Santa Barbara

The Courts and the Clubhouse

Tennis occupies four lighted Har-Tru clay courts within the shared grounds, with a gazebo beside them, so play carries well past sundown. There are no other courts here; four is the whole of it, and they sit next to the pool rather than off in a corner of the property.

The clubhouse has been renovated and holds the fitness center, with an expansive resort-style pool outside it overlooking the lake. Santa Barbara is genuinely dog friendly, which on a property with this much planted ground is a practical thing rather than a slogan.

The Houses

The 241 residences were built by Marlex Housing through the first half of the 1990s, which is why the architecture holds together even though the plans do not repeat. Zero lot line was the layout decision that made the block work. The houses sit to one side of their parcels, so each one gets a usable garden rather than two narrow strips it can do nothing with.

They come in villa, patio, courtyard and single-family forms, on parcels of about a tenth of an acre to just over a quarter, and the idiom is Mediterranean and Spanish throughout, held together by one builder working across a single half-decade.

That range matters more than it sounds. A two bedroom villa and a six bedroom courtyard house sit inside the same gate, sharing the same clubhouse, the same lake and the same assessment. Few communities of this size cover that much ground in one place, so the first question here is always which form a listing is.

Of the community's 78 acres, only about 37 sit under the houses. The other 40 are the lake, the recreation ground and the planting, which is why a community of 241 homes on a compact block does not read as a dense one.

Where Santa Barbara Sits

The entrance is from Jog Road, with a second entrance on St. Andrews Boulevard for residents. Town Center at Boca Raton is under half a mile away, which is close enough that the shopping is an errand rather than an outing. Pine Crest School stands across St. Andrews Boulevard, on its own campus, a passing landmark beside the community.

Everything else follows from that position. Mizner Park and downtown Boca are about four and a third miles east, and the beach a little under six. Interstate 95 and Florida's Turnpike are both a short run from the gate, which puts Palm Beach International and Fort Lauderdale within straightforward drives.

Being on a block rather than off a spur has one more practical effect. The community has two ways out, so a queue at one entrance is not the only way home, which is a small thing until the day it is not.