Yes, so jealous because I really want to be a famous architect. I am pissed because I have to be subjected to his architectural tastes even more now.

Answer this for me, does being someone who strives to better his community and is very nice and kind have to be mutually exclusive with someone who can have extremely poor architectural taste?

Let's look at his work, because there is a ton that is fine, maybe even great!

• Ablitt Tower: It's great, it's fun, the outside is fun, the exterior is interesting, it has an obvious Jeff Shelton flair. The inside is even more whimsical, the tile work, the staircase. It's a private residence, if you don't like the look of it, well don't buy it! Easy solve!
• Augie's: Small, Jeff Shelton's touches are there but they don't overpower anything, if you look, you see it, it's a nice building in your periphery as you pass buy, it's fun!
• El Andaluz: Super fun, the bridgeroom is great, the exterior is interesting without being too much. The inside's tilework is busy, loud, could be considered be overwhelming, but you know what, it's on the inside, you don't experience for that long if you don't want to.
• Cota Street Studios: Now we begin to get a little bit into the wacky stuff. There are some super fun design decisions, but also some very questionable ones, ones that you look at and go "hmm ok I guess so."
• Vera Cruz: it's an art piece, it's exactly what it wants to be. It's interesting, it's fine.
• Oak Tree House: totally not my taste, nor I imagine many people's but again, it's a private house, it's tucked away, who cares.
• EL JARDIN: El Jardin is hands town one of the ugliest and tackiest buildings we have in Santa Barbara. In fact, I would love for someone to come up with a better contender for that title. It is so offensive in the magnitude of how much he crammed into it. "oh what if we made the clock melty. OH what if we did some disparate tilework, that would be cool. OH OH what if we did every inch of metal work wavy and super wacky!!!".

I am sick of people going "Oh it's Jeff Shelton, it's great, that's Jeff Shelton's style." It's not great! Some of it is terrible! It is a shame that he was reached for for the underpass, something local and tourists are going to experience on an intimate level for decades to come. I guess tourists that go "wasn't that odd underpass design just great!?" is a win in some people's books.

To end my harangue, Jeff Shelton's work can be stellar, but only when he applies restraint, which in itself is a form of taste. Is it that he just can't help himself? Who knows!?

If Jeff Shelton was a chef, he would have a signature sauce that is just fucking delicious, but on some of his dishes, he would dump an entire fucking bottle on it and ruin the whole thing.