Developer Ed St. George wanted whimsical. Some Solvang city leaders said it’s simply wrong.

The dispute, which is set to go to the Solvang City Council on Monday, centers on the development at 1704 Mission Drive on the corner of Alisal Road.

The project was approved in December 2023 and involves a nine-unit hotel with separate one-bedroom small cottages, some with thatched roofs. Another structure, at 400 square feet, will act as a meeting room but has been designed to reflect a Danish chapel. 

After St. George veered from the approved plans, the city issued a stop work order, leading the developer to lash out via a sign at the highly visible intersection. 

The war between whimsical and wrong came up during Solvang’s State of the City presentation.

“What is happening with the little villages of seven dwarves at Mission and Alisal?” one man asked. 

“Let’s cut to the elephant in the room,” Mayor David Brown said. “The work on that has been stopped for numerous reasons.”

Last month, St. George placed a banner reading, “Stop Work. Solvang Planning Commissioner Keif Adler, Bill Ziegler, Brandon Gillis, Jack Williams, Esther Jacobson Bates have deemed this project UNSUITABLE for the city of Solvang. Please vote common sense in 2026.”

Along with including multiple misspelled names, the banner mislabeled Design Review Committee member Jacobsen Bates as a planning commissioner.

The sign is gone, but the dispute continues.

St. George filed an appeal of the stop work order to the City Council, and the public hearing is scheduled during Monday’s meeting, set to begin at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, 1644 Oak St.

“We welcome anybody who wants to come,” Brown said. 

Passion Project vs. Planning Process

Construction started in December 2024, but in the spring, Community Development Director Rafael Castillo learned of the deviations, telling the developer he needed to seek amendments to the already approved plans. 

After consulting with the Design Review Committee in July, Castillo approved project amendments proposed by St. George but required other fixes, including modifying certain paint colors; changing the facade material, window elements and half-timbers on several units; removing the red and white roofing on the “chapel” structure; and altering the color of the windmill structure.  

Castillo contended that the changes were needed to comply with the city’s adopted design standards, which were put in place to ensure that the Danish character continues.

St. George appealed portions of the city staff decision plus requested other modifications to the Planning Commission, which voted 4-0 on Sept. 2 to uphold staff’s decision on colors, facades and siding material changes as well as approving a modified site plan and landscaping plan. 

During the Planning Commission hearing, St. George pleaded for the panel to see his vision. He offered multiple reasons for veering from the approved plans, including blaming the city’s handling of another project he had in the pipeline.

He also claimed that he had to change the cottage project so people must rent the entire site for at least two days as an event center.

“What we’re doing is an experiment,” he said. “That’s why you see the modifications.”

Hearing at least one Design Review Committee member call his beloved project “hideous” meant he lost sleep, he said. 

“Everybody thinks I’ve got this super thick skin. I do on a lot of stuff, but on passion projects I don’t. That project has become very personal to me, and that is how the changes happened,” he said. 

It is his first time building a two-thirds scale home, he said, adding that the cottages have doors standing 5 feet 9 inches tall. 

“Everything in here is made to look like these were poor people that were building with the best of their ability,” St. George said. 

He noted that the project’s approval also didn’t include the piece of stained glass taken from a Danish church built in the 1800s, spending more on shipping than acquisition to get the item to Solvang.

Commissioner William Zigler said erasing a line on a piece of paper would have been easier than making changes after something had been built.

“It’s unfortunate the passion regarding the stained glass window and the desire for whimsy couldn’t have been discussed earlier, before we reached a point of we’re either having to amend the plan or change something dramatically,” Zigler said. 

Commissioner Adler said he appreciated the developer’s passion but preferred the original  project. 

“I understand what you’re doing with the whimsy, and I think there’s a lot of whimsy there even with these recommendations from the DRC and the Planning Department,” Adler said. “Just because this is your passion project doesn’t mean it fits the requirements the city has for the village area.”

St. George Appeals Planners’ Decision

Days after the Planning Commission vote, St. George appealed two items to the City Council — a requirement to remove excessive half-timbering on four units and removal of the installed red roofing tiles. 

“Based on staff’s analysis, the installed half timbers in Units 2, 4, 5 and 9 are not within the traditional and historic Danish theme and do not emulate 18th century Denmark half-timbers,” Castillo wrote in his report. 

Any existing buildings with similar half-timbers were completed before the city adopted design guidelines in 1989, Castillo said. 

While slate roofing material is permitted, and red is mentioned as an acceptable color, the red-and-white pattern employed on the St. George project “is not consistent with Danish roof tile designs as required,” Castillo added.

St. George’s project planner, Lonnie Roy, said they want the half-timbers to remain and to keep the red strip, saying the colored tiles would provide “a unique contribution to the city’s Danish aesthetic.”

“This appeal is being filed because there is a simple disagreement regarding the project’s vision, and we would like the City Council to weigh in on the project’s aesthetic direction,” Roy wrote in a Sept. 9 appeal letter.