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Moguls & Mansions
several business districts on and near State Street. In 1895, he hired
local architect Thomas Nixon to design a four-story French Second
Empire office building surmounted by a large clock tower at 629
State Street. Completed in 1896, the Fithian Building – often
referred to as the Lower Clock Building for its ornate steeple with
two giant clocks – opened to rave reviews.
The building incorporated the already historic brick
drugstore on the corner that belonged to Benigo Gutierrez, and it
accommodated seven other large stores on the ground floor. The
second floor was divided into offices; the third into lodge rooms,
offices, and a large banquet room; and the 4
th
floor held the billiard
and pool rooms of the Masons. (After the earthquake of 1925, the
building lost two stories and was remodeled in Spanish Colonial
style by Roland Sauter.)
Fithian next had plans for an entire business block on Ortega
Street, but it was not to be. On March 26, 1898 at the Van Nuys
Hotel in Los Angeles, Major Joel Adams Fithian died of pneumonia.
He had been traveling from Paris to Santa Barbara when he took ill
and was waylaid in the City of Angels.
In Santa Barbara, flags flew at half-mast at the Fithian
Building, City Hall, and the Santa Barbara Club. A contemporary
wrote, “Possessing the qualities of mind and heart that win and
retain friends, he soon became one of the leading citizens of his
adopted city.” He had great faith in the future of Santa Barbara,
and one of his last acts while en route to Santa Barbara had been
to call on President Huntington of the Southern Pacific Railroad
in New York to urge completion of the Coast Line (the line from
Los Angeles to San Francisco had stalled in Goleta in 1887, adding
(Opposite Page)
On the steps of the Country Club, Richard B. Fithian reads a newspaper
while Joel R. Fithian laughs at the camera. Anne Stow Fithian is dressed in all white and
holds a rolled paper (Courtesy Montecito Association History Archive)
(Top)
View of Santa Barbara Country Club circa 1900
(Middle)
The first clubhouse in
1894 (Courtesy Santa Barbara Historical Museum)
(Bottom)
Friends and employees wave
goodbye as Richard B. Fithian with wife Anne and daughter Dorothy depart for Europe from
the Montecito Station in 1901 (Courtesy Montecito Association History Archive)