Mount Saint Mary's University was founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in 1925 as the first Catholic women's college west of the Mississippi. It comprises two historic sites, the Chalon Campus high above Brentwood (1930), and the Doheny Campus, which occupies the former estate of Edward and Estelle Doheny, including the Doheny Mansion at 8 Chester Place (1899).

UCSB professor David Gebhard (1927-1996) founded the Architecture and Design Collection in 1963. Today it is one of the largest architectural archives in North America with more than 1,000,000 drawings, as well as papers, photographs, scrapbooks, models, decorative objects, and furniture. The focus of the collection is the design and architecture of southern California from the late 19th through…