STYLE : GARDENS : Return to Splendor

El Mirador in Montecito was once known as a special place not only because it boasted extraordinary gardens but because, despite the absence of a main house on the 70-acre estate, it became the site of spectacular soirees hosted by the daughter of Chicago meatpacking scion J. Ogden Armour. Now, decades later, the gardens have been refurbished and are again a lush retreat--albeit for a flock of Chilean flamingos, Australian cockatoos, African crowned cranes and other endangered birds.

The gardens were the vision of young Lolita Armour. In 1916, she persuaded her father to buy the land, and in 1922, after marrying Chicago aviation businessman John J. Mitchell Jr., the couple began to spend winters at the Potter Hotel in nearby Santa Barbara. During her visits, Lolita Armour Mitchell enlisted the help of Pasadena landscape designer Elmer M. Awl and an army of gardeners to transform El Mirador into a paradise for entertaining.

By 1925, lotuses bloomed in the Japanese garden, 50-foot palm trees transplanted from the hotel had taken root, and water tumbled down the seven terraces of the Italian garden. And lavish get-togethers were held: A charming tea pavilion was occasionally set afloat on the man-made lake for intimate dinner parties. Ruth St. Denis, Isadora Duncan, even the entire Chicago Symphony reportedly performed in the 1,000-seat amphitheater.

But by World War II, half of the 25 gardeners had been let go, and the garden went into decline. It was in 1987 that Robert Webb, a Montecito designer of gardens and houses, bought 15 acres of the property and began the restoration. He unearthed old stonework from three decades of weeds and fallen trees, installed modern irrigation systems and hired three gardeners to help him tend the grounds.

Webb, who would like to eventually see a house built at El Mirador, has already made other additions with the help of Santa Barbara landscape designer Gary Fredricks: an English perennial garden and a fern garden that provides an authentic backdrop for his collection of lories, which he keeps in handcrafted aviaries.

In the resurrection of Lolita Armour’s fantasy, Webb has ingeniously balanced his reverence for the past with a realistic understanding of what it takes to maintain so grand a garden.