Fresh off the disastrous debris flows that forced it to close for more than two months earlier this year, the Montecito Inn has a new, perhaps even more intimidating, force to overcome: the Santa Barbara Historic Landmarks Commission.
The commission won’t let the Montecito Inn’s newest restaurant, Frankland’s Crab & Co., put up a black awning. The panel voted for a dark green awning at an April meeting.
The hotel’s owner, Danny Copus, has filed an appeal, and sent a harshly worded letter to the City of Santa Barbara explaining his decision.
“While we know the city is usually well intended, we are nevertheless sincerely appalled by its decision, particularly in light of how desperately all of our businessess here on Coast Village Road are trying to get up and running after the horrific natural disasters of the Thomas Fire and mudslides,” he wrote.
The City Council is set to vote on the matter at Tuesday’s meeting.
The Montecito Inn, built in 1928 in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, was designated a “Structure of Merit” by the Historic Landmarks Commission in 2017.
The 60-room boutique hotel at 1295 Coast Village Road was hit hard by the mud and debris flow raging down adjacent Olive Mill Road, forcing its closure.
The hotel — with its white stucco and black trim, and stark black-and-white branding and marketing materials — originally asked for a white awning, but the Historic Landmarks Commission determined that a white awning on a white building didn’t fit the “Santa Barbara Colors: A Guide to Painting Buildings” document.
In a “review after final” hearing, the hotel asked for a black awning as an alternative, but was denied. The commission then chose a dark green awning instead.
“In all of the city’s good work that it does to keep our town looking beautiful, it is at times notoriously obsessive compulsive,” Copus wrote.
He said the arbitrary official actions are “holding back businesses from representing themselves accurately to their branding, and holding back people from even wanting to do business at all in our fine community because of the occasional absurdity of process to get anything approved.”
That, he added, “is partly why we have so many vacant storefronts, something the city should be desperately trying to remedy.”
Copus said he counted one green awning and 17 black awnings in the blocks of Coast Village Road closest to the Montecito Inn. On the entire nearly mile-long Coast Village Road, he wrote, there are 18 black awnings with only four green ones.
“So, very clearly, black is the color most appropriate for any business in the area, as it is clearly accepted by the community and businesses, and fits best with the sophistication of the business district,” Copus wrote. “Of all the colors in the world, there is no color more neutral than black.”
Commission members said at the April 18 meeting that a black awning is not appropriate for a Spanish Colonial Revival “Structure of Merit” and the awning should be consistent with colors from the Santa Barbara Colors Guide.
Copus pressed his hotel’s own historical connections.
“The hotel was built by the king of black and white films, Mr. Charlie Chaplin, for goodness sake,” he wrote. “The building is black and white. Why would a green awning be relevant, but not a black one?”
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
