When Santa Barbara built its City Hall on De la Guerra Plaza in 1924, a big pepper tree was already standing in front of the site, and the city kept it. A photograph from about that year shows it fully grown, which is why nobody can give it a planting date. It was mature before anyone thought to write one down, so all that can be said is that it is more than a century old. In 2000 the city made the building and the tree one landmark, listed together as City Hall and Pepper Tree. The plaza around it has been waiting for a renovation, and in 2024 the city's urban forest superintendent said the pepper tree would stay in the new design. We have not seen a recent dated photograph of the tree itself, so if the plaza or the tree has changed, tell us. The species, a Peruvian pepper, comes from a local newspaper rather than a botanist's record, and a reader who knows the tree can confirm it. The plaza is open at all hours and free, a block off State Street, and a few minutes on foot from the library's gums and from the great fig by the station.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
De la Guerra Plaza, in front of Santa Barbara City Hall, 735 Anacapa St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101
The one big old pepper tree on De la Guerra Plaza, in front of City Hall.
Free; stands on the public plaza in front of City Hall, open at all hours.
Downtown, about 5 min walk from State Street; MTD buses on State and Carrillo St
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.
