See How a Charming Spanish Courtyard Home Was Built in SB

A behind-the-scenes look at various construction stages for building a beautiful Spanish courtyard home in Santa Barbara, CA.  Design, and demo to completion. 

Scroll these design ideas and drawings, and read about construction tips while checking out the sequence of photos showing how an outdated tract house in Santa Barbara was transformed into a beautiful private retreat.

The completed project included many new design elements such as a prominent plaster door surround, arbors, iron Juliette balcony and shutters. Large specimen olive trees were brought in and a gravel patio was detailed with a new Mission style fountain.

Out front of this Spanish home is a newly created site wall and a recently planted drought tolerant landscape.

Spanish Courtyard Home Before and After in Santa Barbara

Here, I share the Before and After photos showing how the modest Santa Barbara tract house was redesigned, reimagined and built into a Spanish courtyard home.

BEFORE PHOTO: My client purchased a Santa Barbara fixer upper at a pretty good price. As a real estate investor/developer, he thought something could be done with it.

AFTER PHOTO: Before I show the entire process of redevelopment, I thought I would show you the before and after comparison. As you can see, the original driveway was removed and the garage door was moved to the street. The switch is what enabled the front yard to become a courtyard.

Small Spanish Courtyard Home Designs by Jeff Doubet

Here are three small Spanish courtyard home design drawings I developed for the property as I prepped a presentation to my client. His wish list included:

1) Ideas for increasing Santa Barbara Spanish-style curb appeal

2) Adding a small addition above the garage in order to expand a primary suite.

This is the Spanish courtyard home design that really caught his eye. My earliest design thoughts were to remove the Mansford roof of the fixer house. This would allow the chance to reconfigure the driveway and garage so that a courtyard home design would work on this narrow city lot.

Demo Day: The investor was excited to go with my plan and develop a Spanish courtyard home. Architectural plans were drawn up by an architect friend. Here, the Mansford roof was being removed. The existing driveway (where the dumpster is) was removed and the garage would soon be reconfigured.

Another Spanish courtyard house concept I presented had a bit of a Melrose Place look and feel to it. It has a Spanish staircase in the courtyard. The open staircase leads up to the second floor primary suite above the garage. This home design offers an option for a small apartment style ADU. With easy street access, it could also be a nice unit for an adult child, or could be a nice guest suite with private entrance.

Here was a third Spanish courtyard home concept design I presented. Here, I proposed an entire second floor above the garage. In this scenario, the square footage of the home increases. The gable roof design enables a vaulted ceiling in the primary bedroom. A prominent chimney, a wood balcony at French doors- and a decorative plaster grille were other details I sketched into this design proposal.

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How to Build a Quality Spanish-style Courtyard Home in Santa Barbara, CA

I wanted to include this time-lapse sequence of photos to show you how this high quality Spanish home was built right here in Santa Barbara.

Here, the framing crew had removed the Mansford roof and the interior of the house had been gutted. Now they frame a small addition above the newly reconfigured garage.

With all of the new framing completed, the shear plywood goes up. I designed this house to retain most of the existing flat roof. Several faux gables were built to give the Santa Barbara Spanish home design an illusion it has a red tile roof, throughout.

Here new windows have been installed and the house is being prepped for exterior stucco.

Note the installation of our cement coated architectural foam cornice. A custom design for the cornice detail was sketched up, and custom fabricated locally. This photo shows how the cornice pieces were adhered to the first (scratch) coat of plaster. The cornice will blend as one cohesive surface once the entire facade is troweled in a full second coat of stucco.

Here, the courtyard walls go up. First, deep trenches for the footings were dug to spec and a substantial concrete footing was poured. More rebar is tied, and cement blocks are stacked in rows. The house gets a second coat of plaster while the red tile roof is being installed.

More Spanish Courtyard Design Ideas

While the interior spaces were being built out, the exterior projects continue. The home has been painted and three large mature olive trees arrive on scene. Here, one is being lifted over the newly completed courtyard wall.

At the time of install, the large specimen olive trees were purchased at a cost of $1,800 each (including delivery). You can learn more about planting large olive trees here. Shortly after the trees were delivered, a Santa Barbara roofer begins to install the red tile roof.

Here, the roofer is adding a booster tile on the front corner of the house. Boosters are a technique Santa Barbara roofers use to give added height and texture to random areas of the roof. Learn more about How to achieve a Santa Barbara style roof.

Here is how the Santa Barbara style landscaping and garage turned out. I also have a blog post where you can learn more about how custom Spanish-style garage doors are built.

More Spanish Home Design Tips for Spanish Flat Roof Homes

I wanted to share this photo to show how most of this house has a flat roof. See how the faux gables were framed and finished with red tile roofing? This is a design technique that gave the house the illusion it had a full red tile roof.

While standing on ground level, those faux gabled ends provide the illusion the house has a full red tile roof throughout. This design trick saved tens of thousands of dollars in engineering, framing and roofing costs.

This is how the custom plaster front door surround design turned out. Other details in this image include: an iron Juliette balcony with clay pots with red carnations.

Steven Handelman Studios wall lanterns were custom made for the exterior lighting. Also note the 6″ half round gutters and leader heads. All are Spanish architectural details that add to our local Santa Barbara architectural aesthetic.

California Gold gravel was installed throughout the majority of the courtyard. Recently, I noticed the new owner replaced it with faux grass.

Cast concrete cobble was used in walkways and the driveway.

I like tumbled red brick for Spanish style driveways, patios and walkways. You can also perures more Spanish-style driveway ideas, here.

This is the custom Spanish style chimney I designed for this project. Terra cotta clay drain pipes were cut in half, and stacked to make the grille detail. My client bought an antique finial for the top. See my blog post on Stacking Clay Pipes for Decorative Walls.

Quality Spanish Home Details in Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara is an amazing town to drive up and down streets checking out the many fine details built within quality Spanish homes. Be sure to check back often as I continue to write about them!

A custom designed Spanish-style wood arbor was built with rough sawn redwood components.

Here is a close up of the classic Santa Barbara Spanish-style roof detailing.

Other ideas and suggestions proposed in my sketches were: recessed (backset) windows in key locations. Learn more about Spanish Windows.