While the region still waits in anticipation for Beanie Babies billionaire Ty Warner’s reopening of the fabled Four Seasons in Montecito, Warner and his team have journeyed up the coast in an attempt to revitalize a historic golf course in Goleta.
Despite his controversial recent projects, filled with delays and a class-action lawsuit from former employees, Warner’s latest — the refurbishment of the Sandpiper Golf Club, an 18-hole public course initially developed in the early 1970s by Montecito resident Ken Hunter — received a green light last week and high praise from members of the community and city council.
The Goleta City Council unanimously approved a massive redevelopment of the course and its associated facilities, giving rise to Warner’s decades-long vision to redevelop the golf course and turn it into a world-class destination. Pending approval from the California Coastal Commission, the golf course and infrastructure improvements on the property include a new clubhouse, a bike path and the renovation of the historic Barnsdall Rio Grande gas station building, which was built in 1929, shortly after oil was discovered at the nearby Ellwood Oil Field.
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For decades, the golf course footprint was used as a coastal oil extraction zone for Arco before Hunter built the course. In 2003, three years after Hunter’s death, Warner purchased the golf course. Last week’s approval was the culmination of years of back and forth with city planners.
Residents, for the most part, were cheerleaders of the project. Dave Pintard, a local commercial real estate developer and property manager, referenced Warner’s other properties — beyond the Four Seasons — as examples of successful renovations and operations.
A rendering of the proposed new clubhouse at the Sandpiper Golf Club in Goleta, Calif. The public golf course, owned by Beanie Babies billionaire Ty Warner, is set for a major renovation.
City of Goleta
“If you see the before-and-after improvements made by the applicant with his other golf facility and clubhouse, at the Montecito Club, and his other properties that he has developed, you’ll agree that those improvements are absolutely stunning, and his track record speaks for itself,” Pintard told the City Council.
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He said the project will elevate the public golf course to a “legacy facility,” adding: “I think that when it’s said and done, this golf facility will be in the top 10 in the country.”
The facility will feature a new 37,000-square-foot, three-story clubhouse that spills into the topography with sloped walls made to look like rolling hills, with glass walls looking out onto the ocean for the panoramic views. The course itself will also receive a redesign, and a bike path, accessible to the public, will traverse the property. Area residents from San Luis Obispo, Ventura or Santa Barbara counties can currently play a round at Sandpiper for $100.
Sixty-year Goleta resident Kevin Barthel said he supported the project overall, but with one major caveat. He feels some of the proposed buildings block the “very valuable sunset” off the Santa Barbara coast.
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Sandpiper Golf Club in Goleta, Calif.
Stefan Von Imhof/500px/Getty Images
“In Goleta, we have an opportunity to see the sun go into the ocean during winter months,” he told members of the City Council. “This design blocks that.”
As far as Warner goes, Barthel fell in line with praise of the billionaire: “I appreciate Ty Warner not proposing big-box housing on the bluff, not proposing to build on the bluffs,” he said.
Before casting their unanimous vote, individual members of the City Council voiced their approval, sometimes mirroring the community’s feedback.
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Councilmember James Kyriaco was perhaps the most vocal about how the project could create a new identity for Goleta, the sometimes overlooked, working-class town just north of Santa Barbara, perhaps most famous now as the birthplace of Habit Burger & Grill.
The original Habit Burger & Grill is in the heart of Goleta, Calif., pictured here on Oct. 9, 2024.
Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE
“Being able to emerge from out under Santa Barbara’s brand and to really build our own brand as our own distinct destination community I think is really meaningful,” Kyriaco said.
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Kyriaco also espoused the virtues of a new bike path through the property and the refurbishment of the historic gas station building that anchored one of the top producing oil fields in the U.S. “It’s really rooted in our history of oil,” he said. “The irony, the bitter irony, is what’s been destroying this beautiful monument to that past has been climate change that is caused by what you used to collect right outside that service station.”
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FILE: Billionaire Ty Warner, the creator of Beanie Babies toys and a hotelier, sits at one of his properties in Montecito, Calif.
Nik Wheeler/Corbis via Getty Images
But in the end, he too left no doubt as to whom he wanted to thank most: “This project has taken a few twists and turns, but I think this community really owes appreciation and a little bit of a debt to Ty Warner because he could’ve walked away from this a long time ago,” he said. “He could’ve just picked up his marbles and gone home. But he had a vision, and he was patient — he was very patient.”