.

Then keep at it. For starters, insist that the people at City Hall read this guide.

And cite it whenever you hear some merchant of ugliness prattle that ugliness pays.

Certainly, no book will be more sought after by citizen preservationists. By the same token, every resident of Santa Barbara deserves to know the city as Robert Ooley knows it — from the ground up and from the heart.