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An incredible gift: Someone gives $500,000 to preserve some ocean view hills on the Gaviota Coast

The view from the Land Trust For Santa Barbara County's new Gaviota Overlook.
Lance Orozco
/
KCLU
The view from the Land Trust For Santa Barbara County's new Gaviota Overlook.

Nearly 50 acre site west of Santa Barbara has panoramic views of the Santa Barbara Channel.

A campaign to save some prime ocean view land on the South Coast got a huge boost from an anonymous donor. Someone wrote a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars, which covers two thirds of the campaign’s goal.

What’s known as the Gaviota overlook has panoramic views of the Santa Barbara Channel. It’s green, grassy hills are on the Gaviota coastline about 30 miles west of Santa Barbara.

The Land Trust for Santa Barbara County got the chance to buy the 48 acre site. It dipped into its reserves, and paid $3 million for the property. It’s trying to cover part of that cost by raising $750,000 from the community.

But less than a month into the fundraising effort, someone stepped up and contributed $500,000. The donor wanted to remain anonymous. The campaign is now a little over $200,000 from its goal.

The land is a perfect addition for the trust, because it already owns the nearly 800 acre Arroyo Hondo preserve, which is adjacent to the Gaviota Overlook.

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral.