Steedman Family History

Casa del Herrero was conceived by its owners, George Fox Steedman and his wife Carrie, in conjunction with their architect George Washington Smith.

George Fox Steedman was born in St. Louis in 1871, one of three brothers. The family purchased Curtis & Co., a foundry and machine shop, and in time, the three boys turned it into a large and successful company. Steedman had graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in engineering. In 1915, Curtis & Co. was given a major contract from the British government for projectile ammunition. George Steedman was the one to design a plant with special equipment to fulfill this contract, and he was able to double production. He secured a patent on this equipment, but he later gave his invention to the Allies for use in World War I.

Steedman had married Carrie Robb Howard in 1903, and by the time he became President of Curtis & Co. in 1917, they had two daughters, Katherine and Medora. Steedman found the work to be increasingly stressful, and he soon learned that he had a heart condition. He realized he needed to shift his focus away from engineering, and his older brother’s illness turned out to be the catalyst for change.

In 1921, Dr. William David Sansum (later, of the Sansum Medical Clinic, founded in 1928 in Santa Barbara, California) was perhaps the foremost diabetes specialist in the United States. James Harrison Steedman went to Dr. Sansum for treatment, and George and Carrie came to visit. Like so many other wealthy visitors of the time, they fell in love with Santa Barbara’s beauty and its fine Mediterranean climate, and decided to build a second home in the area. They purchased eleven acres in Montecito, near Santa Barbara, and this property would grow to be the focal point of Steedman’s life.

With the completion of construction in 1925, Casa del Herrero became the part-time home of Mr. and Mrs. Steedman, and in 1930 they made it their permanent residence upon Steedman’s retirement from Curtis Manufacturing Co. George concentrated on his silversmithing, metal working, photography and wine making, while Carrie was intimately involved with overseeing the garden, and participating in the Santa Barbara Garden Club.

George Steedman’s heart condition worsened in 1937, but his love for metalworking kept him in his workshop as much as possible until he passed away in 1940 at age 69. Carrie Steedman remained at the Casa with her staff until her death twenty-two years later.

Thereafter, the family kept enough staff in place to maintain the property, until the Steedmans’ younger daughter, Medora, moved into the Casa in 1977 with her husband, George Bass. She was a well-educated and strong-minded woman, who was determined that her father’s great creation should be preserved. Mr. Bass predeceased Medora, and when she passed away in 1987, the family felt it was time to permanently preserve their grandparents’ unique and masterful estate, so its architectural legacy could be shared with the public.