Carpinteria once featured a racetrack at one end of town and a gargantuan statue of Santa Claus at the other– anchor operations highlighting this unique southern corner of coastal Santa Barbara County. A few miles south, in the northern corner of Ventura County, nestles La Conchita, where an early seaside stagecoach route and a famous banana plantation helped shape the local flavor. The historical characteristics of Summerland, on the coast north of Carp, as Carpinteria is known, have included a J. Paul Getty oil operation and youth baseball played on fields lighted by piped-in natural gas. The three distinct communities of Greater Carpinteria are tied together by both the spectacular coastal landscapes– beautiful beaches and majestic mountain ranges–as well as the area’s intrinsically linked schools and businesses. It is an eclectic paradise between Ventura and Santa Barbara that draws a million visitors a year.