But Solvang, population 6,000-plus, didn’t always look like a Danish fairy tale. Danish immigrants founded the town as a farming community in 1911, establishing a folk school and a Lutheran church. “Those were among the few buildings constructed in a traditional Danish architectural style,” said Esther Jacobsen Bates, the recently retired executive director of Solvang’s Elverhoj Museum. That changed in 1947, when the “Saturday Evening Post,” one of the most widely read weeklies at the time, described Solvang as “a spotless Danish village that blooms like a rose … a special place where old-country charm and customs have been successfully fused with the American way of life.”

Thanks to the glowing portrait of what the magazine dubbed “Little Denmark,” complete with photos of costumed children performing folk dances for Solvang’s (now annual) “Danish Days” festival, tourists started showing up. But “Danish Days” had concluded for the year; the children’s red-and-white costumes had been stowed away. It was business as usual — and business in postwar Solvang was not booming, as many locals who’d enlisted and seen the world had moved elsewhere. So town fathers came up with a plan to boost the local economy: Make Solvang the charming old-country Danish village of “Saturday Evening Post” readers’ dreams.

They remodeled the town’s existing buildings in a Danish provincial village style. Over the years, more were added, including motels and B&Bs, enabling overnight stays. Visitors took selfies in front of the town’s four Danish-style windmills, indulged in Danish delectables and shopped for garden gnomes, Christmas ornaments, replicas of Viking swords and other Scandinavian-themed tchotchkes.

In 2004, the hit movie “Sideways,” about a wine-tasting trip gone wacko, jump-started the transformation of Santa Ynez Valley into Southern California’s favorite wine-country destination. The 2020 air-travel shutdown during the COVID-19 pandemic sealed the deal. Restless Angelenos couldn’t get on a plane, but in a couple of hours they could drive to more than 150 wineries and countless restaurants, boutiques, hotels and Airbnbs spread among Santa Ynez Valley’s rolling hills. Tourists came in droves, and weekend hotel prices rose sharply. That hasn’t changed, and the tourism has kept up too.

While miniature windmills and Viking statues still abound in Solvang, there’s a new crop of places to dine, taste wine and shop that merge Santa Ynez Valley’s wine-country branding with the Danish vibes of the past. If you haven’t heard the Danish term “hygge,” (pronounced “hoo-guh”), it means a quality of coziness and comfort in life’s pleasures. And this town has plenty of it.