If you like mazes, now’s the time to visit Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden in Santa Barbara.
The city’s Parks and Recreation Department has closed parts of the picturesque grounds for repairs to trails and to make the park more accessible for people with disabilities.
The closure of different sections of the park will continue through May.
“Staff working with the contractor are doing our best to ensure that access to and use of most of the park can continue while construction is under way,” said Jill Zachary, parks and recreation director. “There will be certain sections of the park closed off while they are doing their work.”
The Parks and Recreation Commission discussed the matter at a recent meeting.
The project will enhance park infrastructure, amenities, and accessibility through rehabilitating benches, light poles, perimeter fencing, handrails, and improving pathways.
Most of the park pathways will be refurbished with stabilized decomposed granite, which will help to keep paths firm and compact, according to a city staff report.
The project will also add new park features such as handrails and a vehicle maintenance gate.
Sections of the park will be closed to the public, but “at least half of the park will remain open at any given time.”
Navigating the park on Sunday was a bit tricky, with orange netting blocking off several paths. There were also at least two uncovered open trenches on the trails.
The project is expected to be complete by late May 2025.
Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden features a collection of 75 different tree and plant species, turtles, a pond, sensory garden with audio posts and interpretive Braille signs, low water use demonstration garden, benches, walking paths, picnic areas and gazebo.
The park is surrounded by East Arrellaga, Garden, East Micheltorena, and Santa Barbara streets.
The garden has a compelling history.
A 1968 proposal, called El Mirasol, would have built two nine-story, 107-foot-tall condo towers at the site where Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden currently stands. At the time, the site was the El Mirasol hotel.
The Planning Commission at the time said the proposal was “out of character with the surrounding area and with the community as a whole,” according to Sheila Lodge’s book, “Santa Barbara: An Uncommonplace American Town.”
The developers ran five full-page ads in the daily newspaper “saying that the council would be responsible for whether or not the city would move forward or remain a ‘sleepy little village.’”
Sounds familiar.
According to Lodge’s book, the developer threatened that if the condo towers were not approved, “200 cheap, mass-produced small apartments with only profit in mind” would be built there.
The opponents were outspent. They ran small classified ads pushing back against the plan.
Even though the city’s ordinance limited the height of residential buildings to 45 feet, the council at the time granted a variance to allow 107-foot towers.
However, three Santa Barbara residents had other plans.
Terry Davies, a research engineer, and Estelle Busch and Frances Yulo, “neighborhood housewives,” as Lodge’s book described them, found an attorney who would represent them for free. They filed a lawsuit, and a judge ruled that the city violated its own ordinance by approving the development.
According to the New York Times, Alice Keck Park was sent to private school in Santa Barbara as a girl. She was the daughter of William Myron Keck of Pasadena, founder of Superior Oil. When she was 35 years old, she married David Edgar Park, who died in 1956 after three years of marriage.
An anonymous buyer purchased the hotel site after the condo effort was blocked and then donated the land to the city to be used as a botanical garden. The identity of the donor, Alice Keck Park, was not revealed until her death in 1977.
