A $3.5-million Biltmore Hotel with 400 rooms was planned for Leadbetter Point in October 1925 – about where Shoreline Park and Santa Barbara City College are today. The local paper wrote: “For years, Santa Barbara has dreamed of a great, new oceanfront hotel – ever since the [1921] burning of the Ambassador (the old Potter Hotel) … It means a renewal of the influx of wealth and fashion to Santa Barbara … the Riviera of France claimed no more notable guests than made Santa Barbara their rendezvous winter and summer.”
[Spoiler alert – by the end of 1926, plans for the hotel’s location were changed to Channel Drive in Montecito, and the hotel finally opened in December 1927. More about this in future “Way Back When: Santa Barbara” … books.]…