Artistic detail, style at Casa del Herrero

If Lotusland is famous for its gardens, Casa del Herrero, another old estate in Montecito open to the public, should be equally popular for its architecture and interior design.

But for some reason, very few Santa Barbarans even know about it.

Even for those uninterested in design, visiting Casa del Herrero is fun in the way that touring English manors is: You get to see how the exceptionally rich express themselves through property and place.

The original owner, George Fox Steedman, had a great eye for Spanish antiques, Old World detail and an appreciation for the Spanish Revival style of Santa Barbara in the 1920s, despite hailing from a St. Louis family that made its money manufacturing shell casings during World War I.

Steedman worked closely with the renowned Spanish Revival architect George Washington Smith.

“I don’t want anything showy,” Steedman apparently told him, “but I want it good.”

Much depends on your definition of showy, of course.

Above the front door, Steedman placed an image of a centaur in bas-relief, and the mythical creature appears throughout the house. The centaurs are a play on the owner’s name (steed man, get it?) that, somehow, when the house is old and the owner long gone, seems more whimsical than egoistic.

But that same desire to put a self-referential centaur above the door made Steedman think lovingly through every detail, right down to the avocado-colored tile on the floor of his garage that hid the inevitable oil drippings and spills.

Fortunately, much of Steedman’s original design details and even personal property remain, helped by the fact that the family owned the house until the late 1980s and then transferred it to a foundation.

As Betsy Coates, a docent who gave me a tour last week, put it, “Everything is left as if they (the owners) had just run out on an errand.”

The tools in the blacksmith’s shop, the hundreds of hodgepodge wine bottles (alas, empty) in the cellar and the books in the library all remain in their proper places.

Most impressive are the antiques Steedman bought on trips to Spain, as well as to France and Italy.

The foyer, for instance, contains a 16th-century choir stall and a stunning 15th-century ceiling taken from a Spanish monastery. He bought (or copied) even the smallest items, like the abundant and colorful tiles throughout the house and garden, metal gratings and doors, and shipped them back home with just the right place in mind.

What he ended up with was an eclectic mix of old-country fixtures and design ideas that somehow hold together like a trifle full of mixed fruit. In 1933, for example, to commemorate his wedding anniversary, Steedman added on a slender, octagonal library based on a medieval French chateau’s tower.

Upstairs on the wall of the kids’ room, Steedman himself painted a small portion of the Bayeux tapestry (yes, the one that depicts the 11th-century Norman invasion of England — I don’t know why, but it works). And in the gardens are a series of Moorish outdoor “rooms” containing five tiled fountains and, in one case, an exquisite exedra.

It all took a certain amount of confidence and attention to detail, not to mention funds.

Not surprisingly, it still does. The Casa del Herrero Foundation is holding a fundraiser to honor two longtime supporters — David Myrick and Alice Van de Water — on Saturday. Tickets are $175 each.

The home, at 1387 East Valley Road, is also open for public tours every Wednesday and Saturday at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Tickets are $15. Call 565-5653.