Seagrass Photography by Bill Baker

With the median home price in the Santa Barbara area above the $1 million mark, shops filled with antiques, art and extraordinary home wares are everywhere. In addition to these shopping opportunities and the city’s appealing seaside location, there are more pleasures. Just south of Santa Barbara, the artists’ enclave of Summerland has a number of antiques, garden and home-decor boutiques within walking distance of each other. In adjacent Montecito, among graceful pines and gated homes, shops cluster near San Ysidro Road.

SHOP
• Michael Haskell Antiques—539 San Ysidro Road, Montecito, (805) 565-1121; michaelhaskell.com
For close to 40 years, Michael Haskell has concentrated on 17th- and 18th-century Spanish, Spanish Colonial and Italian antiques. The appealing disarray of the unpretentious shop—today run by son Eric Haskell—creates an aura of discovery. Rare finds from estates nearby and abroad include paintings, objets d’art, textiles and religious art. American Indian baskets from the Pima and Apache tribes and pre-Columbian figures are well-represented.

Just Folk Photography by Ted Rhodes

• William Laman—1496 E. Valley Road, Montecito, (805) 969-2840; williamlaman.com
Antiques and home and garden accessories are prominent in this century-old worker’s cottage that was moved to its present site. The eclectic mix includes a bone-framed mirror hung on a board-and-batten wall, an 1880 French bouillabaisse set, and a slice-of-log tabletop. A screen door leads to a small garden patio.

• Just Folk—2346 Lillie Ave., Summerland, (805) 969-7118; justfolk.com
Two TV-industry women, Marcy Carsey and Susan Baerwald, combined their passion for American folk art in this whimsy-filled gallery. The pair scours the East Coast for one-of-a-kind quilts, handmade toys and animal figures, art and weather vanes to display in their shop, which is reminiscent of a barn.

• bo•tan•ík—2329 Lillie Ave., Summerland, (805) 565-3831; botanikinc.com 
Owner Erin Taylor calls her garden shop and the accessories-filled Victorian home next door a lifestyle design company. Containers of lush succulents, small shrubs, earth-tone indoor and outdoor fabrics, vintage accessories, cashmere throws, and unusual containers inspire designers and do-it-yourselfers who seek out the unique and unusual.