ON THE LIST of favorite local pastimes and preoccupations in Santa Barbara, from surfing to wine tasting to farm-to-table cuisine to hiking, real-estate-obsessing is at the top. It’s easy to see why. People want to move there, home inventory is low, and the possibilities—street after street of charming bungalows, modern ranches, and Mediterranean mansions—are plentiful. So for a city with roughly 100,000 residents, there is an out-sized, thriving community of interior designers, house flippers, remodelers, home stagers, hoteliers, and vacation rental managers who design and build living quarters of all kinds across town. Then there are people like sisters-in-law Katie Labourdette-Martinez and Olivia Wahler of Hearth Home Interiors, who manage to do all of the above, and have been actively shaping the cozy-coastal aesthetic the breezy beach town is known for…
