The Guevaras renovated roughly half of the historic, 21,000-square-foot stable to be their home. (Photo by Chris Hardy)
Rancho Wikiup, a converted horse stable, now a bed and breakfast, and owner Nancy Guevara Inner courtyard with lawn and tower bedroom in back. (Chris Hardy)
Rancho Wikiup, a 100-year-old stable where famous thoroughbreds once pranced, is now home to Carlos and Nancy Guevara, who renovated the property and raised their family there. When their children trotted off, they turned this landmark that housed horse soldiers during World War II into a wedding and event venue extraordinaire.
Originally built by San Francisco industrialist John Rosseter in 1915, the 21,000-square-foot structure in the Larkfield-Wikiup neighborhood north of Santa Rosa is made of clear-grain Douglas fir, not a knot to be found. It surrounds a courtyard where horses grazed and couples now say their vows. Most of the stable doors are intact, with their original handmade hammered-brass hinges and silver door handles. Even the black stains from horse drool add authentic flair.
In the early 1990s, the Guevaras were living in Berkeley in a Victorian house they had completely upgraded. Ready for a new project and yearning for a more rural lifestyle, they began a search for a fixer-upper with an in-law unit on a large lot. Carlos had seen Wikiup in a magazine ad, and the family took a drive on a rainy Sunday to see it. A week later, in spring 1992, the place was theirs. “It was completely dilapidated,” Nancy said.
They moved into the ranch manager’s residence, giving Nancy’s father the only bedroom, and for six months she and Carlos shared an outdoor deck with their children, Erika and Gabriel, using sleeping bags and watching the sun rise and set. Carlos, a general contractor, started turning the hayloft into the master suite while sprucing up two existing rooms above the stables for the kids.
The room that became Erika’s has an autograph etched into the wood under the window that reads: Sgt. Milton L. Chenoweth, Btry. C 74th F. A., 5/14/42. Chenoweth was a mounted soldier with Battery C, one of the artillerymen who lived at what became Camp Wikiup when the U.S. Army requisitioned the property while guarding the coast during World War II.
For years after the Guevaras moved in, they used an itty-bitty kitchen that still remains in the ranch manager’s quarters. Nancy said even after Carlos completed the now-airy, high-end kitchen, she had become so used to cramped living that she would sit at the antique table and eat off her lap. Above the new kitchen island hang pendant lamps made of sheared agates, created by Nancy’s father, Dr. Kenneth S. Dod, who died in 2008. He also made the living room table and wind chimes.
The kitchen and a rustic recreation room with a pool table are in the south leg of the square of buildings that surround the courtyard. The kitchen adjoins the east side, the entire length of which has been turned into living space, with a dining room, great room and sitting area, wine storage downstairs and three bedrooms upstairs. Carlos built an open stairway connecting the two floors, fashioning it from fir salvaged from the horse stalls. Here and there are pieces of railing gnawed by Rosseter’s horses in the early 1920s.
Rosseter, who lived in San Francisco and was the owner of a steamship company and president of a flour mill, built Rancho Wikiup to raise thoroughbreds, and he and his wife spent leisure time there, often entertaining. The most famous of his horses was Disguise II, who won the Jockey Club Stakes, placed third in the Epsom Derby in 1900, and sired many winners in the racing world.
By the time the Guevaras acquired the property in 1992, the original 800-acre ranch overlooking Mark West Creek had been subdivided. The Guevaras own 11 acres. A hot tub and cobblestone-encased lap pool are nestled on the hillside among oak and bay trees behind the converted stables.
There is a parking area for 50 cars, graced with sculptures created by Carlos, who was an art student in his native Spain when he met Nancy while she was studying abroad in 1973. He moved to the Bay Area and they married. His knowledge of art is seen throughout Rancho Wikiup, its walls graced with interesting pieces he’s collected at auctions and galleries.
The couple renovated approximately 50 percent of the building, with the north side and much of the west side remaining as stables in their original condition. When weddings are held at the property, the great room is converted to a dance floor, with all the furniture moved out and stored in the stables.
The historic Rancho Wikiup stable where thoroughbred racehorses once lived now hosts rustically elegant Wine Country weddings.
Weddings are the most recent chapter of Rancho Wikiup’s history. Until the early 2000s, it was just the Guevara home. Erika had a horse, and the family had goats, chickens, ducks and dogs, living a busy family life. Once the kids were grown and gone, Carlos and Nancy had the idea to convert it to a bed-and-breakfast, haphazardly putting up a website that resulted in instant success. They started getting requests to use the property as an event venue, and now they rent only the entire space, not single rooms, while they bunk in the ranch manager’s residence.
Erika was married at Rancho Wikiup, and she and her bridesmaids honored the Wikiup tradition by wearing cowboy boots with their gowns.
Tiring for a while of all the work involved in hosting visitors and keeping up an aging site, the Guevaras listed the property for sale in 2011 at $2.5 million.
It sat on the market for two years, with an interesting array of potential owners wanting to make Rancho Wikiup a boutique hotel, yoga retreat or other business. But there was always some barrier. In the end, the Guevaras decided to stay put.
“It’s so nice here, quiet and pleasant all the time. We feel like we are living in a time capsule, in a different era,” Nancy said. “We plan to stay here until we drop dead.”
For 81 years, Mary Ferrario has faithfully visited her brother, Frankie Magliotto, at Sonoma Developmental Center. Frankie, a year older than Mary, was committed in 1934 to what was then known as Sonoma State Home. (Photo by Erik Castro)
For 81 years, Mary Ferrario has faithfully visited her brother, Frankie Magliotto, at Sonoma Developmental Center. Frankie, a year older than Mary, was committed in 1934 to what was then known as Sonoma State Home. (Photo by Erik Castro)
Brien Farrell remembers the day but not the pain. Maybe the feelings are fuzzy because he was only a small boy of 6. But he suspects the wound to his family left by separation was so deep he simply “blocked it out.”
On that day in 1958 Tom Farrell and his wife, Evelyn, pregnant with their fourth child, piled Brien and his two younger sisters into the station wagon and made the half-hour drive to Eldridge, just past the village of Glen Ellen. They returned to Santa Rosa with only two kids in the back seat and an emptiness that would linger for decades.
Missing was Susan, a dark-haired, dark-eyed child of 4. She was tiny, self-contained, unable to speak and averse to touch. As time went on it became clear she was not developing like her siblings.
It was a time when there were few services available for the disabled outside of institutions and even Evelyn, a trained nurse, felt unequipped for Susan’s special needs, which included autism and an IQ of 17. A concerned family pediatrician recommended she be admitted to Sonoma State Hospital.
Susan would come home for holidays and visits but never to live. She would remain forever to her family a “Heavenly Guest,” as her father described her in a poem that became an anthem to the daughter he relinquished but never stopped loving with a longing so fierce that it turned him into a national crusader for the disabled until his death last year at 88. A building at Sonoma Developmental Center bears his name.
In 1958, Susan Farrell, right, in an undated family snapshot, was sent to live at Sonoma State Hospital, now Sonoma Developmental Center. Her father, Tom, later wrote a poem that expressed the family’s pain at the separation.
Separating from Susan, Brien Farrell remembers with a wince, “was the hardest thing my family ever had to do. It wasn’t done impulsively.”
When Susan arrived 57 years ago, “Sonoma” (as it was often called) had 3,200 residents, many of them children, a waiting list half as long and a staff of 1,300 in starched white uniforms.
She is now one of fewer than 400 residents who remain on a 945-acre campus targeted for closure under a proposal by Gov. Jerry Brown. With 1,305 jobs, the center is Sonoma Valley’s largest employer. The State Department of Developmental Services, which oversees the center, in October will submit a plan to the Legislature to shut down Sonoma Developmental Center by the end of 2018.
Many disability advocates applaud the move, saying that large institutions are an anachronism.
“It’s an outdated mode of treatment. As a society we don’t
segregate groups of people anymore based on anything,” said Katie Hornberger, director of the office of Clients’ Rights Advocacy with Disability Rights California, which advocates for the disabled. Her office works under contract to the Department of Developmental Services, which oversees the care of 280,000 individuals, most served by 21 community-based centers. Only about 1,030 residents remain in the three remaining developmental centers (Sonoma, Costa Mesa and Porterville).
“We wouldn’t buy a 1,000-acre parcel and say this is just for women or one racial group. When we look at why we integrate people, the benefits are amazing,” Hornberger added, noting that communities become more sensitive and accepting while the disabled themselves are given opportunities they didn’t have before.
But some families, like the Farrells, feel blindsided by the news that the state intends to shutter the Sonoma center so fast. For their loved ones, Sonoma is not a cold and impersonal institution, but home — sometimes the only one they have ever known. Despite a state pledge of nearly $50 million to transition the remaining residents into community homes and services, some families fear inferior care will put their relatives at risk.
Family members of SDC residents are not alone in their concerns. A report earlier this year by the Association of Regional Centers warned that years of underfunding of community-based services for the developmentally disabled have left the system “on the brink of collapse.” Service providers have been forced to trim their standards or close altogether, and regional centers have increased their case-loads to “above legally required levels.” The impact of underfunding, the report said, has left the developmentally disabled increasingly “without adequate services and supports to meet their needs.”
“I do think people safely transition. But there are gaps in community care and people are falling through them,” said Kathleen Miller. Her son, Danny Smith, an autistic with developmental disabilities and mental illness, was kicked out of two community homes and was often in restraints at other facilities. Since he came to Sonoma 15 years ago, she said, he has been so much better.
Still, the state’s developmental centers have had their dark chapters, among them overcrowding, allegations of forced sterilization, and medical experiments done on people with cerebral palsy at Sonoma in the 1950s. In the 1990s, after a teenage boy was found injured and lying in a pool of blood in a shower, a class-action lawsuit resulted in a settlement that stepped up the exodus of residents from developmental centers.
There have been other troubling reports of neglect and abuse at the Sonoma facility over the years. Investigations into allegations of unsafe care at Eldridge put federal funding for 11 units in its intermediate care facility in peril two years ago. Investigators said center staff failed to protect clients and did not follow proper medication protocols.
The center lost federal certification for four of the units, so the annual $13 million funding had to be taken from the state’s general fund. This summer, an agreement was reached that preserves federal Medicaid funding for the other seven units under certification.
State officials stress that the decision to shut down its remaining developmental centers reflects a nationwide shift in how people with developmental disabilities are served, a shift that began more than 45 years ago.
But expense is part of the equation. The state has estimated that the cost of caring for a single person at a developmental center has risen to $500,000 a year, compared to an estimated $75,000 to $300,000 in community care centers.
Danny Miller, who carries a plush dog named Tom everywhere he goes at Sonoma Developmental Center, arrived at Eldridge in 2000. His mother, Kathleen, right, worked as a psychiatric social worker at SDC.
There is also widespread community interest in what happens to the land. Most of Eldridge is undeveloped, some 700 acres of redwoods and large stands of ancient oaks. Forests of evergreens and shimmering meadows of grass unfold into panoramic views of the upper Valley of the Moon, the same land that inspired the pen of neighboring rancher Jack London.
It is wild, patrolled by Golden Eagles, spotted owls, bobcats and mountain lions. Sonoma Creek, habitat for threatened steelhead trout and endangered California freshwater shrimp, meanders through on the valley floor and Suttonfield Lake, a reservoir for the center, seeps unseen through the folds of the hills along its eastern border next to Sonoma Valley Regional Park.
Surrounded by 9,000 acres of protected open space and parks, Sonoma Developmental Center is a prized piece of land coveted by environmentalists and recreation advocates determined to keep it protected for wildlife and public use.
When Susan Farrell arrived at the Sonoma center, it was a bustling world apart, a self-sufficient community in a sylvan setting at the base of Sonoma Mountain, adjoining Jack London’s beloved Beauty Ranch. It had its own post office, police and fire departments, cottage industries, dairy and hog farm, and a morgue and cemetery. A reporter at the time observed that it looked “more like a country estate than an institution,” with long stretches of neatly kept lawn and gardens, baseball fields and playgrounds.
Most of the residents had mild to severe developmental disabilities. But sprinkled within the population were more than a few unfortunates who were mentally able but dumped there for dubious reasons lost to time.
“People were there for hundreds of different reasons,” said Markley Sutton, a retired program director and senior psychologist who worked at Sonoma Developmental Center for more than 30 years. “I had a guy who came over to San Francisco on a three-masted schooner. He was just a sailor in a bar on the Barbary Coast. He got picked up and brought to Sonoma.”
Social attitudes, however, were already shifting. One hospital officer told a reporter in 1958 that state hospitals existed to provide care only until society had “matured” to a level where it was ready to give families the support they needed to keep their children out of big institutions.
In the 1960s, California schools were required to provide training programs for “the trainable retarded” and the state set up a series of regional centers to oversee support and services in the communities. Beginning in 1969, the Lanterman Act established that people with developmental disabilities and their families are entitled to the services and support they need to live like everyone else. California began emptying its institutions.
But Susan Farrell stayed at the Sonoma facility. Her family was convinced that despite its flaws, the large staff at Sonoma Developmental Center was then, and is now, better equipped to care for her than a private care home. She defies any easy label, said her brother, Brien. Susan has “pervasive developmental disabilities,” a seizure disorder and cerebral palsy.
Her life is simple. She has a day program where she might play with trucks (she prefers shiny red ones and likes to sleep with them) or gaze at magazines. She can’t read but Brien suspects she may be drawn to the colors. She prefers to stand at the sidelines of activities and groups, observing, and habitually walks in and out of the front door multiple times a day.
The lushness of Eldridge streets contrasts with the deterioration of vacant buildings.
He visits regularly, taking her for small walks or out to McDonald’s, one of the most accepting places in Sonoma, he says, for a cheeseburger and coke with no ice.
“She has a social worker who is her advocate and ferocious about making sure any medical appointment or other service that Susan needs are taken care of,” said Farrell, a retired Santa Rosa city attorney who now shares conservatorship over Susan with his wife, Kathy. “There is a day program and there is music. There is a physician who has treated her for 16 years, a gentle, soft-spoken man who works there because he is drawn to working there, not because he was forced to. There are psych techs who have worked with her for many years. Some interact with her every day.”
Eldridge is, by bits and pieces, turning into a ghost town. Twelve of the 145 buildings, many predating World War II, stand empty in varying stages of deterioration. They include the stately brick administration building that has loomed at the end of the main, palm-lined approach since 1908. Many of the old residence “cottages” are now used for offices and storage. Monthly, the center holds public rummage sales to offload furniture and equipment.
Those who are left are, like Susan, older, beset with difficult-to-manage behaviors or are medically fragile. Although they range in age from 23 to 91, 75 percent are older than 50.
The lingering public perception about people in large institutions is one of neglect, souls locked away, abandoned and unloved. In fact, parents in the old days frequently were encouraged to cut ties with their children once they were admitted to the center, out of the misguided belief that it was the best thing, Sutton said.
And yet there are others, including the Farrells and Kathleen Miller, who heads the vocal Parent Hospital Association at Sonoma Developmental Center, who have held on to their family ties with a devotion both tender and unyielding. Not every resident is so fortunate. Only half have a family member serving as a legal conservator.
The story of these last remaining families is also the story of the 124-year-old Eldridge. As residents have aged or passed on, a brother, sister, niece or nephew has stepped forward to maintain the bond, gain conservatorship and watch out for their welfare.
For Mary Ferrario, the ties stretch more than 80 years. She was only 7, growing up on a small farm in San Lorenzo, now San Leandro, when her mother went to juvenile court in downtown Oakland to have her brother, Frankie Magliotto, committed to the Sonoma State Home. She did it only under pressure from a social worker who was concerned that Mary wasn’t going to school. Magliotto, born a year before her with serious brain injuries, was following her to school.
“I remember him always coming around and destroying things that I had,” Ferrario recalled. “My mother kept me home so she could watch him and watch me. She said she couldn’t be in two places at one time.”
Ferrario’s mother was born to an Italian family in South America. Her father was from Italy. There was no help and no respite for an immigrant mother with limited English during the depths of the Depression.
The vine-covered administration building that dates to 1908.
The entire family unfailingly made the long drive to Sonoma on the first Sunday of the month, her mother always at the wheel. They would leave at 6 a.m. and return 12 hours later.
“I think she was relieved,” said Ferrario, “but it must have been a heavy cross for her to bear.”
The little girl who still remembers that melancholy first trip to Sonoma on Aug. 20, 1934 — the date burned into her memory because it was the Feast of St. Bernardo — is now 87, recently widowed and a cancer survivor.
She has made that trip faithfully for 80 years. When her son and daughter were born in the 1960s, they, too, came along. In the early years they would bring Magliotto home for overnight visits. But after a medical scare kept the family up all night, they began picking him up in the morning, bringing him home and then driving him back to Eldridge at night, more than 260 miles on the road. On holidays, Ferrario said, her mother would set out a plate for Magliotto, even when he wasn’t there.
Now she comes with her son, Paul, 54, his wife, Julie, and their three young children, all equally devoted to their Uncle Frank.
On one summer day they arrive at his unit brimming with affection and laden with amusements to pique his interest.
Ferrario greets her brother with a kiss and sits close so they each can hear one another, leaning in and taking his gnarled hand into her own. Sometimes when she wants to make sure he understands, she falls back into the Italian language of their childhood, which he still remembers.
“Now he seems more like my child than my brother,” she conceded.
Paul Ferrario is an equal champion for his only uncle. His affection runs deep. On this visit he has brought empty containers of common items: sardines, ketchup, little things that will intrigue his uncle. He has also rigged a board with old electrical insulators he found around the house, similar to something that amused Magliotto as a little boy back on the farm. Ferrario for years has searched out the old transistor radios his uncle still cherishes. Magliotto’s physical needs now are considerable, yet his desires are simple.
Painfully shy as a boy, Ferrario said he believes he learned a few things about life observing his uncle, who has always been unselfconscious and guileless, endlessly curious about little things, and who seems to know everyone in Sonoma Valley. Before he suffered a stroke last year, Magliotto would be taken by his family to Mary’s Pizza Shack, or Eraldi’s for new clothes. He had no fear about walking up and asking people questions. Guys in trucks would drive by, lean out the window and call his name. Ferrario said he observed with envy the women who would come up to them in line at the drug store to greet Frank.
“Invariably,” he dryly recalled, “they were gorgeous.”
Autistic and unable to speak, Susan Farrell was 4 when she was admitted to Sonoma State Hospital in 1958. Today, she still lives at Sonoma Developmental Center, where her older brother, Brien, often visits.
When he was still in his 20s, his mother recruited Paul and his sister, Julia Sells, who lives in Arizona, to be co-conservators for Uncle Frank. He wound up as president of the Parent Hospital Association and a vociferous advocate, traveling to Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to speak out for services, funding and the Sonoma Developmental Center.
“I found my inner voice,” Ferrario said.
He didn’t marry until he was in his 40s. But he said he knew he had found the right one in Julie when she connected immediately with Uncle Frank.
Now Ferrario is doing everything he can to make sure that Magliotto can live out his remaining days in his home of 80 years, in the place that is familiar, and with staff who know him and treat him like extended family.
Ferrario said he remembers as a boy looking at Magliotto’s bed lined up with so many others and feeling sorry that he didn’t have his own bedroom. But now he does, a room he shares with another man and that is filled with pictures and the things he loves, such as his transistor radio, toys, and the cattails he knits from yarn and that Mary has crocheted into any number of rugs and chairpads scattered throughout her house.
Over the years, Magliotto attended ballgames in San Francisco and visited the beach at Bodega Bay. He enjoyed the many activities at the rehabilitation center, particularly the Halloween parade.
“I think he had a wonderful life,” said Mary Ferrario.
Reflecting back, her son, an administrative analyst for East Bay Regional Parks, said whatever he has given, he has received back in spades from his relationship with his uncle.
“It helps you cut through all the noise we have in society, all of the superficial things. All of the vanities that surround us in life,” he said. “It struck me as a teenager. My mom over the years brought Frank a couple of TV sets. He wanted no part of them. He knew the people on the tube weren’t real. There are always treacherous people in life driven by jealousy and ambition. You visit somebody like Frankie, it brings back the humanity and balances out the distasteful part of life.”
When Pat Walter tried to get her severely disabled daughter, Andrea, admitted to Sonoma Developmental Center 14 years ago, the door was all but locked. She found a Napa attorney who was willing to go up against the Department of Developmental Services in court. It took months, but Walter was determined and prevailed.
At the time, Andrea had been at Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa for months with recurring pneumonia. The hospital wanted to discharge her. Walter felt her daughter, who could no longer swallow food, was too fragile to live at home in Napa or in a community care home like the one in St. Helena where she had resided from age 7 to 19, coming home on weekends for visits.
“They wanted me to send her to a geriatric nursing home,” Walter said. “It was good, but they didn’t have the kind of care she needed. They didn’t have the suctioning for her lungs. There was a whole plethora of things they didn’t have.”
At its peak, Eldridge was a self-sufficient community with its own post office, police and fire departments, community store and hog and dairy farm. Today, a dozen of its 145 buildings are mostly empty.
When Andrea was born in 1981, she was a rare perfect 10 on the Apgar chart that scores the health of newborns. She seemed to be thriving for her first two months, smiling and waving her arms. Then it all stopped, right after her first immunizations at 2 months old. For two days, Andrea, was quiet, then woke up crying and screaming. Tests at 7 months showed abnormalities. Anti-seizure medication calmed her down, Walter said, but she wasn’t developing. Her slowness was all the more apparent when her sister, Carolyn, was born two years later.
Walter, a clinical microbiologist, suspects there might be a correlation between her daughter’s disability and the shots. But neither she nor her ex-husband, a neurologist, pressed a case.
“I believe in immunizations, but if I had known my child would be the one to pay the price, I would have withheld. Yet they’re so important to society,” she said.
At 67, Walter still mothers her frail oldest daughter, whom she affectionately calls Sweet Pea. She visits once a week. While there are no heart-to-heart talks, Andrea likes to be talked to, her mother said, and makes little noises back. They connect over the tiniest of things. Walter will brush her child’s teeth and her hair, convinced she enjoys being touched.
Andrea has advanced osteoporosis and her bones are brittle; a recent hip fracture was discovered by center staff through a routine check of her vitals.
Walter worries about her daughter’s future and the ability of a smaller facility with fewer staff to handle Andrea’s intensive needs or know if she is in pain.
“One of the main things is that there is round-the-clock nursing care. At Sonoma, they move her every two hours so she doesn’t get bed sores. They know how to clean her properly. They do vital signs three times a day. They picked up that she had a necrotic gallbladder just through her blood pressure. I know that may be an unreasonable standard of care, but as long as it exists,” she declared, “I’m going to get the best for her so she won’t suffer.”
Walter said she understands that many people with mild to moderate disabilities are far better off in the community. But for Andrea, some well-intentioned efforts to normalize her, in fact, overlook her real needs. Her daughter doesn’t need “privacy,” as some advocates would argue. She enjoys company and would be lonely, her mother said. “If she’s not sick and weather is permitting, I get her up in her chair and take her for a walk. She likes it slow so she can look at things. She likes the firetrucks. I help her touch the chrome. She loves looking up at the trees.”
Kathleen Miller’s concerns are different for her son, Danny. At 48, he looks like any other man, except for the plush dog named Tom that he carries everywhere.
He can converse in simple ways and is free to walk around Sonoma Developmental Center, taking familiar routes. He walks to his vocational training program at Sunrise Industries past the small Junior Farm, where he does small jobs such as shredding paper. He makes a little money, which he spends on treats at the center’s store.
He can exhibit the sweetness of a little boy and often is endearing, with his flatteries and expressions of affection. But he also is volatile, and that is what worries his family.
Some advocates for closure of the center have suggested that the families who oppose the move are stuck in the past and don’t understand what’s available and why the community is better.
“There is some truth to that, especially among the older ones who have had family members in Sonoma so long they’ve never bothered to look. But some of us are more savvy. I’ve been out there. I’ve visited those homes. I’ve asked questions,” said Miller, who lives in Santa Rosa. A youthful blonde of 69, she had Danny when she was 21.
A single mom, she raised him at home along with her daughter, Molly Dillon, who is one year younger than Danny.
“He was this blond-haired, green-eyed little boy, very athletic, he was in Special Olympics, and beautiful,” said Dillon, an assistant city attorney for Santa Rosa and a co-conservator for her brother. “As much as he was difficult, he also gave us a lot of joy. He could be very funny.”
Once he hit puberty, however, Danny exhibited signs of bipolar disorder. It was too much for Miller, who had gone back to school to become a psychiatric social worker. For years she struggled to find the right placement for him. He was kicked out of several group homes, landed more than once in an acute psychiatric hospital, and spent time at several other developmental centers, including Camarillo, which shut down in 1997, forcing her to find a community placement that also didn’t work out.
“He will make threats. He will tell people to get out of his way if he wants something. He threatens to hurt himself. Sometimes he is self-abusive. He would pick and bite at his finger and skin until it was bleeding,” Dillon said of her brother in his most anxious times.
Without careful management of his medication, he would sometimes need to be restrained. His usually tough mother tears up remembering times when he was so debilitated.
But since he came to Sonoma in 2000, Danny has not needed restraint. He is free to walk the grounds without danger of frightening someone or getting into trouble with people who don’t understand his disabilities, his mother said.
The complexities of caring for someone like Danny, she explained, have “made me a stark raving maniac advocate person.” She also came to understand it from the inside, after working seven years as a psychiatric social worker at SDC.
“I think there were years when there were too many people at the developmental centers and the care wasn’t as good. I haven’t experienced those years. By the time Danny got to Camarillo, they were beyond that. The whole time he’s been in a developmental center, I’ve never seen the things they talked about in the days of old. I’ve always seen caring staff and competence.”
Miller and other parents are fighting fier cely to ensure that when the Sonoma center inevitably closes, the types of community homes needed by the medically fragile and those with severe behavior problems will be in place and that crisis and other support services will remain at Eldridge.
Their loved ones, they say, are worth it.
“I adore him,” Miller said of Danny, quietly through a tight throat. “He’s got the sweetest heart. To know him is to love him. He annoys the hell out of me and other people sometimes. But he fights to be good. He has such a hard time. It’s not fair. But you know? Life’s not fair.”
She and others are quick to point out that the effort has its returns. Their loved ones, children, their siblings, their uncles, have taught them lessons about compassion, commitment and the preciousness of life at its most fundamental.
After he retired as an attorney, Brien Farrell took on a second career teaching civics and economics at Elsie Allen High School with a student body both diverse and economically challenged. He loved it and he loved the spirit and hearts of his students.
“I don’t think I would have done that,” he said, “if not for Susan.”
Walter said when she realized Andrea was not going to be “normal,” she grieved. “I would wake up from a dream where she would be talking, and suddenly she wasn’t talking anymore. But it’s been a long time. Being with Andrea is like meditating, because it’s so simple and without guilt. It’s restful, nourishing, comforting. Life, for her, is what it is right now. There are very few things in our lives that are like that.
“I guess if you wanted to give me another normal daughter, I would be happy with that. But I wouldn’t change Andrea for a normal daughter. She’s the one I love now.”
Walter Schug smelling one of his wines. (Photo by Chris Hardy)
Walter Schug recently gave up driving. His once-efficient, purposeful stride is a bit slower, his hearing a tad less acute, his German-engineered mind not as precise as it once was. It’s what can happen on the cusp of turning 80.
Yet on a hot morning before the start of the 2015 wine grape harvest — Schug’s 60th, 55th in California and 35th in Sonoma — his driver steers his car up the driveway to Schug Carneros Estate, past the flapping flags of the United States, Germany, California and the San Francisco Giants. As he exits the vehicle, Schug dons a jacket and straw fedora, cinches his lavender necktie tight, and heads for the winery he began building in 1989, south of the town of Sonoma. Carneros was a young winegrowing region at the time, yet Schug and his wife, Gertrud, recognized its potential for growing Pinot Noir — and staked their claim.
The exterior of Schug Carneros Estate, with its straight lines, peaked roof and timber framing, looks very much like the winery where Schug grew up, Staatsweingut Assmannshausen, in Germany’s Rhine Valley. It was managed by his father, Ewald, and young Walter romped among the vines, played in the cellar, helped out during harvest when he got older, and absorbed the winemaking dedication imparted by Ewald.
Once inside his own cellar and its cooling aging caves, Schug’s step has extra bounce, his clear blue eyes a twinkle. This is where he is most at home, as he has been for three-fourths of his long, successful life. In a winery, making wine.
“All this equipment, it comes from Germany,” Schug explains with a sweep of his hand. The presses, the pumps, the fermentation tanks, the 669-gallon wood oval casks for the aging of wine — all were manufactured in Germany and shipped to Schug when he began building the winery and planting grapes. “The equipment used in California back then was shit.”
“Back then” includes Schug’s 11 years working for wineries in California’s Central Valley and as a grower relations representative for Modesto’s E. & J. Gallo. In the following years (1972-79), Schug selected the site and helped plant Joseph Phelps Vineyards in St. Helena, where he and his family lived at the time. As the Phelps winemaker, Schug bottled the first varietally labeled Syrah in California and Napa Valley’s first ice wine. In 1974, he produced what was to become one of the most prized and highest-rated Bordeaux-style red blends in America, Insignia, which today commands $225 a bottle. Producing single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignons from Phelps’ Eisele and Backus vineyards was years ahead of the trend.
Schug’s own Carneros wines, which come from 42 acres of estate grapes and purchased fruit, are made in a firm, crisp, elegant European style. They’re neither super-ripe nor heavy, instead compact and refined, and include Sonoma-grown Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, a full-bodied yet dry sparkling Rouge de Noirs, and a late-harvest Riesling from Lake County grapes. All are superb, yet it’s Pinot Noir that commands Schug’s keenest attention and accounts for 60 percent of his winery’s annual production. You can take the man out of Germany, but not Germany out of the man.
The first wine Schug made for Phelps was Riesling, even though Staatsweingut Assmannshausen was a Pinot Noir specialist, surrounded by Riesling producers. Phelps soon allowed Schug to add Pinot Noir, but the U.S. market wasn’t yet ready for it, and Joseph Phelps Vineyards abandoned the varietal after the
1979 vintage.
“Joe couldn’t sell the Pinot, so I said, ‘Let me see what I can do,’” Schug recalled. “He said yes and didn’t charge me a cent. So in 1980, I began purchasing the same Pinot Noir grapes that had gone into the Phelps wines.”
Schug would work at Phelps through the 1983 harvest, moonlighting as the maker of his family’s wine brand, which launched in 1980.
“I never planned to leave Phelps, but the winery needed the cellar space I was using for my own wines,” he explained. He moved production to an alternate location, then another, and realized there was opportunity on the Sonoma side of Carneros to buy land, plant grapes and build his own facility.
“You get a certain feeling in your body of what Pinot Noir needs, where it wants to grow, where it needs more fog,” he said. “I felt that in Carneros.”
Even at Phelps, owned by Colorado architect Joe Phelps (who died in April at 87), German-made equipment was Schug’s choice, a guarantee, he said, that things would work as expected.
“But Insignia wasn’t intended,” he said. “Once a month, we had a staff tasting of blends of various red-wine components, and someone said of a particular blend, ‘Doesn’t this smell French-y?’ We laughed at the joke. But it happened again the next month. We had Joe taste the wine on one of his visits, and he liked French wine. He said, ‘It’s actually pretty darn good.’ So we bottled it but didn’t know what to call it. I was a proponent of varietal labeling, not blends of varieties, but Joe said, ‘We will call it Insignia.’ He priced it at $20, outrageous at the time.”
It sold like crazy and has ever since.
Steven Spurrier, the British Master of Wine who conducted the now-famous 1976 Judgment of Paris tasting, at which a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon beat France’s Bordeaux wines at their own game, was so intrigued by Insignia, Schug said, “he contacted me to find out how it was done. The 1974 vintage was mostly Cabernet, the 1975 mostly Merlot. We weren’t committed to the same blend each year.”
chug never formally worked at his father’s winery. After six years working in viticulture and winemaking in Germany and England, and earning a diploma from the prestigious Geisenheim institute in the Rheingau region of Germany in 1954, he was invited to serve an internship in Delano, south of Fresno. He rushed home to marry Gertrud in Germany in 1961, and a month later, they put themselves and their Volkswagen Beetle — skis attached — on a boat to New York. From there, they drove to California, where Walter had been offered full-time work by winemakers who had visited him and his father in Germany. He worked for five years for a bulk wine processor in the Central Valley, then was hired by E. & J. Gallo in 1966. With his wife and three children now based in St. Helena, Schug was responsible for managing Gallo’s numerous North Coast grapegrowers. The late Julio Gallo is widely credited with sussing out great North Coast grapes for Gallo’s wines, but Schug was his man on the ground, day to day, wheeling and dealing, and always looking for new fruit sources.
In the six years Schug worked with Gallo, “He learned all the good spots to plant grapes, and the not so good,” said his son, Axel, now Schug Carneros Estate’s managing partner. “Joe Phelps wanted that knowledge when he hired Dad. Dad would check out the land or vines, tell Joe he wanted it, and Mr. Phelps would write the check. They trusted each other.”
“We never had an argument,” Walter added. “I knew who had what. For example, we were buying Riesling from the Stanton Vineyard (in Yountville, Napa Valley) and it had 12 rows of Cabernet Sauvignon that sold to another winery. I told John Stanton, ‘I want it all.’ ‘They’ll kick your ass,’ he replied. I said, ‘Let ’em kick.’ And I got it all.”
David Graves, who worked for Schug at Phelps in 1979 before co-founding Saintsbury winery in Carneros, has watched the man work for years.
“There is a very sweet side to Walter, an analytical side, a serious side and a knee-slapping sense of humor. He is very proud of his children and grandchildren,” Graves said. “He was well-trained at Geisenheim, and that European perspective informed his entire American winemaking career.”
Despite his achievements, Schug has not sought the spotlight. It doesn’t seem to be in his nature, though he is obviously proud of his work. Perhaps if he’d stayed in Napa Valley, he would be considered more of a superstar than he already is, considering the cachet Napa wines and their makers have. Or maybe if his wines, priced $20 to $50, were as expensive as Insignia now is, he would be seen in a brighter light by those who don’t know his history. No matter.
“I’m just happy we have everything we have,” he said simply.
Can he think of a particularly challenging vintage he’s experienced in California? “No. They’re all fine.”
A particularly great year? “They’ve all been good.”
Schug comes to the winery most days and participates in the blending trials with his right-hand winemaking man, Michael Cox, who has been with Schug Carneros Estate since 1995. Schug’s title is now Winemaster Emeritus.
Gertrud died of cancer in 2007. Axel runs the business side, his sister, Claudia Schuetz, sells Schug wines in Germany, and her twin, Andrea Vonk, is a San Diego CPA who keeps an eye on the financials. When asked if he’d ever consider selling the winery and vineyards, Walter’s quick response is: “Never.”
At an Oct. 17 dinner at his winery, family, friends and wine club members will help Walter Schug celebrate his many milestones. But he’s not calling it quits.
“Retirement?” he asked. “I don’t know what that is.”
In the original “Ghostbusters” movie, Dr. Peter Venkman, the character played by Bill Murray, tells the mayor of New York City that the metropolis is “headed for a disaster of biblical proportions … human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.”
All because of a bunch of ghosts.
Sonoma is probably safe: Who could be bothered to go running around in circles, screaming, when there’s so much good food and wine around?
But that doesn’t mean Sonoma doesn’t have ghost sightings. Current and former winery sites have reported apparitions from time to time, enough to spawn a mini-industry of “ghost tours” led by “experts.”
Bartholomew Park Winery. ((Photo by Clay McLachlan)
The patron saint of Sonoma haunts is Carla Heine, who wrote a guide on the subject, “Sonoma Ghosts: True Stories of Sonoma’s Haunted History,” and devised a self-guided tour around town for those looking for ghosts. (A haunted winery is not the same as a ghost winery. The latter is a winery built in the late 1800s and abandoned before or during Prohibition, reduced mostly to rubble over time.)
Sonoma ghostbusters should check out these reportedly haunted places:
Sonoma
Bartholomew Park Winery
Planted to vines in the 1830s and later purchased by Agoston Haraszthy (also the founder of neighboring Buena Vista Winery), Bartholomew Park was many things, including a women’s prison, a hospital and a morgue, before becoming the winery it is today.
In the 1940s, journalist Frank Bartholomew purchased Buena Vista. He sold the winery in 1968 but kept most of the vineyards, turning the old hospital into the Hacienda Cellars winery. It became the Sonoma Valley Wine Museum and Bartholomew Park Winery in 1992.
The museum tells the tale of the site’s meandering history, which includes a spooky side. Ghosts are said to congregate in the winery’s main building and its basement, which was once a morgue. The story goes that remains of one of the incarcerated women were found in the basement walls during a 1970s earthquake retrofit. Heine says there are at least three resident ghosts. Jeff Dwyer, author of the book “Ghost Hunter’s Guide to California’s Wine Country,” wrote: “A short time after the winery opened, employees heard voices singing in the cellar that once housed prisoners. The choir is heard in the afternoon and again late at night. Hymns are the usual choice.”
The recently refurbished and spectacular Buena Vista embraces its past of ghostly activity with vigor, hosting haunted cellar parties in its stone-walled Champagne Cellar.
Agoston Haraszthy, “The Count of Buena Vista,” founded the winery in 1857 and planted grapevines from cuttings brought in from Europe. He later moved to Nicaragua, where he is said to have met a grisly demise in the maw of an alligator. Haraszthy’s remains were never found; might his ghost have returned to roam here?
18000 Old Winery Road, Sonoma, 800-926-1266, buenavistawinery.com
Kenwood
Chateau St. Jean
In Kenwood, the picturesque, picnic-friendly Chateau St. Jean is known for a wide selection of wines, perhaps none more famous than its red Bordeaux blend, Cinq Cepages.
Also somewhat famous is the property’s ghost. Michigan residents Ernest and Maude Goff built a summer home on the site of what is now the winery and vineyards, taking residence in 1920. Their daughter, Camilla, died in her teen years, and St. Jean employees say her spirit looks after the house (now the Chateau, which is used for administrative purposes, with the visitor center and winery building behind it). The Goffs owned the stately home until 1970; Chateau St. Jean winery was born in 1973.
No less than the California Wine Institute has reported this winery’s ghost, a Native American man said to be there because the site was once a Pomo reservation. There’s also something fishy going in DCV6, also called Bullock House Vineyard, where a guesthouse is reportedly haunted.
“We used the Bullock House to host trade visitors until 10 years ago or so,” said Dry Creek Vineyard’s director of marketing and communications, Bill Smart. “Several of those guests reported hearing creaking, footsteps and door-slamming at night. I haven’t experienced it, but enough people have that I believe there is paranormal activity there.”
The winery no longer puts up guests at Bullock House.
The brandy tower at Korbel Champagne Cellars in Guerneville, a winery with a history of strange happenings. (Photo by Christopher Chung)
In the 2014 horror film “Altergeist,” King’s Ransom Winery is portrayed as the most haunted place in North America, the site of murders, suicides, fires and odd sightings. Six paranormal investigators search for evidence of ghosts that have haunted the estate for generations.
Filmed on location at Korbel Champagne Cellars, the movie — “based on true events,” according to the movie’s website — was produced by Aaron Heck and written and directed by Tedi Sarafian. They said Korbel was their inspiration, as Heck grew up on the property his family has owned since 1954.
Heck, son of Korbel owner and president Gary Heck, tells of a cook taking her own life in the 1880s, in the attic of the home of the founding Korbel brothers. Their Korbel House still stands and is surrounded by gorgeous gardens that attract visitors from far and wide. Groundskeepers have reported strange happenings in and around the house, including orbs of light moving through the redwoods at night.
“The sightings are hearsay,” said Margie Healy, Korbel’s vice president of communications. “But one night, as I was saying goodbye to our guests by the pool, I saw a light on upstairs in the Korbel House. A colleague who was with me said, ‘There is no lighting up there.’ Others have told us that things in the house are moved, and that they feel a presence there.”
13250 River Road, Guerneville, 707-824-7316, korbel.com
Healdsburg
Madrona Manor
The beautifully manicured grounds of this estate belie a haunted past and a ghost, an older woman dressed in black who some believe to be the manor’s original owner. Built in the early 1880s as Madrona Knoll Rancho, the manor had 17 rooms, four bathrooms and seven fireplaces. The Paxton family paid $10,500 for its 240 acres in 1879 and another $12,000 to construct the buildings.
With vineyards already planted on the hillsides of the property, patriarch John Paxton purchased another 40 acres in 1881 to build a winery, but he never saw its completion, as he died aboard a steamer ship on the way to England. His widow, Hannah Paxton, remained at the manor until her death in 1902, at which time one of her sons, Blitz, moved in. The manor remained a private residence until 1981.
In his book, ghost hunter Dwyer claims to have seen Hannah’s ghost moving about the house, which is now the Madrona Manor inn with a Michelin-starred restaurant. Room 101 is said to be a common location for apparitional activity, although owners Trudi and Bill Konrad say that’s hooey.
Jeff Kunde, far right, leads a hike for dogs and their humans at his Kunde Family Winery in Kenwood. (Courtesy Kunde Family Winery)
There’s terrific beer at HopMonk Tavern in Sonoma and Sebastopol, and top-notch wines at Kunde Family Winery in Kenwood. There are plush beds at Dry Creek Inn of Healdsburg, and delicious food served at Garden Court Café & Bakery in Glen Ellen. All the things anyone could want for a great time in Wine Country.
Pooches can ride along to many winery, hotel and restaurant venues in Sonoma’s Wine Country, where they are made as welcome as their humans. (Photo by Jeremy Portje)
Yet each of these destinations caters to a special kind of visitor: the furry, tail-wagging, wiggling canine kind. Sure, humans are welcome, too, yet no feelings should be hurt if a pup gets a bit more cooing over than its person.
How important are our animal friends? From 2010 to 2015, pet ownership in the United States increased by about 3 percent. Yet during that time, spending on pet items increased nearly 25 percent, to what is expected to be $60.5 billion this year, according to the American Pet Products Association. It should be little surprise, then, that as pets are increasingly being treated as children, their “parents” have become more demanding, expecting establishments to pamper both them and their pooches.
Sonoma businesses get it. It’s so easy to bring Fido along for drinks, dinner and hotel stays here that a 2014 Sonoma County Tourism report found that visitors ranked “pet friendly” as one of the top 10 draws of the region.
“The old model where you hire a pet sitter or board your pets every time you go on a trip is outdated,” said Aaron Krug, president and general manager at Healdsburg’s Dry Creek Inn. “We love spending time with our pets, so why wouldn’t we want them with us on vacation? That’s especially true in Sonoma, where there are so many walking paths, hiking trails and pet-friendly wineries. The numbers of guests checking in with pets has increased to about 15 to 20 percent.”
Add breweries to that list, too. At HopMonk Tavern, owner Dean Biersch gladly welcomes cuddly companions to his beer gardens. While the pubs are better known for their boisterous atmosphere fueled by what he jokes is “live beer and fresh music,” the goal is to be family-flexible. “Your well-trained dog is welcome with us,” Biersch said, but they must be on a leashes and never allowed on tables.
At Kunde Family Winery, grower Jeff Kunde has seen such a love of dogs among his customers that he leads four-hour, dedicated dog and people hikes on his 1,850-acre estate, on paths winding through vineyards, oak woodlands, native grasslands and chaparral. At the mountain peak, he spreads out a picnic, dog treats and wine, and reminds guests that a portion of their $60 fee is donated to Canine Companions and the Sonoma Humane Society.
“We started with people hikes, and felt it was a great way to get people to taste, touch and smell the vineyards firsthand, and to understand what it takes to operate a sustainable vineyard and winery,” said Kunde, who brings his three dogs on the excursions: Labrador retrievers Riley and Marley, and Australian shepherd Cooper. “The extension to a dog hike just seemed a natural progression of the experience.”
The next Kunde hike is Oct. 17, though dogs and their handlers are welcome at the winery anytime, to bask in the sun at a pond-side table or on the patio, and share a cheese plate with a slobbery best friend.
Way atop another mountain, soaring 2,000 feet above Alexander Valley in Cloverdale, Tim and Kandy Ward so adore canines that they named their winery after their first dog, a Rottweiler named Bob. Now BobDog Wines is ruled by a McNab shepherd named Cabernet, who joyfully welcomes human guests and fellow fur balls to her gorgeous home. After the dogs complete their meet-and-greet, the Wards lead everyone on a vineyard hike to say hello to the winery’s miniature horses and miniature mule.
It can get to be quite the show, Tim Ward said, recalling one couple who brought five dogs along on their camping trip up the coast.
“But Jonathan was one of our most memorable canine visitors,” Ward said with a laugh. “A beagle-black Lab mix. What a dapper fellow, with a regal personality, and dressed in this black and white coat, which made him appear to be wearing a tuxedo.
“Jonathan’s owner, a luxury condo resident from San Francisco, came up for a tasting in his new Range Rover,” Ward added. “This guy’s whole life appeared to revolve around Jonathan. Well, you can take the dog out of the country,” Ward continued, “but you can’t take the country out of the dog. Jonathan found that doggie treasure of horse manure in which to roll and frolic, much to the horror of his owner. Let’s just say that Jonathan needed some major cleanup on the crush pad before being allowed back into the SUV.”
Many of Sonoma’s restaurants were dog-friendly even before California Gov. Jerry Brown officially made it legal on Jan. 1 for eateries to host pooches in outside dining areas. Technically, it was illegal before then, but the law was rarely enforced. Who could turn away a chocolate-eyed puppy?
Some local restaurants are so canine-crazy, though, that they offer dog-specific menus for their discriminating diners. Garden Court Café & Bakery in Glen Ellen sets out cookie plates and water bowls on the patio, making for a nice appetizer while Fido peruses offerings made just for him, such as eggs scrambled with ground beef, garlic and zucchini, and a pizza of biscuit crust smothered in Monterey Jack cheese, ketchup and fresh herbs.
At the Village Inn & Restaurant of Monte Rio, meanwhile, the property is so Fifi-friendly that both the boutique hotel and upscale California-Mediterranean restaurant cater to canines. There’s posh dining on the deck overlooking the Russian River, with complimentary treats, water, food bowls and toys available, plus an expansive riverfront lawn to put your pup in playtime paradise.
For even more luxury, the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa in Boyes Hot Springs provides a butler for your dog, delivering custom beds, bowls, food treats and toys, plus room-service dinner if doggie wishes (and he does).
Canine guests at Dry Creek Inn in Healdsburg, too, are sure to be over the moon with their very own Wag Bag, a nifty reusable sack packed with a collapsible pet bowl, a toss-and-chew disc, tennis ball and bone-shaped waste bag dispenser. The hotel has offered the amenity for a year in Healdsburg as well as at its sister property, Sonoma Valley Inn.
With so many fancy outings, a well-dressed dog might need a new collar and leash, or even a comfy pillow basket with air conditioning and heat. Debbie’s Pet Boutique locations in Windsor and Healdsburg stock all the covetable stuff, from rhinestones to leather.
“The well-dressed, pampered dog gets more attention when it’s out and about,” she said. “The owners like that and the dogs love it.”
Paul Dolan at Villa Buon Irtivo in Asti, built in 1905 by his great-grandfather Pietro C. Rossi, a founder of the Italian Swiss Colony. (Photo by Kent Porter)
The Italian Swiss Colony provided good jobs and a welcoming, vibrant community for immigrant workers, their families and generations of their descendants. (Courtesy Paul Dolan)
Paul Dolan was the winemaker at Mendocino County’s Fetzer Vineyards in its heyday, wrote a manifesto on organic farming, joined his two sons in Dolan Family Vineyards, and is a partner in Truett Hurst winery in Healdsburg.
But his most evocative memories are of his summers as a boy at Villa Buon Irtivo (Home of Good Rest). A grand, old-growth-redwood home, it was built in Asti in 1905 by Dolan’s great-grandfather Pietro C. (“P.C.”) Rossi, one of the founders of the Italian Swiss Colony, a historically important California wine producer.
Asti is east of Highway 101 between Geyserville and Cloverdale, hugging the Russian River. Under Rossi’s leadership, Italian Swiss Colony became a vital springboard for Italian-immigrant-led winemaking.
Dolan, 64, remembers going to the villa as a child from his family’s Oakland home, traveling by ferry and then along what used to be a winding Highway 101 to join in multigenerational gatherings of the Rossi clan. He later took his own children to Asti for summer sojourns, creating fresh memories while extending a hand to the past. Dolan is a fourth-generation Rossi on his mother’s side, continuing the family legacy of winemaking while passing it along to his sons, Heath and Jason.
“Most of our time at the house was simple activities with family and friends,” Paul Dolan recalled. “The most fun was when we were about 13 and would go down to the winery and join a tour, only to slip away from the group looking for any adventure. We’d climb up an old wooden ladder to the top of the old redwood tanks and jump from top to top of the 20- to 24-foot-tall tanks as we spied on the tour. The fun was abruptly ended when they hired a guard, which created a whole new thrill.”
The original house still stands, with many of its artifacts and original details intact. The butler’s pantry and basement kitchen are snapshots of a bygone era, lovingly preserved for family gatherings. An immense Rumford fireplace anchors the sprawling, spacious living room, which also has an exquisite and rare antique square grand piano.
P.C. Rossi conceived of the home with his large family in mind; he and his wife, Amélie, would have 14 children, though only 10 would live to adulthood. The second-eldest, twins Robert (Bob) and Edmund A. (Ed), would carry on the wine business at Italian Swiss Colony, within walking distance of the grand house.
The twins each eventually had two children of their own, including Ed’s daughter, Yvonne, Dolan’s mother. The house is now cared for by the four families descended from that third generation.
The Italian Swiss Agricultural Colony was incorporated in San Francisco in 1881 by a handful of men, among them P.C. Rossi, who had arrived in California from Piemonte, Italy, in 1875. A druggist and chemist by education and training, he had also studied winemaking in Italy.
The colony was formed originally to provide employment for Italian and Swiss immigrants lured to California with promises of work and a better life. From the beginning, the agricultural intent was to grow wine grapes, capitalizing on the fact that many of the immigrants had worked in vineyards back home. The location was chosen because the countryside reminded the founders of Northern Italy, so much so that the 1,500-acre parcel was named for Asti, an Italian town. Grape cuttings came from Italy, France, Hungary and Germany.
A stone winery was built in 1887 and P.C. Rossi took charge as winemaker in 1888. The colony established offices and wine vaults in San Francisco, Chicago, New Orleans and New York, to market the wines directly to the trade.
Soon enough, Asti had its own railroad station, post office, school and church, and tracts of homes were built by the laborers for their families. In short order the wines gained worldwide recognition, winning competitions across Europe as early as 1892.
When Rossi was alive, the offices for Italian Swiss Colony were based in San Francisco. He would move his family to Asti for the summer, traveling north to join them on weekends. It was a ritual he followed through the years. His journey would begin with a ferry ride from San Francisco to Tiburon or Sausalito, where he would catch a train on the Northwestern Pacific line, a four-hour trip one way.
Among Rossi’s innovations, he is credited with introducing the use of pure yeast cultures and sulfur dioxide to better stabilize wines. By 1909, he introduced a sparkling wine, Golden State Extra Dry. It, too, won awards and global respect.
“In many ways, he set the California wine industry on the path of the pursuit of quality it is on today,” Dolan said.
After Rossi died in a horseback-riding accident in 1911, the twins were tasked with taking on the winemaking at Italian Swiss Colony.
“My grandfather, Edmund, was focused on carrying on the tradition and commitment his father had started,” Dolan said. “At 21, he found himself with the responsibility of heading up a family of nine brothers and sisters and supporting a very overwhelmed mother. He was overseeing a large winery operation with little experience and within a few short years he was dealing with Prohibition and the realization and pressure of many employees and families counting on him to hold the business together. He did just that, through a very challenging period.”
Italian Swiss Colony was sold in 1942 to National Distillers Corp., which sold it in 1953 to United Vintners. Allied Grape Growers, an association of some 1,300 farmers, took over in 1959. United Vintners eventually morphed into Heublein, which also at the time owned Beaulieu Vineyard and Inglenook in Napa Valley.
The Italian Swiss Colony brand is now owned by Constellation, while the 536-acre Asti land is in the process of changing hands, from Treasury Wine Estates to E. & J. Gallo.
“The Gallos have been such great leaders and contributors to the growth of the California wine industry,” Dolan said. “I can’t think of a better company and family to carry on the original tradition of quality winemaking started by my great-grandfather.”
Pietro Rossi’s descendants met at the Asti home for a family reunion in April. Some 200 attended, from babies to third-generation grandparents in their 90s.
“My grandparents saw wine as part of a balanced life,” Dolan said. “Balanced in terms of health, shared family time and wine as a contribution to the meal. My dream for the family home in Asti is that it continue to be enjoyed by future generations, and that we remind ourselves of the importance and impact of strong family values.”
Jorge Saldana holds greens grown in his Guerneville garden that will be used at one of his three Bay Area restaurants. (Photo by John Burgess)
From leafy lettuces to corn to garlic, there’s a cornucopia of fresh produce growing at Jorge Saldana’s farm.
Most diners at Mexican restaurants don’t think about whether the tortillas are made from GMO-free corn, or if the rice and beans are grown locally and organically. But Jorge Saldana does. The chef and farmer grows most of the ingredients himself for his Bay Area restaurants at his organic farm next to Guerneville’s Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve.
Fed by a natural spring and traversed by Fife Creek, his 130-acre Sabor Mexicano Farm boasts 10 bounteous acres of vegetables, herbs and fruits, plus a small herd of goats and 200 free-range chickens that provide eggs for Saldana’s restaurants: Cancun in Berkeley, Tlaloc in San Francisco and the soon-to-open Cinco in The Barlow center in Sebastopol.
“Everything grows here,” said Saldana, gesturing toward the fields of peppers, corn, tomatoes and onions ripening in the summer sun. “The forest captures the rain and brings all the nutrients down here to the garden.”
The rustic farm, tucked neatly among towering redwoods, also includes the 1890s Colonel Armstrong home and a commercial kitchen where Saldana cooks for schoolkids and adults visiting with Berkeley-based Bay Area Green Tours.
“I’ve watched (the Saldanas) renovate the house over the last three years,” said Marissa LaMagna, executive director of Bay Area Green Tours. “They took the reclaimed redwood from the siding and brought it inside. They’ve put in so much hard work.”
LaMagna, who has dined at Cancun for a dozen years, is also impressed with the third-generation farmer’s dedication to his plots.
“I’ll see Jorge in Cancun that day, and then I’ll see him coming back to the farm and he’ll be in the field, pulling onions,” she said. “He told me, ‘This is where I find peace of mind.’”
Growing food and harvesting it by hand is in Saldana’s blood. He grew up in southern Jalisco, Mexico, where his father and grandfather followed sustainable growing practices.
“The soils are very fertile there,” he said. “When we were little, we got involved in the farming. … My dad (Pedro) was growing old heirlooms and using no sprays or herbicides.”
He farms his own food to control the quality and the flavor, but most importantly, he said, “Farming organically is a good way to contribute to healthy food and to prove that it is possible to eat healthy. I truly believe that bad food is the cause of many health problems that humans are going through today. My philosophy is that good food is medicine and life.”
Saldana purchased the Guerneville farm in 2005 and moved his wife and two children there four years ago from San Mateo. They live in a modest cottage perched above the garden.
“The idea was to grow for the restaurants,” he said. “I had been in San Francisco for 25 years, and I needed to sink my hands in some soil.”
At his Guerneville garden, there is plenty of soil for those hands, plus ample sun and water. However, Saldana found it difficult to ripen all the varieties of peppers he wanted to grow. So he came up with an idea to start the seedlings in containers placed high on the ridgetop during the winter, where they get more sun. He brings them down to the main garden in the spring.
With the help of a drip-irrigation system he designed, Saldana also grows cilantro, lettuce, cucumbers, onions, squash, tomatillos and tomatoes, plus herbs such as epazote, yerba santa and yerba buena (spearmint).
“All these herbs are used in (our) cocktails,” he said. “All the drinks have some kind of medicinal herb in them.”
Saldana opened his first restaurant 24 years ago in Berkeley, and his second, in the Financial District of San Francisco, 14 years ago. Both serve classic Mexican cuisine enhanced by the farm’s organic ingredients.
“We’ve never used a can or prepackaged food,” he said. “We do organic beans and rice, and source good, safe fish from farms.”
Sebastopol’s Cinco (the word suggests the five fingers of the hand) will specialize in farm-to-table tacos made from tortillas cooked on a comal (a big, flat griddle) and meat or fish seared on a large, round Mongolian grill. Customers will be able to choose their own custom cut of meat, Saldana said, such as filet mignon, New York and ribeye steak. Seafood options will reflect what’s fresh, from prawns and squid to halibut.
“Tacos have been here forever,” Saldana said. “For some reason, we all go back to the taco.”
In addition to vegetables, herbs and fruit, Jorge Saldana raises goats and chickens at his Sabor Mexicana Farm in Guerneville.
The side dishes at Cinco, expected to open later this fall, will include whole grilled corn, salads and guacamole, plus the indomitable duo of rice and beans. Saldana also grills a healthy chile relleno stuffed with shiitake mushrooms and white corn, serving it on a bed of black beans with salsa crudo.
“That’s a chile relleno to die for,” he said. “It’s our signature vegetarian dish, with everything grown at the farm.”
Saldana’s wife, Carmina, oversees the six-bedroom Colonel Armstrong home, which can be rented for weddings and retreats. After being remodeled, the home now has multiple decks and patios overlooking the gardens.
Saldana, who produces his own line of Sabor Mexicano tortilla chips and salsas, enjoys giving tours of his farm, hidden amid the famous redwood forests of Guerneville.
“We like to explain why we’re doing everything organic,” he said. “At the end, we spoil people with an outdoor barbecue made from everything on the farm.”
After his success growing peppers, Saldana hopes to launch another farming project soon: an orchard of about 200 avocado trees and 100 citrus trees, planted high on the ridge.
A herd in the woods at Winkler Wooly Pigs in Windsor. (Photo by Chris Hardy)
The pigs are vigorous weeders who love water and can clear an overgrown pond in no time.
There are two things one immediately notices about Mangalitsa pigs: They’re really, really hairy, and they’re really, really fat. Even for pigs.
But fat is making a comeback, and in the last few years this ancient Eastern European breed has become the “it” pig of the food world, coveted by chefs and salumists worldwide for its creamy white lard and heavily marbled, beef-like meat.
And being on the menus of restaurants such as Healdsburg’s Valette, The French Laundry in Yountville, Meadowood Napa Valley in St. Helena and other luxe dining destinations may be the very thing that saves Mangalitsas from extinction.
To eat them is to love them, according to local farmer Tim Winkler of Winkler Wooly Pigs in Windsor. Because of his passion for these plump porkers, his growing herd is one of the largest and most respected in the country, making Sonoma one of the breed’s strongest footholds.
On his small farm — a sort of nursery for toddler and ornery teen pigs — Winkler steps over a low electrified fence, the only thing keeping a few dozen of his prized herd from wandering into trouble. Winkler is one of the few large-scale breeders in the U.S. and the only one in Sonoma.
“They’re really smart,” he says as a band of youngsters in a muddy field wander toward him, then become preoccupied with tumbling over each other and rooting for bugs. They’ve just begun growing their signature wooly coat, a thick covering of curly, bristly hair that comes in red, blonde, black and swallow-bellied (black with a white belly). Nearby adolescents weigh in at several hundred pounds and will soon be moved to live oak forests near Forestville and Calistoga to mature. They’ll top out at around 350 pounds each after 12 to 18 months, a relatively ripe old age for meat pigs.
Native to the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, these lard pigs were once a delicacy reserved for Roman aristocrats, kings and courts. They’ve continued to survive because of their preponderance of fat: A single pig could provide valuable nourishment in an age before fast food and grocery stores.
But the triple threat of Communism, factory farming and the diet industry made the desire for these slow-growing, fatty pigs almost nil. By the early 1990s, fewer than 200 Mangalitsas remained in the world and nearly half of them were slated for slaughter.
It was pure chance that the pigs escaped demise. Hungarian geneticist Peter Toth found the pigs in the remote Hungarian countryside, and, with a sense of national pride, decided to try to save the breed. He scoured remote areas to find as much diverse genetic stock as possible and, as the breed made a fragile rebound, introduced chefs to their unctuous meat.
As word got out, the cured hams began being compared to Spain’s legendary Ibericos, and demand grew. And grew and grew.
But it wasn’t the meat that first turned Winkler onto Mangalitsas. In addition to tasting delicious, the pigs are also vigorous weeders who love water. As an aquascapist (his original and now secondary career), Winkler figured he’d found an inexpensive and effective way of clearing out his clients’ overgrown ponds. Securing a few pigs from the first herd brought to the U.S. from Hungary, Winkler set them loose on the ponds and voila, problem solved.
But word was also getting out among chefs and diners, and demand for the meat grew. So did Winkler’s fascination with the seemingly contradictory nutritional information about the Mangalitsa’s flesh, which has been shown to include high amounts of linoleic acid (an antioxidant), vitamins and minerals, as well as less saturated fat and more unsaturated fat than other pig breeds. Suddenly Winkler had a whole new demand for his herd and Winkler Wooly Pigs became his primary business.
At a recent dinner devoted to the Mangalitsa, Santa Rosa chef Matthew Paille of Epicurean Escape Catering served guests course after course of the pig, from lush charcuterie and chilled dishes of whipped lard (yes lard), to chicharrones and steak-like cuts of loin.
“Mangalitsa is a charcuterie god among chefs,” said chef Dustin Valette, who uses the meat and fat in his house-made charcuterie at his namesake restaurant. “When it cures, it retains its silky texture and delicate flavor.”
Sonoma’s Joshua Schwartz, the resident chef at Del Dotto Vineyards in Napa Valley, is also a fan, and one of Winkler’s most loyal customers. Schwartz uses several pigs each month for the winery’s tasting menus, special events and burgeoning salumi program.
But the only way high-end clients would keep ordering Winkler’s super-premium pigs (about double the price per pound of factory-farmed pork, which sells for $3 a pound) was to raise the animals on good food and open pastures, in social herds, and allow each to reach adulthood.
Fed a diet that eschews waste carbohydrates (like tortillas and bread) that are common hog feed, Winkler spends up to $10,000 a month on a special mix of high-quality proteins and grains for his 400-pig herd — the second largest in the U.S. Perhaps more importantly, he maintains a living genetic repository for the breed that will help ensure its continued growth.
To grow and diversify his herd, Winkler needed a direct line to the Hungarian exporters. Hungary isn’t a European Union country, so it wasn’t an easy task. Regulations, quarantines and other international laws just weren’t in the pig farmer’s favor.
Over a recent breakfast at the Naked Pig Cafe in Santa Rosa, Mangalitsa enthusiast Wilhelm Kohl and the breed’s unofficial ambassador and chief cheerleader, Barbara Meyer zu Altenschildesche, breathlessly advocated for their hairy porcine friends.
They’re on a whirlwind tour to meet with pig farmers like Winkler, and chefs who want to bring more of the animals into the States. Demand far outstrips supply.
“I would like to see them in every state and American pork become more flavorful again. I’m also a safety net in case something happens,” Kohl said, pointing to the nearly complete genetic roster of Mangalitsa that now reside in the U.S., should disease ravage European pigs.
The yin to Kohl’s business-like yang, zu Altenschildesche is a bubbly blonde known to her 2,500 Facebook fans as “the lady who wears the ball gown” because she’s often photographed wearing a gown and heels while taking care of her hand-raised herd of Mangalitsas.
To say she lives and breathes for these pigs is an understatement, and she tears up when she talks about the necessity of slaughtering the animals. “You can only maintain a food animal by eating it,” she said. “To withhold love for them is sad, and I try to give them the best while they are alive.”
Zu Altenschildesche and Kohl, inspired by their Sonoma stop, will send more genetic stock to increase Winkler’s herd. They also captured the interest of other Bay Area chefs who want the pigs on their menus.
So the herd grows in the heart of Sonoma, one delicious Mangalitsa at a time.
Here are some great cookbook author events coming up:
Michele Anna Jordan, author of Vinaigrettes and Other Dressings and More Than Meatballs.
Saturday, Oct. 17 at 7 p.m. at the Sebastopol Copperfield’s
Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 6:30 p.m. at The Spinster Sisters in Santa Rosa. This event is a meal and presentation for $95 a person. For reservations call (800) 999-7909 or register online
Just because you’re on a student budget full doesn’t mean you can’t eat well — really well — around the campus of Sonoma State University. Here are some of our favorite “cheap eats” for any night of the week. Did we miss your favorite spot? Let us know in the comments.
Boathouse Sushi in Rohnert Park is a best for date night for Sonoma State students.
Best place in town for a date night: Boathouse Sushi The atmosphere is casual but still classy. The sushi is good quality and the prices are college friendly. Best dinner deal: 2 item combo: $15.25 for your pick between sushi, teriyaki, tempura, and more. It comes with rice, miso soup, and salad. This combo fills you up while impressing your date with upscale, healthy, cultural food. 6278 Redwood Dr, Rohnert Park (707) 588-9440.
Tiny Thai in Rohnert Park is a best for take out.
Best Take-out: Tiny Thai Tiny Thai really is just that: the smallest shop I’ve ever seen. Don’t let the size fool you: this family run Thai place has the best Pumpkin Curry I’ve ever eaten. Cold Autumn nights call for some Tiny Thai take-out; there’s everything from pad thai to curries to combo meals. Best deal: The Cotati Combo. The Cotati Combo has the chicken curry of the day, jasmine rice, pad thai, and an eggroll. For $8.99 during lunch or $10.99 during dinner, this combo fills you up and leaves enough for late night leftovers! 8238 Old Redwood Hwy Cotati, 794-9404.
Extreme Pizza in Rohnert Park is a best for Sonoma State Students.
Best Pizza: Extreme Pizza Not only is this unique pizza joint right across the street from SSU in the Wolf Den shopping center, but it has the wildest pizza options Rohnert Park has ever seen. You can order everything from the Asian inspired Hanoi Fever to the vegetarian Green with Envy to the chicken wing inspired Wingin’ It. The best deal is the Big Slice. The price varies between $3.50 to $6 depending on your toppings, but the Big Slice is about the equivalent to 3 slices of pizza, and is as filling as a full meal. 1728 East Cotati Ave. Rohnert Park, 707-795-8100.
Fu Zhou restaurant is a best bet for delivery to Sonoma State Students.
Best Delivery: Fu Zhou Chinese This little Chinese place is a gold mine tucked away next to Oliver’s Market. They have all your typical Chinese dishes, but the best deal is the $6.95 dinner deals. Instead of paying close to $20 for giant cartons of food you won’t finish, get a portion of an entree worth about 3 Panda Express size entrees, and a full side of rice, fried rice, or chow mein. But if you are feeling like a Chinese feast with your roommates, the delivery is quick and free for orders over $18. Rancho Cotati Shopping Center, 572 E Cotati Ave # A, Cotati, (707) 795-7680.
Sol Azteca has best burritos for Sonoma State Students.
Best Burrito: Sol Azeteca. Forget Chipotle, your days of over priced burritos are over. Sol Azeteca is a small taqueria bringing the authentic taste of Mexico straight into Rohnert Park. While they have everything from tortas to nachos to enchiladas, the burritos are the amazing. The burritos come in varying degrees, from mini (a small rice, beans, meat, and cheese) to La Burrita (The regular beans, cheese, meat, and rice topped with onion, jalapenos, sour cream and special sauce). Prices vary from $5.50 to $7.75 depending on how decked out your burrito is. I got the Super Burrito with Carne Asada, which was beans, cheese, rice, steak, guacamole, and sour cream for $7.50. Not only was it tasty, but it was big enough that I cut it in half and ate half for lunch and half for dinner! On top of that, they give students who show their ID 10% off their order. 1435 E Cotati Ave # C, Rohnert Park, (707) 792-1859.
Tea Rex has the best boba drinks for Sonoma State Students
Best Boba: Tea Rex.This hidden gem is tucked behind Popeye’s and Q-Zar, and well worth finding. This family-run shop provides all sorts of goodies from dozens of flavors of milk tea and a wide choice of boba and jelly flavors to taro and coconut waffles and various Asian snacks. The whole shop is whimsical, with a t-rex painted on the door and cherry blossom trees painted on the bright green walls of the interior. I’ll warn you: once you get hooked on boba, a trip to Tea Rex becomes a daily occurrence. 1 Padre Pkwy, Rohnert Park.
New York Bagel has the best bagels for Sonoma State Students
Best Bagel: New York Bagel.
My go-to breakfast, lunch, and post-workout snack. They’ve got a huge selection of bagels, including the ever-popular pizza bagel. My favorite is a bacon, egg, and cheddar cheese breakfast sandwich (served all day!) on either a spinach parmesan bagel or an asiago cheese bagel. The staff is incredibly friendly and will not judge you if the post-workout look is a little sloppy. There isn’t one particular best deal; they make anything and everything for under $10 a pop. 6400 Commerce Blvd, Rohnert Park, (707) 588-0414.
Mi Ranchito is a best Happy Hour for Sonoma State Students. Photo courtesy of Mi Ranchito.
Best Happy Hour: Mi Ranchito Voted by students as the best happy hour in SSU’s student run paper, the STAR, for the Best of 2015. From Monday to Friday, 3-7 p.m., Mi Ranchito’s happy hour gives the best deal for 21+ students. Not only are margaritas as cheap as $3.50, and draft beers as cheap as $2.75, but you can get a giant plate of nachos, taquitos, and quesadillas for anywhere from $4 to $7. This is the best spot to grab a couple of buddies and have a good time after a grueling midterm. 7600 Commerce Blvd, Cotati (707) 795-7600.
In-N-Out Double Double
Best late night munchies: In-N-Out Let’s be honest: nothing sounds better at 12 a.m. than a heaping plate of animal style fries. This California company spans from San Diego to Redding, delivering quality late night snacks to college students across the state. Open until 1 a.m. every night, this fast-food joint is the obvious go to. As a plus, their whole deal is the fresh (never frozen) meats and fresh cut fries. Delicious, morally sound, and open late into the munchies hours? Yes please. 5145 Redwood Dr., Rohnert Park, (800) 786-1000.
Amy’s Burger at Amy’s Drive Thru
Best Drive-Thru: Amy’s Drive Thru This Sonoma County company is in their 15 seconds of fame with this awesome drive-thru. Not only are all their items vegetarian (and some vegan) but they are absolutely delicious. I’m sorry In-N-Out, but if it is before 10 p.m., I’ll be going to Amy’s. They have a bountiful selection from mac n cheese to burritos to veggie burgers to chili cheese fries. My first veggie burger I was a bit hesitant, usually I’m all for beef with bacon and all the fixings, but I was blown away by how good, and filling, their veggie burger is. This drive-thru gives students the opportunity to get healthy, fresh, and delicious food for under $10. 58 Golf Course Drive West, Rohnert Park, (707) 755-3629.
