The Secret Garden Inn is the best kept secret in California. My wife and I travel all over the world on a regular basis but our 2 days at the Secret Garden Inn was a wonderful surprise. From the moment we arrived we were pampered as if we were long lost family relatives. The cottage we stayed in was magic! Dominique the owner treated us to a special French breakfast each morning. In the afternoon we sat out in the beautiful gardens and had Bordeaux wines and wonderful cheeses and beautiful snacks. The special soaps and appointments in our bathroom were just another extra that Dominique provided us. If you want a very special stay in Santa Barbara my wife and I highly recommend staying in the Secret Garden Inn. You will not be sorry.
PS. The 8PM hot cider and homemade brownies were delicious!!
Sincerely Yours,
Matthew and Della McCoy

This is one to miss. The room was dirty. The parking lot is none too secure. The breakfast is poor...Costco bagels...pillsbury popovers....lousy coffee...and quiche with yesterday's vegetables thrown in. The touted garden's were probably once regal...but have fallen into disrepair. You are definately not within walking distance of downtown. We would have simply checked out but all other hotels in the area were full. Many foreign tourists leading me to believe that they must heavily advertise overseas. They seem to cater more to the French than to locals. We would not return.

We just returned from California and out of all the hotels we stayed at, ( Beverly Wilshire in Bev. Hills, The Fairmont in Santa Monica, and The Secret Garden Inn, we enjoyed the Secret Garden the most, even our daughters agree. We have stayed in many 5 star luxury hotels, and this was one of our best and most memorable experiences, it isnt a five star, but it is so wonderfully a different type of experience. We had a romantic suite with a fireplace and a private hot tub out side. We used the fireplace at night because it gets cool in SB at night. it was so romantic. In the morning we had a wonderful breakfast with great coffee. I am a coffee drinker and their coffee was really nice and smooth. We had baked breads, pateriess, quiche and they offered my daughters cereal and my husband other than quiche( he does not eat eggs.) The wine,cheese and o'hordourves in the evening is wonderful, you almost dont want to go to dinner. At night before bed time they baked homemade brownies and hot apple cider, my daughters loved this. It was just so charming and wonderfully different. We will be back and this time for more days. We loved it!!
Thanks Secret Garden!!! Dan and Lia Miller

We love Santa Barbara and decided to spend our tenth anniversary there. It was hard to find a B and B with a vacancy but we finally found The Secret Garden and ended up wishing we had not.
The people were nice enough, dispite being misleading on the phone, but the accommodations were not. We stayed in a duplex cottage. A condo with noisy kids was right next to the bedroom window so we had to keep it and the blind closed. Our bed was hard as a rock, the promised claw foot tub was not and the light/fan in the bathroom sounded like a helicopter. But wait there's more. The "few blocks" to downtown was a twenty-minute hike, the breakfast quiche was tasteless and the coffee wasn't available until 8:30 and then it was as weak it could possibly be. It almost looked like dirty tap water but it smelled a little like coffee so i guess it was.
After a sleepless night I spoke with management and told them we were checking out a day early. We have stayed in dozens of B and B's and have never done this before. I tried to get at least a partial refund but they insisted they were entitled to every nickel. I don't know if this is standard policy or not but it is insane. If they had us in a hole in the ground covered with a tarp would we still be responsible for the second day? Amazing.