Queen of the Riviera

Address: 1538 Alameda Padre Serra
Status: On the market
Price: $3,300,000

Alameda Padre Serra — or APS, as the post office purportedly prefers us to use — is one of the most well-known streets in Santa Barbara; a landmark road that bisects the hillside, separating the lower Riviera from the sprawling upper Riviera proper. APS was originally the route of streetcar lines that were laid in 1910 as a state-mandated prerequisite for the construction of the Normal School, the precursor of UC Santa Barbara. The streetcar already ran from downtown Santa Barbara to the Old Mission; this extension ensured that residents in this nascent neighborhood would be able to travel into town. 

As Walker A. Tompkins observed in his well-regarded history of Santa Barbara neighborhoods, “The flowing curves at the west end of Alameda Padre Serra today mark the old streetcar right of way, the curves being essential to provide a gradient which electric cars could negotiate.”