Our Story

Back In 1935, Ona Lindsey purchased a little over an acre of the property at 4001 State Street, where she built four single-family homes.  She referred to the property as being “out in the country” since Santa Barbara was still in the growing stages. Ona had no children, so upon her death in 1985, she left the property to her niece Beryl Bootjer.  When Beryl passed on in 1994, the property went to her children, Charles and Jeanne Bootjer. Unfortunately, the houses had fallen into disrepair, so in 1998, Charles and Jeanne decided to look into repurposing the property.  They went to Jeanne’s friend and local architect Allen Zimmer for advice. He came up with several options – one of which was a self-storage facility. They decided to go that route and asked Allen to design the facility. Knowing a good thing when he saw it, Allen proposed becoming a partner instead and Charles and Jeanne agreed.  After six long years of dealing with the County of Santa Barbara’s approval process, State Street Storage finally opened for business in late 2004. The beautiful facility that Allen Zimmer designed proved to be an instant success and has continued to provide high-quality storage units to local residents ever since. When Charles Bootjer passed away in 2013, his wife Cecile and daughter Christy inherited his ownership shares and with the passing of Allen Zimmer in 2016, his daughters Kirsten, Augden, and Maud became owners as well.  Jeanne (Bootjer) Tekince remains an owner and acts as Managing Partner. All of the owners are proud to be part of this family run business and look forward to many more years of helping customers with their storage needs.