Barbara

Walking through downtown Santa Barbara, it’s impossible to not turn your head when you see it: those marshmallow-like plaster walls, wiggly wrought ironwork and tile that looks as though it belongs in a palace you’d stumble upon in a storybook.

This is the effect architect Jeff Shelton’s signature design has on viewers: the ability to pluck you out of the monotony of the day, if only briefly.

When asked why he thinks this is so, Shelton is quick to point to the tried-and-true architectural methods of the past, which he proudly uses. Buildings, he said, had to be designed “to act more independently” in serving the needs of their specific inhabitants. A window’s primary purpose, for example, was to allow the ideal amount of light to enter.

“So therefore they had taller windows,” he said, sitting opposite me in his Fig Avenue office in downtown Santa Barbara, surrounded by endless sketches and pattern mock-ups.

Shelton obsesses over other design details that are often overlooked in modern architecture yet instinctively felt when you encounter them: high ceilings, for one (his are 14 to 18 feet from the ground floor), as well as smaller touches like ironwork, stonework and glass. Crucially, all are made by people, designed by people — “nothing,” he said, “out of the catalog.”

Before going solo, Shelton spent a decade working in downtown Los Angeles with architect Brenda Levin on projects including the Bradbury Building and Grand Central Market. He then returned to his hometown of Santa Barbara, where he has designed 90 buildings since 1994, many of them within Santa Barbara’s Historic Landmarks District, commonly referred to as El Pueblo Viejo.

Following Santa Barbara’s 1925 earthquake, which destroyed much of downtown, new construction in the area was required to adopt the Spanish Revival style, which, according to the city’s website, “is key to the identity and beauty of Santa Barbara.” New buildings in the district must draw inspiration from Andalusia and Southern Spain and incorporate elements such as tile, terra-cotta, plaster and ironwork.

For Shelton, the guidelines are merely a reference. When designing, he doesn’t “try to make it like Spain at all,” he said, rather matter-of-factly. “I try to just use the materials and proportions and the craft of what’s so great about being in Spain.”

That approach shines through in his many projects near his Fig Street office, a 10-block radius Shelton has dubbed the “Fig District,” where 10 of his most lauded projects lie, inadvertently creating a kind of architectural museum in the heart of downtown.

Seeing them requires little more than a two-hour self-guided tour, carving your own path or following the map on Shelton’s website. By the end of the excursion, you, too, may ask yourself the same question I did: Why did we ever stop building this way?

Shelton didn’t have an answer. He could only promise to never stop.

“Every building I do is my last building,” said Shelton, now 68. “If I die tomorrow, at least I put everything in this last building.”

Without further ado, here are designs by Shelton all located in the Fig District, including iron gates designed by his brother, David.

Gov. George Deukmejian named on Monday Ventura County Superior Court Judge Kenneth R. Yegan to join the state 2nd District Court of Appeal, fulfilling the judge’s longtime dream of becoming an appeals court justice.

If a judicial review panel confirms Yegan’s nomination to the court’s 6th Division on Dec. 27, he will replace Justice Richard W. Abbe, who retired Nov. 28 after eight years on the three-member court.

“If I get confirmed on the 27th, I’ll take the oath right on the spot and hope to report to work the next day,” said Yegan, 43, of Westlake.

The review panel, composed of Supreme Court Justice Malcolm Lucas, Atty. Gen. John K. Van De Kamp and presiding 2nd District Court of Appeal Justice Lester Roth, is scheduled to meet next week in Los Angeles to discuss Yegan’s qualifications.

If confirmed, he will consider appeals cases from Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties with Justices Steven J. Stone and Arthur Gilbert, who have served on the 6th Division bench since it was established in 1982.

“Without even thinking about it, I’m really ecstatic about the appointment,” said Gilbert, who has reviewed Yegan’s Superior Court opinions on appeal and worked with him when Yegan served as a temporary appeals justice in the summer of 1986.

“I think he’s as good as you can get. He’s just first-rate,” Gilbert said. “He supports his point of view with well-reasoned statements of decision on the Superior Court, and he did the same thing when he was here.”

Stone said Yegan has a reputation for being able to handle all levels of appeals work, from doing legal research to writing the final draft of opinions.

“I have a lot of respect for Ken and I think that he will work very well with us,” Stone said. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Yegan said that Deukmejian called him Friday to offer him the seat. He said the governor swore him to secrecy until Monday, but gave him permission to tell his family.

“My wife was home with my oldest daughter and she was screaming, and my daughter was screaming,” Yegan said. “After they calmed down a little bit she asked me if I could pick up my youngest daughter from ballet and asked if I could go to the store and pick up some things. . . .and that’s when I knew things hadn’t changed.”

The focus of Judge Yegan’s work has not changed much from his first days in law. He said he has been fascinated by appeals work ever since law school.

“I took all the courses I could in law school in appellate practice,” Yegan said. “It’s intellectually challenging and it’s very stimulating to figure out where the facts meet the law and. . . .which is the better-reasoned opinion.”

Yegan graduated in 1972 from the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and began work as a deputy in the Ventura County public defender’s office, handling trials and appellate cases.

Beginning in 1975 he worked as a senior attorney in the appeals court’s 5th Division in Los Angeles, researching cases and helping justices write opinions. In January, 1983, Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. appointed him to the Ventura County Municipal Court.

Deukmejian elevated him to the Superior Court in July 1986, where he tried criminal, civil and cases appealed from Municipal Court.

In recent months, Yegan said, letters urging his nomination have flowed into the governor’s office from County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury, Sheriff John V. Gillespie, three Supreme Court justices and a variety of appeals court justices, trial court judges and lawyers.

Abbe said of Yegan’s appointment: “His work when he was. . . .here was excellent. He was knowledgeable, he was able to evaluate cases quickly and accurately and make sensible decisions.”