Santa Barbara Mission

Father Lasuen founded the mission on December 4, 1786, four years after Father Serra had first hoped to, the delay caused by a long tug-of-war between the church and the Spanish military governor over how the place would be run. It took its name from Saint Barbara and joined the coastal chain as its tenth link, part of a system meant to convert and settle Alta California under the Spanish crown.

The building you see today is the mission's third church on the site. The first two were adobe; this one was raised in stone beginning in 1812 after an earthquake wrecked the earlier one, its front modeled on a design from an ancient Roman architecture book that the friars had on hand. The second bell tower went up in 1831, and with it the mission earned the matched, symmetrical face that gave it the Queen of the Missions nickname and made it the only one of the twenty-one with true twin towers.

The front of the church is warm local sandstone, quarried and cut by the Chumash people who lived and worked at the mission, and it has weathered to a soft honey color that photographs beautifully in low light. A broad staircase climbs to the doors, and just below, a Moorish-style fountain still runs, a nod to the Spanish and North African design ideas the friars carried across the Atlantic. The sound of that water and the smell of the roses are the two things people remember longest.

Beyond the church the grounds hold a nine-room museum of mission-era art and artifacts, a quiet inner courtyard garden reserved mostly for the friars, and La Huerta, a historical garden replanted with the kinds of fruit trees, grapes, and useful plants the mission would have grown to feed itself. Across the street a public rose garden spreads over a lawn, free to walk, and it gives you the classic postcard angle back at the two towers with the mountains behind.

The mission has taken its share of blows and kept going. A major earthquake in 1925 badly damaged the church and the friary, and the towers had to be repaired and later reinforced, work finished over the following decades. That the building came through each time and stayed in use is a big part of its character: it wears its long history openly, cracks patched and towers braced, rather than pretending to be new.

Through Spanish rule, Mexican independence, and California statehood, the Franciscans stayed on, which is why Santa Barbara alone among the missions can claim an unbroken line of service since its founding. It even served for a time as a pro-cathedral after California's first bishop was installed here in 1842. All of that makes a visit feel less like touring a relic and more like stepping into a place that has simply been here, quietly at work, for well over two centuries.

The mission sits on a rise at the upper edge of downtown Santa Barbara, an easy few minutes' drive from the waterfront and State Street, with free parking on the surrounding streets. It is open for self-guided tours through most of the day, and a modest admission covers the church, the museum rooms, the courtyard garden, and the old cemetery with its ancient trees and worn headstones. The public rose garden across the street is free and open any time.

Give yourself an unhurried hour to walk it, and try to time your visit for late afternoon when the low sun turns the sandstone gold and the towers throw long shadows across the lawn. Remember that it is still an active parish, so services take priority and quiet is expected inside. It is the rare famous landmark that lives up to the postcard, and an easy, rewarding stop on any trip along California's Central Coast.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.