A Moving History: Historical Buildings at Cate School

A couple weeks ago, Cate picked up and moved its historic stables, designed in 1928 by architect Reginald Johnson. It was quite an experience to watch this old building stripped to its bare bones and hauled in enormous pieces on a flatbed to their new location at the North side of the school track, framed by the Santa Ynez mountains. As part of the School’s Master Plan, funded by the Centennial Campaign, the Stables are being saved, restored to their previous majesty and location relative to the main campus. Cate's buildings have always helped define the school that Mr. Curtis Wolsey Cate founded in 1910. Cate recently lost a part of its history when the Gane House, a the Craftsman-style home in Mission Canyon where the School's first classes came into session, was destroyed in the Jesusita fire. Mr. Cate established the institution as "The Miramar School," hoping to purchase Miramar railroad station (which has since become the Miramar Hotel). A year after occupying Gane House, he moved the School to the Walcott Ranch, then to the foot of the Mesa before finally moving to the School's current location. The relocation and restoration of the Stables reflects the School's efforts to minimize environmental impact while developing the school's infrastructure, and to preserve history. Recently, Cate also constructed five new homes that earned Platinum LEED certification and an early learning center that received a Gold certification. They are also in the process of building a new water treatment facility that will allow them to reclaim all water. Board-on-Batten construction, the Stables paid homage to the original wood buildings from the bottom of the Mesa, which Architect Reginald Johnson much admired.  Mr. Johnson must have admired his own work, as well, because the Cate Stables, with their elegant wings and striking cupola, served as inspiration for later outbuildings the architect would design in Santa Barbara’s Hope Ranch. Architectural historians today point out the “guts and backbone” of the Reginald Johnson Stables at Cate School. They talk about Palladian principles and detailed construction techniques that have been all but lost over time. Cate alumni simply know The Stables as an important part of our School. First white, then boxcar red, the elegantly proportioned Stables have always served as a visual anchor to the Mesa, drawing the eye of visitors and residents alike from the entrance at the crest of the hill down to the farthest reaches of Cate’s developed campus. For their first few decades the Stables were home to Cate livestock—from much beloved Gymkhana and trail horses to donkeys, cows, and even the pigs who provided food for Mesa tables. Stalls were walled in, and one wing of the Stables became a working shop. Generations of Caties learned to mend machinery and craft wood there, under the watchful eyes of Tom Savage, Milt Duncan and Frank Light. For about fifteen years following the advent of coeducation at Cate, the Stables housed both the weight room and the dance studio, side-by-side, so that during the athletic period following classes, the sounds of training athletes provided oddly interesting counterpoint to the piano of ballet. Even when the weight room found a new home in the Sprague Gymnasium in the 1990s, the dance studio, with its worn wood floors, barres, and mirrors, remained in the Stables, maintaining an element of grace in the old building. The Outdoors Program found a home in the western wing of the Stables. Kayaks, surfboards, and wetsuits became part of their landscape. Freshman and sophomore seminar classes met in the Stables. Cate faculty and staff raised their families in apartments constructed within their walls. Last, but certainly not least, for the past twenty years the Cate Early Learning Center has used the Stables to shelter and educate the very youngest members of our community while their parents did their work at the School. Having served the School well since their construction in the late 1920's, the Stables have lately been showing their age. The original building, open to the elements when lined with stalls, was never waterproof. The sun has baked the siding on the eastern and western walls of the Stables to a dry shell of its former strength. The Stables were carefully dismantled over the past year. Under the supervision of architect Larry Clark and contractor Terry Foley, who have meticulously researched the history of these and other Cate buildings. What can be saved, restored and reused will be; from the unique glass-paned doors to the iconic octagonal cement trough in the courtyard. This trough, as Clark says, “was cast in one piece and will be moved in one piece.” As Headmaster Ben Williams observed, "The Centennial Campaign, of which the Stables relocation and restoration is a critically important part, is meant to both honor Cate's distinguished past and ensure the School's purposeful and prosperous future. The care involved in the Stables project is symbolic of this time in our history when our first and second centuries converge." It is indeed gratifying to see such an important part of our School’s history and landscape treated with such respect and repurposed to be of genuine use to Cate in the years to come.


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Located one mile from the ocean, in the foothills of Santa Barbara County, Cate School is a coeducational college preparatory boarding school of 265 students. Founded in 1910, the School delivers a demanding academic program resulting in a breadth and depth of scholarly inquiry. In an intimate setting, students and teachers together pursue high ideals. Cate's mission statement reads: "Through commitment, scholarship, companionship, and service, each member of the Cate community contributes to what our founder called "the spirit of this place...all compounded of beauty and virtue, quiet study, vigorous play, and hard work."

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