Pat Scott Masonry has become part of Santa Barbara’s lasting beauty. The artistry in stone can be seen at Lotusland, The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, the Mission Creek Bridge over lower State Street, and the entrance to De la Guerra Plaza off State Street. Prominent landscape architects credit us as master craftsmen, and our clientele ranges from Pebble Beach to Beverly Hills.
Pat Scott developed his love of landscape growing up on the old Kirk Johnson estate in Montecito, where his grandfather was a gardener. The estate’s expansive gardens featured ornamental ponds, fountains, terraces, benches and hundreds of yards of walls – most of them made of golden sandstone quarried locally. Pat learned his craft from Italian stonecutters who began practicing their trade in the early 1900’s at the large estates built in Montecito. Pat said, “I was the youngest of the legitimate, Old World stonemasons –the maestros. All of the stonemasons at that time were Italians and they were all in their 60s and 70s. Some of them laid stone until the day they died.”
From those old men, Pat learned the delicate craft of breaking up large hunks of sandstone and hewing them into smaller pieces. Eventually Pat established his own masonry business in 1960.
No Montecito yard seems complete these days without a naturalistic swimming pool, reflecting pond, or koi pond, and Pat Scott Masonry is building many of these. “Everybody wants to have their own private bit of wilderness in their backyard these days,” Pat had commented.
Pat had many, many years of success, collecting community awards, making good friends, building a reputation bordering on legend and creating a team of stonemasons that have been creating the kind of work throughout the central coast that is equivalent to the skill of the greatest artists.
Shortly before his death in 1998, Pat was preparing for his retirement and in the process of selling his business to his long-time friend, Eddie Langhorne. Eddie worked with Pat for years before going out on his own. When Pat approached him to buy Pat Scott Masonry, Eddie thought about the opportunity of combining his masons with Pat’s and knew that the combination would be very compatible and would lead to building a business of very unique specialties.
Eddie Langhorne
Pat Scott Masonry’s trademark pools feature a grotto behind a waterfall that spills into a swimming area resembling a wide creek or pond. Hours are spent at a building site positioning boulders weighing tons. The crew of stone carvers shape smaller pieces of sandstone into paving stones, steps and benches.
Pat Scott Masonry has the experience, skills, and equipment to create beautiful waterfalls and fountains, precise boulder settings, traditional Montecito stone walls, cut stone fireplaces, hand-carved stone furniture, sandstone veneer, and many other aesthetic stone features.