Mountain Drive: Santa Barbara's Pioneer Bohemian Community

By Elias Chiacos

An extraordinary community grew on the steep hillsides above Santa Barbara, California, following World War II. A landscape of rare and rugged beauty, a family with open-hearted generosity, and freedom from convention allowed the blossoming of a lifestyle that has become legend. The beginnings of the hot-tubbing phenomenon, the Renaissance Faire, the revival of early music, crafts, and pageantry —all mounted with a rowdy humor and uninhibited sexuality—hallmark Mountain Drive's contribution to the California dream. In these pages, you will meet some of the families who pioneered the California Bohemian lifestyle, flaunted the authority of the Cold War establishment, and found a common bond on the sun-drenched slopes overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The Mountain Drivers were teachers, builders, artists, writers, musicians, and dancers. This was no ideal community, no Shangri-la outside the bounds of society. It had the same problems as any American neighborhood. This is the true story of a diverse group who found themselves together in a nexus of change, and made their way to magic -Elias Chiacos