Solvang
In 1911, three Danish immigrants living in Iowa, Rev. Benedict Nordentoft, Rev. Jens M. Gregersen and Prof. Peder P. Hornsyld, founded Solvang (Danish for ‘sunny field’) in the Santa Ynez valley to escape the Midwestern winters. The pioneer of the Danish Provincial style was Ferdinand Sorensen. In the mid-1940s, after returning from a trip to Denmark, he first completed his home, Møllebakken, then went on to build the first of the village’s four windmills. Soon after, Earl Petersen, a local architect, added façades in the same style to the older buildings. In 1947, the town was featured in an article in the Saturday Evening Post titled “Little Denmark”, which praised Solvang’s quaint rural charms. It sparked a tourism boom that now brings over one million visitors a year to the town.
Santa Barbara County
Images by Andrew Schmidt