No. 1 of six · $1,640 per sq ft
Montecito
Hedged lanes between the foothills and Butterfly Beach. Sixty-one of the houses we have sold since 2009 are here.
The place
Hedges, unmade lanes, and no pavements at all.
Montecito is arranged as a set of private lanes running from the foothills down to the sea, most of them gravel and maintained by the houses that share them. The hedging is the local manner: from the lane you see a gate and a wall of ficus, and nothing else, which is why photographs of the street tell you very little.
The upper lanes — Picacho, Riven Rock, Sycamore Canyon — hold the largest plots and the oldest planting. Below the highway, Butterfly and Miramar are smaller, wetter in winter, and closer to the sand. The village itself is two streets and a market; everything else is somebody’s drive.
Sells Montecito, Hope Ranch and the Riviera
Twelve months to August 2026
Median per sq ft · highest of the six
Median completed sale above $3M
Median launch to contract
Houses we have sold here since 2009
What to check
Four things we look at before we quote a guide.
Each one has changed a guide by more than ten per cent in the last two years, which is why we walk a house twice before printing a figure.
Who maintains the lane
Most are private and shared. Ask for the agreement, the last resurfacing date and the annual figure per house.
Water, and its history
Some upper lanes hold a well as well as district water. The debris flow of 2018 still shapes what insurers say about the creeks.
Where the winter sun lands
A south terrace under an oak canopy is a summer room only. We visit twice, morning and late afternoon, before writing an entry.
The hedge line and the boundary
They are rarely the same. Where a ficus wall has crept, the measured plan and the deed will disagree.
Here this season
What we have in Montecito
One further Montecito house is on the private list and is not shown here.