By the time Julia Child started filming Dinner at Julia’s in the 1980s, she was already a bona fide star. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the 1961 cookbook she co-authored with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, had helped make French cooking approachable to American home cooks, and The French Chef, which aired from 1963 to 1973, had turned Child into one of television’s most recognizable personalities.
Dinner at Julia’s was filmed at Four Oaks, a historic estate on nearly three acres in Santa Barbara’s Hope Ranch neighborhood, where she cooked for the cameras, chatted with chefs and vintners, and hosted guests for home-cooked meals. Although Child never owned the property, it remains closely associated with her later television career.
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A curved staircase and checkerboard marble flooring lend the interiors a stately character.
Four Oaks was designed in 1934 by Santa Barbara architects Edwards and Plunkett, whose work also includes the Arlington Theatre. Commissioned by Clarence B. Mitchell, the son of Chicago banking executive John J. Mitchell, the estate took its name from the prominent trees on the property.
Subsequent owners have been equally notable. Fess Parker, who portrayed Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone before becoming a Santa Barbara vintner, lived there, as did Samuel Battistone, founder of the Sambo’s restaurant chain and the original owner of the Utah Jazz. The property last changed hands in 2010, when it sold for $6.85 million, according to property records.
The kitchen has been updated with two islands, a professional range, and a butler’s pantry.
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Updated over the years, the Four Oaks mansion that served as the backdrop for Child’s television series looks quite different today. During filming, wood beams ran across the ceiling in the kitchen, which had a brick wall, a fireplace, and a butcher-block island. The space now has two islands, a butler’s pantry, and a professional range. Beyond the kitchen, the approximately 10,000-square-foot compound includes six bedrooms, a wood-paneled library, a formal dining room, a fitness room, and a spacious living room that opens directly to the grounds.
The nearly three-acre estate includes a swimming pool and tennis court.
The expansive grounds provide ample room to enjoy Southern California’s mild climate, with manicured gardens, rose beds, a citrus allée, a tennis court, a swimming pool, and broad lawns. A detached guesthouse adds another bedroom. Four Oaks is now on the market for $22 million with Dusty Baker Group of Sotheby’s International Realty.
Child, of course, had a few homes of her own that became famous in their own right. She and her husband, Paul, lived in a Georgetown house in Washington, D.C., from 1948 to 1959 before moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1961. They remained there for four decades, and the home served as the setting for several of Child’s televised cooking programs. The home’s iconic kitchen was eventually moved to the Smithsonian.
The couple also built La Pitchoune, a small cottage in Plascassier, France, in the 1960s that became a favorite cooking retreat. Santa Barbara eventually became more than just a filming location for Child. After Paul died in 2001, she moved to nearby Montecito, where she spent the final years of her life.
Click here to see more photos of the home where Dinner at Julia’s was filmed.
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Dining and Cooking