Married in 1903 to Carrie Robb Howard and soon father of two girls, Katherine and Medora, George was a devoted family man. At the same time, he was guiding the Curtis Company to increasing success - mainly through his own inventions and the machine and munitions contracts he secured for the firm during the first World War, which ended in 1918.

After experiencing the stress of wartime, along with the discovery a few years later of an unsuspected heart abnormality, George Steedman decided to simplify his life, change his priorities and turn from industry to the arts. The study of architecture had fascinated him as a student at Harvard, so he set out, with typical enthusiasm, to create a new home in a very different environment: Montecito, California.

Many Spanish treasures found in this upstairs bedroom remain intact from a 1923 buying trip to Spain by George Steedman and friends.

Both George and Carrie Steedman had been intrigued by the Montecito area on earlier visits to Santa Barbara. In 1922, after considering and rejecting properties near the ocean as too damp and foggy, the Steedmans bought eleven acres on East Valley Road and selected Montecito's premier architect, George Washington Smith, to design their new home.

No architect could have better matched Steedman's creative imagination than G.W. Smith, who encouraged owner participation in the planning process. Over the next three years the men's joint efforts produced a splendid example of a Spanish Colonial Revival residence, surrounded by carefully planned grounds and gardens. The estate, when finished, was exactly what George Steedman had in mind when he began the project with this direction to Smith: "I don't want anything showy, but I want it good."

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