Like me, you may associate Summerland with the Big Yellow House restaurant, where the chunky 1970s-styled lettering and quaint illustration was the we’re-almost-in-Santa-Barbara landmark on our family road trips from L.A. Though the restaurant closed during the aughts, the sign remains, a nudge to Southern Californians to give Summerland — more than just a little sibling to its better-known neighbor Montecito — a fresh look.
Take the new bookstore/cafe Godmothers , which opened in early September with a three-day-long series of events that attracted celebs ranging from Oprah to Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi, and Harry and Meghan. On a recent Friday, co-owner Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, former global head of literature, lectures and events at William Morris Endeavor, hosted New York Times bestselling author Dani Shapiro for a lively conversation. Guests filled the main ground-floor room facing the impeccably styled corner stage area adorned with vintage lamps, first-edition collectible titles and shearling-covered bulbous wingback chairs that approximate the experience of sitting in a metaphorical hug.
Makeup mogul Victoria Jackson, Godmothers’ co-owner and 32-year Summerland resident, sees the store’s mission as “providing something that didn’t exist in a beautiful place and making it more of a destination spot — and putting Summerland on the map.” Now home to some 1,500 residents, Summerland was born in 1883 when Henry L. Williams, a Union Army veteran, real.
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