Santa Barbara County Courthouse ‘Most Beautiful Building in State’

By MARILYN MCMAHON NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

The Santa Barbara County Courthouse is the most beautiful building in California, according to a TripAdvisor survey of locals and tourists sponsored by Angi, which provides vetted professionals for home projects.

Many people use the sight of a beautiful building as inspiration for how to remodel their own home, which is why Angi, formerly Angie’s List, researched TripAdvisor reviews from 132 countries and every U.S. state for mentions of the word “beautiful.” Then it identified the buildings with the most mentions to be the most beautiful in their respective regions.

Categories included Most Beautiful Building in Every Country, Top 20 Most Beautiful Buildings in the World, Most Beautiful Building in Every U.S. State and Most Beautiful Buildings in the U.S.

The study revealed that the Santa Barbara County Courthouse takes the top spot as the Most Beautiful in Every U.S. State. The courthouse had a total of 1,301 reviews mentioning the architectural beauty of the building, making it the favorite design in California and one of the most beautiful buildings in the country.

“America’s capitol buildings rival places of worship for the honor of the most beautiful building in each state. Nine of the 50 states have a top structure categorized as a government building. However, nearly half the buildings on the map are religious sites or places of worship,” according to the Angi website.

Other buildings in the category include the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, Grand Central Terminal in New York, the

The calendar appears Mondays through Saturdays in the “Life & the Arts” section. Items are welcome. Please email them a full week before the event to Managing Editor Dave Mason at dmason@ newspress.com.

TODAY 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. “Entangled: Responding to Environmental Crisis,” runs through March 25 at the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art. The museum is open from 10 a.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. It’s closed on Sundays and college holidays. For more information, call 805-565-6162 or visit westmont.edu/museum. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. “Interlopings: Colors in the Warp and Weft of Ecological Entanglements” is an exhibit that runs through March 12 at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, 1212 Mission Canyon Road, Santa Barbara. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. The exhibit features weavings dyed with pigments from non-native plants on Santa Cruz Island. The weavings were created by artists Helen Svensson and Lisa Jevbratt. For more information, see sbbotanicgarden.org.

10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. “The Search for the Modern West,” an exhibit, continues through Feb. 20 at Sullivan Goss: An American Gallery, 11 E. Anapamu St., Santa Barbara. The gallery is open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily. For more information, see sullivangoss.com or call the gallery at 805-730-1460.

10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Vitalant blood drive at Allan Hancock College, 800 S. College, Santa Maria. For more information, go to vitalant.org.

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The exhibit “Parliament of Owls” runs through Feb. 5 at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, 2559 Puesta del Sol, Santa Barbara. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Mondays. For more information, go to www. sbnature.org.

7:30 p.m. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra will perform at The Granada, 1214 State St., Santa Barbara. The ensemble will perform Beethoven’s “Coriolan” Overture and Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Opus 93; Anatoly Lyadov’s “The Enchanted Lake”; and Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.” The concert is being presented by the Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara. TIckets cost $36 to $156. To purchase, go to granadasb.org.

JAN. 26

‘beautiful views’ as opposed to the building itself. We collected world data between December 2021 and January 2022 and U.S. state data in August 2022,” the website revealed.

Among the key findings: — Barcelona’s Basilica de la Sagrada Familia is the world’s most beautiful building, with 16,104 mentions of the word “beautiful” in TripAdvisor reviews. It is among 14 places of worship in the top 20 buildings. Cathedrale — Notre-Dame de Paris in France is the second most beautiful building in the world, with 12,931 mentions on TripAdvisor. Biltmore House in Asheville, N.C., is the most beautiful building in the U.S. and the third most beautiful in the world, with 9,609 mentions.

— Most Beautiful Building in Every Country: The TripAdvisor-ing public has a distinct preference for religious and gothic-tinged structures, such as Saint Mary’s Basilica in Kraków, Poland, which has plenty of both while remaining unique. Parliaments, rail stations and castles also make a good show, but the list has only one post office — the Central Post Office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, which is said to be even more beautiful inside than out.

3:30 p.m. The next session of “Adulting 101: Life Skills for the 21st Century” will take place at the Santa Maria Public Library’s Shepard Hall, 421 S. McClelland St., Santa Maria. Story, B2.

JAN. 28

7:30 p.m. The Santa Barbara Chamber Players orchestra will perform at at the First United Methodist Church of Santa Barbara, 305 E. Anapamu St. Tickets cost $16. To purchase, go to sbchamberplayers.org.

JAN. 31

6 p.m. Nick Hornby will discuss his book, “Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius,” with fellow writer Jessica Anya Blau at Chaucer’s Books, 3321 State St. in Loreto Plaza, Santa Barbara.

Mr. Hornby will also sign copies of his book. For more information, call Chaucer’s at 805-682-6787 or go to www.chaucersbooks.com.

FEB. 1

Wisconsin the Grand Opera House in Delaware and George Washington’s Mount Vernon in Virginia.

“We began our analysis by searching for the word ‘beautiful’ on TripAdvisor in 132 countries and each U.S. state, collecting a list of buildings with the word ‘beautiful’ mentioned in user-submitted reviews. We narrowed our analysis to buildings in the following categories: architectural buildings, churches and cathedrals, government buildings, religious sites, historic sites and points of interest,” according to www.angi. com.

The most beautiful building in each country and U.S. state is the building with the most mentions of the word “beautiful” in respective reviews. The top 20 global and U.S. lists are ranked by the number of mentions of the word “beautiful.”

“Our world analysis excluded buildings with fewer than 25 reviews. We also excluded attractions that serve as lookout points where most reviews referenced the email: mmcmahon@newspress.com

— Most Beautiful Buildings in the U.S.: The most beautiful building in the U.S. is Biltmore House in Asheville, N. C., according to the findings. America’s largest privately owned home is set against the Blue Ridge Mountains but cuts a European dash with its French Renaissance chateau styling by architect Richard Morris Hunt. Along with Grand Central Terminal, reviews of Biltmore have substantially more mentions of its beauty than other top buildings.

10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Coast artist and London native Annie Hoffman’s exhibit “Seeing Ourselves in Colour” will be displayed through Feb. 28 at Gallery Los Olivos, 2920 Grand Ave., Los Olivos. For more information, visit anniehoffmann.com.

FEB. 5 Free admission will be available on this day at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Ventura County, the Museum of Ventura County’s Agriculture Museum and the Santa Paula Museum. For more information, visit socalmuseums.org.