HOMES & GARDENS ADOBE CONT’D FROM P. 9
ITALIAN POTTERY OUTLET’S
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CERAMIC FEAST
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t’s just a feast,” says Adele Spalluto Hubbard as Despite their New World success, the Spallutos hold she reflects on her family’s personally vetted retail on to their father’s legacy by relying on Old World busicollection of handmade, hand-painted Italian ness protocols. “We start off with a big meal,” said Spallceramics. “They are exactly like a painting, hand done uto Hubbard of her trips to Italy and her family’s close with a brush, painstakingly made with love, and that’s relationships with their Italian suppliers. “Then we pick which different shapes and patterns we are going to get the charm.” Thirty-five years ago, her father, Ben Spalluto, an and then spend the whole afternoon just sitting at the Italian immigrant, started the Italian Pottery Outlet as table.” a wholesale business that They’ve been in the operated out of a warebusiness so long that it’s house in what’s now called generational all around. the Funk Zone. That grew “My mom and dad were out of a family trip to Italy, working with the parents; now the parents when Spalluto approached are all retired, and my Nino Parrucca, the famed ceramicist who presented sister and I are working works to everyone from with their children,” said Pope John Paul II to Bill Spalluto Hubbard, who also believes that the Clinton. He suggested Italian Pottery Outlet is becoming the American one of the oldest famidistributor for Parrucca, The Spalluto family ly-owned-and-operated who’s famous for his fish and octopus patterns. Parrucca agreed, businesses in Santa Barbara. State Street Retai ler of and the business relationship still holds The retail store moved to its curAuthentic Old World Goods rent location on State Street in 2008 today. As he expanded his product lines, when the oceanfront renovations Celebrates 35 Years Spalluto quickly needed a retail outdisrupted their foot traffic on Helas a Fami ly Business let. “People would knock on the door ena Avenue. But Spalluto Hubbard because they could see that we had nice says the new location carries its own BY C A R O L I N A STA R I N things in there,” said Spalluto Hubbard problems. “A lot of locals don’t shop on State Street, and our city needs to of how demand fueled the storefront’s figure that out, ” she said. gradual takeover of the warehouse and then a move to She also feels the public has an impression that everyState Street. Today, the store carries more than 30 lines of Italian ceramics with some original patterns dating back thing in their store is expensive. “We have so many price to the 1500s and others that were originally designed for points,” she said, highlighting their various pottery patthe Medicis. “A lot of our patterns are older,” she said. terns, table linens, cookbooks, toys, and volcanic stone “There’s quite a history.” tables. “There’s something here for everyone.” Spalluto retired from his business some years ago and One dedicated employee is Liz Stockdill, who’s worked recently passed away from lung complications exacer- on the floor at Italian Pottery Outlet for 10 years. Looking bated by the Thomas Fire ash. His personal paintings, into the future, she hopes that the store remains a bulwark which hang on the walls of the store, are cherished by against Italian ceramic imitations that are coming from his family. cheaper markets. “In places like Italy, where there is a Adele and Julie Spalluto, Ben’s two daughters, now run legitimate art market, the idea isn’t to do it as cheaply as the retail business, which has become one of the largest possible,” she said. “It’s to do it as beautifully and as Italian collections of its kind. Their brother, Joe Spalluto, runs as possible.” the wholesale warehouse and distribution, which ships 929 State St.; (877) 496-5599; italianpottery.com to stores across the United States.
HOMES & GARDENS | MAY 17, 2018 | INDEPENDENT.COM
wooden bars or covered with a steer hide or blanket. Glass was virtually unknown. Wooden floors were atypical. Most floors were packed earth with a coating of steer’s blood to make them hard and smooth. New coatings were periodically reapplied. The next step was construction of the pitched roof. A ridgepole ran the length of the building and was connected to the side walls of the adobe by rafters. Saplings were placed perpendicular to the rafters to create a crosshatch effect. Atop this was placed thatch, and atop that, curved tiles of kiln-fired adobe, laid in an overlapping fashion. Finally, the adobe walls were sealed with a plaster made of lime, which was produced by firing seashells. The lime was mixed with sand and water, and the mixture applied to the walls with bare hands. As the mixture dried, it would harden, forming a protective coating. This coating tended to flake and so was periodically reapplied. The finished adobe was cool in the summer and warm in winter and proved to be quite durable. Santa Barbara’s historic adobes have survived any number of earthquakes over the decades. The increasing influx of Americans to Santa Barbara after 1850 caused a decline in the popularity of adobe construction; the newcomers wanted houses that reminded them of home. In some cases, adobes were covered with wood siding, sometimes for aesthetic purposes or as protection from the elements. Construction of Stearns Wharf in 1872 allowed for increased imports of lumber and hastened the arrival of Victorian architecture. Many adobes succumbed to development. For example, the imposition of the grid pattern of streets in the early 1850s led to the razing of any number of adobes. Yet the architecture of modern-day Santa Barbara, with its white walls and red-tile roofs, very much harks back to the city’s adobe days. Outstanding examples of Santa Barbara’s Spanish Colonial style and its variants include the El Paseo complex, City Hall, The Arlington Theatre, and any number of commercial buildings and private residences that dot the city landscape. In many ways, Santa Barbara’s adobe days live on, but how many of us know of the toil and trouble it took to construct Santa Barbara way back when? n
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