The commandant's dining room at El Presidio de Santa Barbara SHP. Photo courtesy of the SB Presidio Research Center.

The Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation’s curatorial department interprets El Presidio de Santa Bárbara State Historic Park and Casa de la Guerra through permanent and rotating historical and art exhibitions. It also manages a collection of over 1,000 objects that reflect the flow of history at El Presidio de Santa Bárbara State Historic Park and Casa de la Guerra.

Casa de la Guerra Sala. Photo by Amanda Williford.

The curatorial department is furnishing many of the rooms at the Presidio to reflect the life of its residents at the turn of the 19th century. Of note is the fully reconstructed Presidio Chapel, with its elaborately painted interior, researched and designed by decorative arts historian Norman Neuerburg. SBTHP is currently furnishing the commandant’s quarters down to the smallest detail, including the English stoneware described by English ship captain George Vancouver after his dinner at the Presidio in 1793.

Storke exhibit at Casa de la Guerra. Photo by Amanda Williford

Many artifacts in SBTHP’s museum collection are displayed in furnished rooms and permanent exhibits at Casa de la Guerra. The de la Guerra family’s main living space, the sala, reflects life in the house during the 1840s. Several of the most important pieces in SBTHP’s collection, acquired in Mexico over several years by Charles A. Storke II, remains on exhibit in the next room.

SBTHP also sponsors many temporary exhibitions including the highly successful California Vaquero Traditions series on the history of ranching life along the central Coast. The Casa has also housed several very popular fine art exhibitions, including a collection of 1950s watercolors of Santa Barbara Adobes by Fridolin Haass, donated to SBTHP by Pearl Chase, and “Myths and Legends of Mexico,” co-sponsored by Casa de la Raza and the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission, featuring illustrations by Alvaro Suman for a book of the same name by Dr. Luis Leal.