{"nrhp_refnum":"95000359","name":"Val Verde","other_names":["Ludington, Wright, House"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"2549 Sycamore Canyon Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Santa Barbara","county":"Santa Barbara County","state":"CA","lat":34.44008148700004,"lon":-119.64950093299996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1995-03-31","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Landscape Architecture","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Val Verde is a residential estate district at 2549 Sycamore Canyon Road in Montecito, near Santa Barbara, California. It centers on a 1918 two-story Mediterranean Revival house designed by Bertram Goodhue, with outbuildings and extensive formal gardens on 8.87 historic acres.","why_significant":"The house is argued to be the best, least-altered Bertram Goodhue-designed building in Montecito, qualifying locally in Architecture. The gardens, redeveloped by Lockwood de Forest, are significant at the state level in Landscape Architecture as an example of his shift from Beaux Arts to modernist ideas. The estate also reflects Montecito's opulent era of wealthy winter residents.","narrative":"Val Verde is a Montecito estate built around a two-story Mediterranean Revival house completed in 1918 for New Yorker Henry Dater Jr. Architect Bertram Goodhue designed the house of hollow clay tile and ochre stucco, arranged around an open patio, with flat-roofed wings, a red tile hipped main block and sparing ornament such as pierced concrete grilles. Goodhue's simple forms reflected a new direction in his career. In the 1920s and later, owner Wright Ludington, an art patron, worked with landscape architect Lockwood de Forest to add cottages, garages and walls, and to remake the earlier gardens by Charles Gibbs Adams. De Forest introduced reflecting pools, colonnades, stepped walls and clipped boxwood hedges, blending Beaux Arts planning with modernist simplicity. The 8.87-acre historic core was recognized for the house as the best, least-altered Goodhue work in Montecito and for the gardens as a major example of de Forest's design evolution.","period_of_significance":"1918, 1926-49","architect_builder":"Goodhue, Bertram G.; de Forest III (Jr.), Lockwood","architectural_style":"Late 19th and 20th century revivals: Mediterranean Revival","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"The property is in good condition and remains in use as a single dwelling, with some alterations since the period of significance, such as window changes on the servants' wing and new awnings.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:27.933312-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/95000359.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123861631","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_Verde_(Montecito,_California)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q65054434"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/santa-barbara-county/val-verde-95000359/"}