Giant Santa May Get the Heave-Ho Ho Ho

It’s high noon on Santa Claus Lane, and it’s hot.

Too hot for a T-shirt, let alone a Santa suit. Yet there he sits, Santa, in all his fur-trimmed glory, towering over U.S. 101 as it curves along the white sands and azure waves of the Pacific Ocean.

Preservationists have launched a campaign to make the 46-year-old Santa a historic landmark and prevent the current owner from dumping the familiar figure to create a seaside village. They call the chicken wire and plaster Kriss Kringle an example of roadside vernacular architecture that must be preserved.

But Steve Kent, the physician who bought Santa’s building two years ago, is aghast. The Christmas theme doesn’t work, hasn’t worked for years, and business suffers, he said.

“Business on Santa Claus Lane has been on a steady downhill course for a long time,” Kent said. “We have vacancies; we have vagrants. The owners want to invest the money to turn this thing around, and suddenly you’ve got a group of people who don’t even go there, who certainly don’t support the businesses down there, telling us what we can and can’t do.”

The Santa Barbara County Historical Landmarks Advisory Commission granted the Santa “historic merit” but stopped short this month of recommending that he receive the landmark status that would prevent alterations to the giant figure or the building beneath him. The commission plans to reconsider the issue later this year as part of a development review of the area.

So Kent and his fellow business owners along Santa Claus Lane wait. Plans they drafted more than a year ago to remodel the commercial strip as a seaside village wait as well. What preservationists count in days, however, the proprietors count in dollars.

“We’ve seen a definite decline over the last five years,” said Roger Zeller, who, with wife, Lura, has owned the Treasure Chest and Adventure Galley for 17 years. They sell porcelain and crystal collectibles, some of them Christmas-themed.

“The whole lane needs a shot in the arm, but you’ve got a small group of fanatical people who want to tell you what you can do with your own property,” Zeller said. “That Santa has been gone over a half a dozen times since I’ve been here, and it’s still an eyesore.”

In 1954, it was part of a tradition.

The original owner of the property is said to have named the lane in ironic counterpoint to the surrounding Santas--Barbara, Monica, Maria, Catalina and Cruz. When, according to local lore, a traveler who was down on his luck offered to top a building with a plaster Santa in exchange for $500, a roadside icon was born.

Eye-catching buildings, born of the need to attract a newly mobile, auto-obsessed public, were a California staple. Entrepreneurs tucked shops into giant toads, pigs, dogs, doughnuts, tepees, chili bowls and ice cream churns, visible from afar and irresistible up close.

“They were addressing the automobile,” said Jim Heimann, author of “California Crazy,” a collection of photos of the region’s architectural whimsy. A second volume, “California Crazy and Beyond,” will be published next year.

“But when the interstates bypassed them, as with Route 66, these buildings were abandoned, and eventually they died,” he said. Which is among Santa Claus Lane’s troubles.

After old U.S. 101 was rerouted and turned into a freeway, Santa Claus Lane became a back road. Drivers sped past, amused, but rarely stopped.

Unable to see the shopping area from the freeway, drivers can’t tell what’s there. The giant Santa suggests a year-round Christmas theme, which the current landowners say has limited appeal.

Instead, they want to remodel the place to reflect the neighboring beach. The seaside village would possibly include a bed and breakfast, upscale restaurants and shops.

“You’d think people would understand that more success would mean more tax revenue for the county,” Kent said. “But I’m not sure they do.”

What they do see is a unique piece of their community slipping away. Lex Palmer, chairman of the landmark commission, said community rights sometimes supersede property rights.

“It’s what the larger community as a whole needs and deserves,” he said. Palmer is in favor of landmark status for Santa but is also willing to consider Kent’s offer to preserve the figure elsewhere on Santa Claus Lane--if it’s prominently displayed. “And we on the commission are not alone in this,” he said. “There’s a real groundswell of support for saving Santa Claus.”

County Supervisor Naomi Schwartz, whose district includes Santa Claus Lane, said calls to her office fall on both sides of the issue. Supporters agree that the red-suited statue is a landmark, while an equal number support Kent’s right to remodel his property as he chooses.

Without a staff report to analyze the pros and cons, Schwartz said, she has not yet formed an opinion.

But visitors such as Beverly Smiga are clear. She likes Santa but thinks a property owner’s rights come first.

“I lived here in the late ‘80s and always used it as a landmark,” said Smiga, now a resident of Carefree, Ariz. “Personally, I really like it, but I wouldn’t say it should be legislated that the owner has to keep it. No, that wouldn’t be right.”

Others agree.

“We like it a lot, but not to the point that I think my liking it precludes his right to make a living,” said David Beccaric, visiting with his family from Santa Cruz. “His need to make a living is greater than my need to see Santa.”