Steve Lacy and Debbie Thomas spent three decades living and raising their daughters on the San Francisco Peninsula before building their dream home on a rural, undeveloped piece of property in the Alexander Valley.

“What put us in San Mateo were our jobs,” says Thomas, “but this is more us.”

The couple, who both work in the pharmaceutical industry, purchased the land in 2008, drawn to sweeping views across Alexander Valley, and the quiet location not too far from Healdsburg and other small Wine Country towns they love to explore.

Lacy and Thomas essentially started from scratch — only some basic infrastructure and a small olive grove at the top of the ridge existed on the property at the time. But they knew the spot would give them the balance of privacy and proximity they were looking for.

“This stretch is known for being a favorite of cyclists in the summertime, and it’s only 3 miles from the Jimtown Store,” says Lacy.

“It’s reopening soon; we’re so excited,” says Thomas.

Initially, the couple built a small prefab cottage near the olive grove, visiting the property on weekends and holidays. In 2019, the Kincade Fire burned much of the surrounding landscape, though firefighters heroically saved the prefab house.

The couple replanted the burned olive grove, though many of the trees they thought were a total loss later started to grow back. Eventually, they embarked on building a new home, working with Chris Cahill of CahillStudio, builder Robin Guilfoyle of RobinWood Construction, and interior designer Emily Mughannam, creative director of Fletcher Rhodes in Sonoma.

The project took three years, finishing in late 2023. “Our relationship to the land really evolved over the course of it. This was not an easy property to build on,” says Lacy.

The availability of lumber, steel and other big-ticket items like windows affected timing and cost — but the couple say the stretched-out timeline brought a deeper understanding of what they were looking for.

Now, they revel in the way the new home meets their needs. “I love how open and light it is; the way it takes advantage of all the views,” says Thomas.

The home is extremely energy efficient, with solar panels and backup batteries, and was built with special siding and roofing to make it as fire-resistant as possible. Landscape architect Mike Lucas of Lucas + Lucas designed a dramatic waterfall seen through a two-story window in the main living space and helped forge strong connections to the outdoors on the upper deck and downstairs pool area.

“It gets very hot here, but when the breeze comes up, the whole house opens up and it stays cool,” says Lacy. “You get these brilliant days and the most incredible sunsets over the valley.”

The couple have settled in over the past few months, getting used to the new kitchen layout (“The kitchen outclasses the cook now,” jokes Lacy) and listening to the crickets and the neighbor’s cows at night. The property is a major wildlife corridor — deer and quail and wild turkeys, even foxes and coyotes, move easily across the landscape.

“A lot of people put fencing around the whole property, but I couldn’t see doing that here,” says Lacy. “There are deer trails here that go back and forth, and they definitely predate us, so that’s as it should be.”

Summertime is outdoor time, watching the fingers of morning fog wander and burn off across the valley, and cooking lazy meals over the grill in the outdoor kitchen. “The fog is a whole thing here; it’s a character,” says Thomas.

The couple are planting a vegetable garden and looking ahead to hosting their younger daughter’s engagement party at the new house. But above all, they’re reveling in what has evolved over time.

“It’s isolated here, but it also feels very homey,” says Thomas.

Lacy agrees. “We knew we would like it, but now there’s the reality of it.”

The post Local Couple Gets Closer to Nature in Newly Built Alexander Valley Dream Home appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

Josh Chandler looks down at his fingers as he playfully ticks off the various professional titles he’s held over the course of his career — house designer, builder, contractor, landscape designer, interior designer, illustrator, grapegrower, winemaker, gourmet chef, event planner, livestock rancher, beekeeper.

He looks up and grins. “I know I’m forgetting a few things.”

It might be tempting to wonder if the talented Chandler should pick a lane. Yet as he explains, “The disciplines are actually all very similar. They’re based on scale, texture and color. And if your ingredients are good and you don’t mess them up, you end up with fabulous stuff. Food, wine, arts, architecture — you can easily move from one to the other.”

Some people might think that’s unusual, but for Chandler, it’d be unusual not to think about experimenting with all kinds of artistic pursuits. Now in his late 50s, Chandler knew as early as high school that he wanted to explore as many creative opportunities as he could.

Raised in Napa, Chandler was just 17 years old when his father, a landscape designer and sculptor, enlisted his help to dig gardens for the future Auberge du Soleil in Rutherford. He learned through a chance conversation with the resort chef that the restaurant was in need of staff.

“Ooh, I’d like to give that a whirl,” Chandler recalls thinking. In short time, he rocketed from dishwasher to chef de partie, a job he loved. “Except I realized that working noon to midnight, there’s not a whole lot of sunlight left. I liked the outdoors, so I decided I was going to continue cooking, but for myself.”

Within two years, Chandler had started a family. At age 21, he obtained a landscape architect license and began to buy houses to fix up and sell. He briefly attended two different colleges but decided not to pursue a degree, since he was already doing creative work he loved.

“In the old days, you could do it just by doing it,” he says. “You succeeded through years of practice under an expert’s tutelage.”

In 1998, he and his wife, Mary Beth Chandler, bought Mendocino’s iconic Lazy Creek Vineyards and started making wine from what was the second oldest vineyard in Anderson Valley. Their small-lot Pinot Noir wines were soon cult classics, touted in The New York Times.

But within a decade, the family was ready to be a bit closer to city conveniences. They sold the winery and bought the 40-acre Cloverdale farm they now call home.

All of Chandler’s passions — design, food, farming — come together on the bucolic property, where they spend most of summer cooking outdoors and eating from the garden. The space is anchored by a 1905 Italian-style farmhouse with stunning spindle-trimmed wraparound porches, overlooking several acres of vineyards, where Chandler and his wife still indulge their passion for winemaking.

The heart of the property, the courtyard, brims with stately trellised sycamore trees, brilliantly blooming rosebushes, manicured shrubs, citrus trees in pots and a swimming pool to stave off summer heat. There are nooks and pathways, secret mini-gardens and a sculpture created by his father.

Raised beds offer a bounty of produce, from herbs to artichokes to tomatoes. Chandler grows several varieties of table grapes and fruit in a small orchard. A wood-burning pizza oven beckons next to a hulking, brick and stone fireplace flanked by more climbing roses and pockets of dappled golden sun under olive trees.

To one side is Chandler’s office, inside a stone building that was once home to the Chianti Winery, bonded in 1909. Chandler continues to work on design projects, still drawing nearly all of his plans by hand, from wineries to private homes, with the goal of creating casual indoor-outdoor spaces for an ineffable California Wine Country feel. It’s like stepping back in time to see Chandler’s hand-tinted blueprints and landscape plans scattered about the office on large tables — barely a computer in sight.

Chandler cooks from scratch each day with a focus on fresh, home-grown ingredients, working out of the compact indoor kitchen or cooking outdoors over a live fire. It’s not surprising that the chef rarely limits himself to a single type of cuisine.

“For me, food is like music,” he says. “I can’t listen to an artist’s entire LP or whatever it’s called these days. Give me variety.”

Guests often gravitate to the kitchen as Chandler cooks. But the space is really built just for the chef himself in the way he prefers to prepare food.

“Real chefs won’t walk 10 feet to get to the fridge or stove,” he explains. “You just basically turn, and whatever you need is right there. You chop your stuff, turn and cook it, turn and wash the pots, then turn and plate the food.”

Those who would like to help might be directed to bring veggie trimmings out to the compost pile, to help feed the soil that makes the gardens thrive.

Depending on whim, Chandler might craft Italian, Vietnamese or French coq au vin, often paired with his own plush Sangiovese, grown and vinified just steps away. In summer, he loves to prepare chicken under a brick, with roasted vegetables from the garden and olive oil cake made with his own olive oil (see recipes below). He also butchers his own beef and pork and cures his own salumi.

“I’ve raised pigs, I’ve done it all, from the bottom up,” he says. “But I’m not plucking any more chickens.”

joshchandlerdesign.com

Chicken Under a Brick with Olive Sorrel Chimichurri

Designer and chef Josh Chandler turns to his garden for an extra spark in this impressive summertime main course, which highlights home-grown chiles, fresh herbs, olives, garlic — even olive oil made from his own fruit.

While Chandler cooks his chicken over a wood fire, the recipe is equally adaptable to a charcoal or gas grill. The key is to have the cast-iron pan and bricks plenty hot, and to use a generous amount of olive oil so the meat doesn’t stick. You’ll want to start brining the chicken the day before.

As Chandler tells it, chicken under a brick goes back to the days of Roman soldiers in the field, who discovered if they roasted their meats under a portable clay dome, they retained their juiciness and developed extra crispy skin. Later, Italian chefs discovered using weights or bricks to expose more of the meat to the heat for even more crispness.

Chandler recommends serving the chicken alongside grilled broccolini with fresh lemon.

Serves 4

3 pounds boneless chicken thighs

½ cup olive oil

For the brine:

½ cup salt

2⁄3cup sugar

1 1⁄4 cup mixed fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, rosemary)

6 cloves fresh garlic, minced

1 tsp. chile pepper flakes

4 bay leaves

For the chimichurri:

1⁄8 tsp. Serrano chile, minced

1 tsp. red onion, minced

½ tsp. parsley, minced

1 tsp. cilantro, minced

1 tsp. fresh sorrel, minced

¾ cup mixed olives, minced

1 tsp. olive juice from the jar

1 tsp. fresh garlic, minced

1 tsp. carrot, finely grated

2 tsp. yellow tomatoes, minced

1⁄8 tsp. chile oil

¼ cup sherry vinegar

½ cup olive oil

In a large bowl or plastic container, combine salt, sugar, herbs, garlic, pepper flakes, and bay leaves with 1 gallon water. Add the chicken thighs. Cover and refrigerate the chicken in the brine for 24-48 hours.

Prepare your grill or fire and allow to heat to a high temperature (approximately 500 degrees with a point-and-shoot thermometer). Place a shallow, seasoned cast-iron pan on the grill or fire to heat. Generously brush 2-3 clean bricks with olive oil and allow the bricks to heat along with the pan. It’s time to cook when the fire or charcoal has turned from flames to glowing coals. If you’re using a gas grill instead, dial to the highest temperature and heat the bricks and pan for 5-10 minutes before cooking.

While the fire or grill comes to temperature, prepare the chimichurri. Add all of the ingredients to a bowl and stir well to combine. Set aside.

Remove the chicken from the brine, pat dry with paper towels, then generously slather with olive oil. Place the chicken in the hot cast-iron pan; put the hot, oiled bricks on top; and cook until well crispy and brown on the outside and cooked through completely, about 6-7 minutes (cut into one thigh at the thickest part to test doneness). You may need to prepare the chicken in batches so there’s enough separation in the pan for each piece to get crispy.

Allow to rest for 5 minutes. Spoon the chimichurri on top of the chicken just before serving.

Olive Oil Cake with Nectarines

This elegant summer dessert was inspired by a recipe Josh Chandler found on Epicurious. He uses his own olive oil and nectarines from his trees (the recipe adapts beautifully to other types of stone fruit as well).

The lovely fan of nectarine slices on top is created by laying down slices of fruit at the bottom of the cake pan, then pouring the cake batter over top. The sugar caramelizes around the fruit as the cake cooks, and the slices come out on top when you turn the cake out of the pan.

2 large eggs

1 cup cake flour

¼ cup almond flour

½ cup brown sugar, plus additional to coat the cake pan

1 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. fine-grain salt

2⁄3 cup olive oil, plus additional to oil the cake pan

3 tbsp. Amaretto

2 tbsp. fresh lemon zest

1 tbsp. lemon juice

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup prepared lemon curd (such as Bonne Maman) freshly whipped cream, for serving

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Using an 8-inch round cake pan, trace an outline on a piece of parchment paper, cut out and place in the bottom of the cake pan. Oil the pan generously with olive oil, then sprinkle with a heavy layer of brown sugar. Arrange the nectarine slices in a fan at the bottom of the pan, on top of the sugar.

Combine cake flour, almond flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and set aside. In a separate small bowl, stir together the amaretto, lemon juice, and vanilla extract and set aside.

In a stand mixer, beat the eggs, brown sugar and lemon zest on high until stiff peaks form. Once the eggs are stiff, slowly drizzle in the olive oil in a steady stream until fully combined. With the mixer on low speed, add half of the dry ingredient mixture to the batter, then half of the lemon juice mixture. While continuing to mix at low speed, add the remainder of the dry and wet ingredients until just incorporated.

Gently pour the batter into the prepared cake pan with the fruit slices arranged on the bottom. Bake the cake in a 425 degree oven for 5 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees and cook approximately 40 additional minutes, until just cooked through. Remove from the oven, and while still hot, slather the exposed surface with a 1/4-inch layer of lemon curd, which will soak in as the cake cools.

Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then use a butter knife or spatula to loosen the cake and turn it out upside down onto a serving platter (so the fruit is on top). Serve with freshly whipped cream.

The post ‘Food Is Like Music’: Cloverdale Chef Finds Inspiration in His Lush Kitchen Garden appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

From afar, Aaron Webb’s abstract paintings lure viewers in like a blurry windowpane, or a bird’s-eye view of a hazy coastline where wave break meets open sea.

But cast a brighter light, and the paintings reveal themselves in all their blemished glory. The landscape of the canvas becomes a marred universe littered with cracks, fissures, cuts, scars, scrapes and three-dimensional ridgelines that harden like scabs. From a different vantage point, hand-scrawled words like “not alone” or “the cure” sometimes emerge from the canvas.

“I love putting Easter eggs in some of these,” says Webb, his blue eyes lighting up a smile, almost daring you to find a hidden message as he props a new work up against a basketball goal in the driveway of his east Petaluma home. “Most people have no idea, even when it’s hanging on the wall. All of a sudden, they’ll turn and see it.”

On this day, he’s still readjusting to daily life after a seven-month Navy deployment in the Middle East. After preparatory training and post-operation debriefs, he was gone for a total of 15 months — so long he no longer remembers the building code to his downtown Petaluma studio. The key to his studio door isn’t working, so he opens the lock using a pocketknife he always carries.

The decompression period is always a weird liminal space, he says, not unlike his paintings.

With a foot in both worlds, he’s just started a new job in human resources at a Bay Area tech company, even as he is still processing events from this latest deployment, including the deaths of two fellow sailors. On other deployments, like during the surge of 2007-2008 in Iraq, casualties were higher. Ask him what he does in the Navy, and he remains intentionally vague, alluding to “taking care of logistics” for various units.

“I’ve seen some stuff,” he says.

Webb has spent 20 years with the Navy and continues to serve in the reserves, where he was recently promoted to master chief petty officer, one of the highest ranks for an enlisted man. He still apologizes for having “the mouth of a sailor,” and his body is tattooed with ships, tillers and cannons. One of them reads, “We Have This Hope As An Anchor For The Soul.”

He’s had experiences he’ll never forget, no matter how hard he tries. One painting came to him in a wave of tears, triggered months after a friend and fellow sailor died by suicide on Christmas Day. The loss hit Webb one day while painting in his garage, as a musical algorithm landed on a Snow Patrol song his late friend had played over and over when they were in Iraq together.

He titled the work “To Feel Finality.” As the painting runs from top to bottom, it could be the journey of a life, wading through the chaos of daily battles, scratched tally marks and what looks almost like a game of hangman, until it reaches the final third — a horizontal red line giving way to a thicker black line, the metaphor complete.

Later, in his living room, Webb nods to a work in progress hanging above a couch. The moody colors could be the gloaming at the end of the day, or maybe a silent battlefield the day after a war ends, drenched in dew and dark shadows before sunrise. It’s the first thing he’s painted after returning home.

“I put it up on the wall when I get to the point where I just need it to talk to me,” he says. “Then I sit with it and see what I need to do with it.”

Moving to the garage, where Webb builds his 6-by-8-foot wooden frames, he returns to a common theme in his paintings — the lingering sense of “decay.” As he’s talking, a tiny spider emerges from beneath the canvas of a half-finished painting and crawls along the edge. He quickly swats it with his hand, leaving a rust-colored stain.

“It’s all very organic,” he says, smiling.

Rum, sea salt, dye, ink, watercolor, latex, acrylic and detritus — they all find a home in Webb’s abstract worlds.

The titles of his paintings — like “Pull Me Out From Inside” or “The Quiet Story of Their Stars” — give hints, suggesting words for the wordless, like poetic names for experimental, instrumental jazz songs. “Sick for the Sight of You” is cloaked in painted-over, awl-engraved words. Awash in waves of turmoil, “The Dead and Dreaming” borrows from a Counting Crows lyric. And “Am I All For Nothing” bleeds in black down a 6×8-foot canvas, something that came to him while watching from home as U.S. armed forces retreated from Afghanistan, culminating with the frenzied exit at the international airport in Kabul.

He’s always dabbled in art, whether playing guitar or studying fashion design, but it wasn’t until Webb stumbled on watercolors and art supplies at a base exchange a decade ago that he seriously took up abstract painting as a way to take his mind off the chaos around him. Now, everywhere he travels with the Navy, he brings a miniature studio. Some of his fellow soldiers are intrigued and ask questions, while others could care less, he says.

Otherwise, he usually paints at home, whenever inspiration strikes, often outside along the side of his house where the sun bakes the layers of paint, and the morning dew dries and seals it in a ghostly glow. Propping the canvas on small buckets, maybe a foot off the ground, he paints flat, occasionally tilting the work at angles for inks and dyes to run through cracks between paint layers. He learned through trial and error that rum gives liquidity to dyes and inks, and sea salt crystalizes regions with thicker texture. Instead of brushes, he uses scraping tools you might find next to cans of Bondo putty at Home Depot.

Webb was raised with two older sisters in a conservative, religious household in Beaumont, Texas, an oil town 45 minutes inland from the Gulf of Mexico. Their father was a professional photographer, and Webb would spend hours in the darkroom with him, mesmerized by images coming to life in the ethereal developer solution. In high school, he was an all-state basketball player.

His painting “Drowning in the Depths of Grace,” part of his Lost at Sea series, grapples with how “church and religion played a huge part of my life growing up, but not as much now,” and how “the concept of grace is hard for people to wrap their head around.”

In August, Webb will mount a solo show at Rena Charles Gallery in Healdsburg, where owner Rena Charles was introduced to his work through a photographer she also represents. In less than a year, Charles has sold several of his paintings. One of Webb’s paintings now hangs on the wall of a prominent New York commercial real estate office; another is headed to a bed-and-breakfast in Calistoga.

“People often ask if the marks are intentional,” Charles says. “And I share that they are, and they represent the journey that you’re on, whatever that is. And I explain how Aaron shares that it’s in that in-between space – that’s the growth and those things that you learn along the way.”

Over time, Webb has come to realize maybe he doesn’t need to inflict so much pain on the paintings, gouging them with his emotions. Standing beside an older piece, he says, “I scratched it, and it works. But if I wouldn’t have done it — it’s beautiful enough and big enough that it doesn’t need it. It still communicates what it needs to, without it.”

In 2021, he was part of a group show at the National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago. But he’s wary of being pigeonholed as “a veteran artist” who might be collected and curated only into veteran art exhibits. In his eyes, he is an artist who also happens to serve his country — not exclusively a “veteran artist.” But he can’t escape who he is and where he’s been.

He also can’t escape the mixed emotions of war. “There’s not a direct tie to a bad day or something happening in the field,” he says. “It’s more like flashes and snapshots of memories and emotions that you felt — sometimes things you didn’t even know you felt, until they come back 15 years later.”

Making art is how he makes peace with himself. “This is kind of my own therapy,” he says. “I never went through art therapy. This was my own way of working through it. I just find if I create, I’m better. I have better mental health, and I’m happier.”

Once the work is done and hanging in someone else’s living room or bedroom, it no longer matters [to him] how he made peace with it.

“It took time, but now I realize it has nothing to do with me,” he says. “It’s about them and the art and what they see and what they feel.”

In that, he finds solace — knowing he’s not the only one who seeks refuge in the space between beauty and decay.

Aaron Webb’s upcoming solo show runs Aug. 15 – Sept. 30 at Rena Charles Gallery, 439 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg. Open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. aaronwebbstudio.com

The post A Petaluma Artist and Navy Officer Finds Beauty in the Shadows appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

Kenwood may be best known in summer for its annual Fourth of July races, but the small town has a mix of fine dining and classic tasting rooms — Landmark, Kenwood Vineyards — plus launching-off points for great hikes.

Scroll on below to read what to do and where to eat, sip and shop in Kenwood.

What to Do

Sugarloaf Ridge State Park

The short, shady waterfall trail is a great bet on a summer afternoon; more exposed ridgetop hikes are stunning but best in the early morning or late in the day. 2605 Adobe Canyon Road, 707-833-5712, sugarloafpark.org

Trione-Annadel State Park

Kenwood has two lesser-traveled park access points, popular with trail runners and mountain bikers — one on Schultz Road and one with a parking lot on Lawndale Road. Trails lead uphill toward the Ledson Marsh. 707-539-3911, parks.ca.gov

Where to Eat

VJB Cellars

Hit the sunny courtyard for a casual panini or woodfired pizza and a glass of Nebbiolo, then shop the Italian marketplace or pick up handcrafted chocolates from the Wine Truffle Boutique. 60 Shaw Ave., 707-833-2300, vjbcellars.com 

Golden Bear Station

Joshua Smookler and Heidy He closed Sonoma’s highly regarded Animo to open this spot, which has elevated woodfired pizzas and housemade pastas plus Asian-accented entrées, such as a tonkatsu-style pork chop with dashi broth. 8445 Sonoma Hwy., 707-282-9148, goldenbearstation.com 

Salt & Stone

A broad menu of salads, seafood and steaks, and a lovely outdoor vineyard setting with shade umbrellas and a bubbling fishpond and fountain. The indoor bar scene is one of the best around, too. 9900 Sonoma Hwy., 707-833-6326, saltstonekenwood.com

Where to Taste

Amapola Creek Winery

The newest tasting room in town, Amapola Creek was founded by industry icon Richard Arrowood and is now headed up by Brion Wise of B. Wise Vineyards. Guests taste from a lineup of serious high-end Rhone blends and Cabs from Moon Mountain. The tasting room shares a building with Muscardini Cellars, which offers a terrific weekend afternoon live-music series. 9380 Sonoma Hwy., 707-938-3783, amapolacreek.com

Vaughn Duffy Wines

Winemaker Matt Duffy and his wife Sara Vaughn started this small label 15 years ago, and last year, in true David vs. Goliath style, their 2021 Pinot Noir was named best in show at The Press Democrat North Coast Wine Challenge. Though the couple source fruit from around the county, their super friendly tasting room is in Kenwood. 8910 Sonoma Hwy., 707-282-9156, vaughnduffywines.com 

Chateau St. Jean

This is the grand, classic Sonoma Valley tasting experience, with a hundred-year-old French-inspired estate home, formal rose gardens and excellent wines, including the signature Cinq Cépages Bordeaux-style blend, which put the winery on the map 30 years ago. 8555 Sonoma Hwy., 707-257-5784, chateaustjean.com

Where to Shop

Mayacamas Home

Interior designer Shawn Hall worked on wineries and hotels for decades, but now she’s turned her vision to this new boutique in a small shopping center along Highway 12, with a worldly selection of ceramics, tableware and upcycled household goods. 9255 Sonoma Hwy., shawnehalldesigns.com

Swede’s Feeds

Treats for your pups and chickens, plus plants, garden tools and colorful recycled tin garden decor at this longtime locals spot. Beloved for the giant dinosaur sculpture that lurks along the highway. 9140 Sonoma Hwy., 707-833-5050, swedesfeeds.com

The post Where To Dine, Play and Shop for a Perfect Day in Kenwood appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

Lifelong gardener Kari Copple doesn’t do anything halfway. She first got into growing cut flowers because of her three children.

“I would pick flowers from my garden for events at my kids’ school, and then I came up with the idea for a little cutting garden out in the field,” she says.

And it grew from there, along pathways and rows, in tendrils and vines and lots and lots of compost. Copple is now the owner of a 2-acre flower farm as well as downtown Sonoma’s 7th St. Flowers, a cheery blue and white roadside stand launched in 2021.

Nearly every Saturday from March to October, Copple parks a cart filled with two dozen colorful bouquets for sale at the end of her driveway. The flowers go out at 8 a.m. — and by 11 a.m., she’s often completely sold out.

“When they were little, my kids would sell lemonade and hot chocolate out here, so we get good traffic, and people just love the bouquets,” she says.

Plus, it’s a way to stay on top of the goings-on in the neighborhood. “I sit out with the cart, and I get to meet all the dogs. It’s a doggy world out there,” she jokes.

Copple grew up in a family of vegetable farmers who ran an open-air produce market in downtown Portland, Oregon. “Farming is in my blood, but not flowers,” she explains.

She’s says she’s always been outdoorsy and has gardened for decades despite losing an arm and a leg in an electrical accident when she was 19 years old. She uses a motorized cart to move throughout her growing fields.

She and her husband, Scott, moved to Sonoma over 30 years ago and raised their children here, moving into their current home in 1998. At the time, Copple was in full-time parenting mode. She grew roses and peonies as a hobby and planted a gorgeous formal garden in the front of her home, but she never imagined flowers as a full-time job.

“It was my love of gardening that morphed into all this — I am still very enmeshed in that gardening world.”

In 2019, Copple took an intensive flower business course with Erin Benzakein of Floret Farms, one of the icons of the farmer-florist movement, and decided to launch into farming full-time. Soon, her back field was filled with carefully laid-out beds of cutting flowers in a riot of colors and forms, all timed to the climate and season.

It wasn’t necessarily the path she had in mind at the time.

“What person approaching 60 years old takes on a full-time farm? This is a labor-intensive job,” she says. “You have to have a passion for the flowers — the work will be daunting if you don’t love it.”

Copple’s growing fields have been laid out for accessibility, with wider-than-normal 4-foot pathways to accommodate her motorized cart.

“I think I love to do things that seem to other people like I couldn’t do them. I do think the disability does play a bit of a factor in a lot of things,” she reflects. “People thought I couldn’t have kids, and I have three. People thought I couldn’t do a big garden, and here I’m running a farm. I think there’s always that part of me that is like, there isn’t anything I can’t do if I really want to do it. I do like to be that person.”

Copple starts her day at 7 a.m., snipping blooms while the weather is cool and piling them into 5-gallon plastic buckets she carries back to the garage on her cart. She arranges bouquets in the garage, which can take several hours, and stores bouquets and extra blooms in a large floral cooler her husband built this spring in a small outbuilding. The cooler makes it much easier to keep cut blooms fresh and conditioned.

Except for two helpers who come in one day a week to do some of the heavier work, Copple does all the farming herself — planting, weeding, running irrigation and harvesting.

She finds meaning in the long list of daily chores, as the garden has always been where she finds her peace.

“It’s very zen-like. I’m just in the moment when I’m out there,” she says. “Whatever it is — whether I’m planting, whether I’m weeding, my focus is so specific. I just really like that. I’m also a worker bee. I’m always doing, doing, doing. My husband is, like, ‘Are you ever going to rest?’ But I’m a doer.”

It’s taken a few years to figure out exactly how to dial in her production. “I’ve just ramped things up so much — it’s all business out here now,” she says.

During the pandemic, as she was starting out, she often gave away flowers in front of the house to help bring cheer to the neighborhood. As the business grew, she considered having a wholesale stand at the big flower market in San Francisco, but she didn’t want to be getting up at 2 a.m. to haul buckets into the city. And she’s not interested in becoming an event florist taking on large weddings — but she will create casual arrangements for small parties and take custom orders in addition to arranging bouquets for the Saturday cart.

Selling to the community has proven both rewarding and sustainable at this point in her life, when she wants to be busy but also have time outside of the farm. She became a grandmother recently, and last summer, Copple took a couple weeks off to fulfill a lifelong dream of visiting iconic British gardens like Great Dixter and Sissinghurst Castle.

“I could do more, but there’s a work-life balance here for me. I want to enjoy life — my kids and my grandson. I want to have time to bike and walk with friends in the morning.”

Though she’s lived in downtown Sonoma for decades, flowers have brought Copple a deeper sense of community and family. Copple has been a mentor to a local ninth grader for the past five years, and her mentee loves being in the garden. Copple’s son and two daughters sometimes mind the stand and built the website.

A fellow florist often comes by on Wednesdays so they can harvest blooms together, and high-end designers like Sonoma’s Anne Appleman often pop by. They know they can hit Copple up for beautiful, locally grown material.

In July and August, she’ll have tons of vivid summery offerings — sunflowers, zinnias, amaranth, lisianthus, dahlias and late roses, all in colorful mixed garden bouquets and posies.

Lots of folks have a garden in this area, so she tries to grow varieties that are a little unusual, a little bit more difficult to source. A good bouquet means she needs variety in what she grows — taller spiky flowers, focal points, supporting characters and plenty of pretty foliage.

Arranging and stocking the cart is still the part of the business Copple loves the best. “This is all by word of mouth,” she says. “It was all like, ‘Hey, there’s a flower cart popping up on Seventh Street East.’”

“I get a lot of joy out of people getting joy out of the flowers.”

Kari Copple, 7th Street Flowers, 19885 Seventh St. East, Sonoma. 707-287-0589, 7thstflowers.com. Email or call ahead for custom bouquets. Flower cart with bouquets for sale on Saturday mornings through October.

The post Find the Best Summer Flowers From This Favorite Sonoma Farmer-Florist appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

When Anthony Beckman and Alissa Lind decided to launch their own small wine label, inspiration wasn’t hard to find.

Lind’s great-great uncle, William Cruess, is a giant of early California winemaking, a mentor to giants like Robert Mondavi and Charles Krug, and the author of a seminal 1934 textbook on winemaking practices that is still used by present-day UC Davis enology students.

“Everyone had lost so much winemaking knowledge during the 18 years of Prohibition, so his expertise was really valued,” explains Beckman.

Beckman and Lind both grew up in small towns and moved to Sonoma decades ago to get into the wine industry. Beckman worked a number of local harvest jobs before going back to school and finally landing a coveted winemaker position at Santa Rosa’s Balletto Vineyards in 2007.

In 2014, Beckman began touring a few vineyards to see if they felt like a good fit for a small winemaking project on the side. That’s when he discovered some Fiano grapes at Bowland Vineyard in the Russian River Valley.

“Alissa and I used to drink a lot of Fiano in the early 2000s, so I was excited to find some planted in the Russian River Valley,” says Beckman. “It’s an Italian grape that has some weight and a savoriness, and it paired with every food we ate. When I came across that Fiano vineyard, I knew it would make Cruess’s wine number one.”

Beckman says Balletto Vineyards owner John Balletto has been “super supportive” of the Cruess Wine brand, allowing Beckman the use of Balletto’s facilities. “I never have to hop in my car and check on a barrel somewhere,” says Beckman. “Everything is right here.”

Today, Cruess produces about 1,100 cases of wine per year. “We are 100% Sonoma County, so for us it all comes down to buying local, eating local and drinking local,” says Beckman. “There are so many top-level growers here. We don’t want to go anywhere else.”

With Pinot Noir fruit out of his price range, Beckman focuses on “statement wines” that stand out from the crowd. That means skin-fermented Gewürztraminer, Provençal-style Grenache rosé and old vine Chardonnay from the Sonoma Coast.

“Our focus isn’t on certain varietals, but rather on producing wines that show purity, authenticity and thoughtfulness,” explains Beckman. “I want our wines to make people say, ‘Wow, someone worked really hard to make this wine.’ That’s what we’re after.”

“It’s so important that we find the right vineyards and the right people to work with, so we can make the wines we want to. That is going to take some time,” Beckman says. “At the end of the day, I want our wines to be a statement about Sonoma County and what we think is beautiful and delicious.”

Cruess, 707-888-2366, cruesswine.com

The post Sonoma County Winery Honors Historic Family Winemaking Legacy appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

Baby river otters can’t swim.

It’s true: even though they need fresh water to survive, pups are not born with the instinct or ability to navigate their namesake environment. They must be taught to move, dive and hunt in water. Much like human babies, they may even require some encouragement.

“The mothers bring them down to the water and swim around with them. They force them into the water. They grab them by their leg, or their ear, or whatever. They put them into the water and teach them to swim,” explains Megan Isadore, executive director of the Marin-based River Otter Ecology Project.

Lessons begin when the pups are a few months old — which is right about now. Born mid-February through mid-April, young river otters begin dipping their webbed toes in the waters of adulthood, as it were, at the same time locals begin taking to our waterways en masse.

Meet-cutes are inevitable. But it’s important to remember that these playful river-dwellers are also learning valuable life skills.

“People need to be really aware when they’re around baby otters not to get close to them and not to get between them and their mothers,” Isadore says. “River otters are extremely adorable, and they’re clickbait for photographers. But the rule of thumb is that if the otters are looking at you, you’re too close. Use a big lens and back off.”

River otters live all over Sonoma County, a testament to the value of our open spaces and clear waters — from the coast, where they usually hang around the mouths of creeks and rivers; to the interior hills and valleys, where they may be spotted frolicking in vineyard ponds; to the top of the Mayacamas, in parks like Hood Mountain and Sugarloaf Ridge. Another favorite habitat is the Laguna de Santa Rosa, and particularly Santa Rosa Creek, where paths on both sides offer ample viewing opportunities.

River otters were once thought to be lost from much of the rest of the region as a result of trapping, pollution and habitat loss. But today, the outlook is strong.

“They’re very adaptable and very opportunistic,” Isadore says. “They’re becoming an increasingly urban animal all over the Bay Area. River otters here are doing great.”

Even if the babies still need a little help learning to swim.

The post Sonoma County’s Baby River Otters Are Learning How To Swim. It’s the Cutest Thing You’ll See This Summer appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

“Arthur Monroe: A Tow to Carry” is a bold new show at Sonoma Valley Museum of Art well worth a visit this summer.

The late abstract expressionist painter and community activist was an important member of the Beat circle in San Francisco’s North Beach and later set up one of the first live-work studios in the landmark Oakland Cannery.

He was dear friends with musician Charlie Parker and closely connected to other abstract painters, including Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Hans Hofmann. Curated in part by the artist’s son, Alastair Monroe, this is the first major show of Monroe’s vibrant, spirited canvases in nearly two decades.

The exhibition of Monroe’s work — over 25 pieces from 1958 to 2011 — runs through Sept. 8 at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art.

The museum is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. General admission is $10 and free for SVMA members and those 18 and under. Admission is free every Wednesday.

551 Broadway, Sonoma, 707-939-7862, svma.org

The post Explore Pioneering Bay Area Artist’s Abstract Art Exhibit at Sonoma Valley Museum appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

When Minna Stess was younger, she watched Olympic swimming and gymnastics on television. Never did she imagine that the sport she loved most — skateboarding — could one day propel her to that level of elite competition.

Stess, a Petaluma native, couldn’t have foreseen that skateboarding would one day be featured in the world’s greatest games, or that she might be skating with the best of the best.

“I never thought skating would become an Olympic sport, so it’s kind of crazy to think about,” says Stess. “It’s so cool that I have the opportunity to get this close.”

Now 18, Stess has already achieved the amazing, if not the impossible. She is currently the No. 3 ranked female Park Skate competitor in the U.S., and No. 13 in the world. She’s also set to compete in the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

Stess’s Olympic event, Park Skate, takes place on a bowl-shaped course with sloping ramps, quarter pipes and bumps in a test of speed, momentum and aerial maneuvers. It differs from the other Olympic skateboarding event, Street Skate, in the type of obstacles. Both Park and Street skateboarding were added to the Olympic roster for the 2020 Tokyo games.

The Women’s Park Skate events at the Paris games are scheduled for Aug. 6. Judges score as individual skaters perform three 45-second runs, with each skater’s best score from all three runs used to determine the winners.

Stess began skateboarding while still in diapers and was winning major amateur competitions by the time she was 8 years old. The local prodigy first competed in the X Games at just 11 years old.

More recently, she made a name for herself as a world-class park skate competitor. In 2021, she won gold at the 2021 USA National Championships’ Women’s Park competition, putting her among the top two women in the U.S. for the event, and among the top 15 in the world.

Stess made her mark again by earning a bronze medal at the World Skateboarding Championship last October, becoming the first American ever to medal in the women’s event.

This past spring’s final Olympic qualifying stretch has been “nerve-racking.” Stess competed in the final pair of qualifier series competitions — in Shanghai May 16-19 and in Budapest June 20-23 — and ranked in each No. 16 and No. 13, respectively.

Shanghai “was a cool experience,” Stess says, “but it was definitely a lot.”

“These last two series have more points, so it’s a lot more pressure,” she explains. As of late June, Stess qualified for this summer’s Olympic Games.

Stess is one of at least three Olympians with ties to Sonoma County competing in the Paris games. Freestyle BMX rider Nikita Ducarroz was raised in Glen Ellen and competes for the Swiss national team. And Forestville’s Stephen Tomasin, a former collegiate All-American, is a member of the men’s national rugby sevens team.

minnastess.com

The post Petaluma Skateboarder Gets Ready To Make Her Mark at the Summer Olympics appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.

The harmony of sunshine and music is a Sonoma County summer tradition — and always a great chance to explore the scene on decks, patios, lawns and beyond.

Scroll on to read about the best live music happenings in the county this summer.

John Beck contributed to this article.

Sonoma

Sebastiani Vineyards stages live music and lively pours on the patio with the Sunday Afternoon Music Series from 1 to 4 p.m. July through October. 389 Fourth St. East, Sonoma. 707-933-3200, sebastiani.com

Bloom Carneros hosts free live music on the weekends in its garden featuring an eclectic array of musical talent. Upcoming events are held from 2-4 p.m. on July 21, 27 and 28. 22910 Broadway, Sonoma. 707-412-0438, bloomcarneros.com

On select Fridays this summer, Patz & Hall Winery is hosting Schellville Sunsets, an evening for guests to sip single vineyard wines, dine on local bites and listen to live music while taking in the sunset. Tickets are $10 per person and include a glass of rosé in a keepsake Patz & Hall GoVino glass. More wine will be available for purchase by the glass or bottle, as well as cheese and charcuterie trays from Sonoma’s Sausage Emporium ($30 each, order 72 hours in advance). Upcoming events will be held from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on July 26 and Aug. 23. Reserve on Tock. 21200 8th St. East, Sonoma. 707-265-7700, patzhall.com

Santa Rosa

Stirring up a musical gumbo, from blues and rock to Latin Jazz and Afrobeat, the Fridays at the Hood series runs through Aug. 23 at the historic Hood Mansion near Hood Mountain Regional Park. It all goes down easy with drinks and food trucks galore. Tickets range from $15–$25. 389 Casa Manana Way, Santa Rosa. fridaysatthehood.com

Billed as “the ultimate Sunday Funday experience,” the Sunday Social Club summer music series at Sugarloaf Wine Co. features a fresh pairing of local bands and local wines. There will also be food trucks, lawn games and an artists’ showcase. Concerts are from 3-6 p.m. Sundays through September. Tickets are $15 per person and can be reserved on Tock. 6705 Cristo Lane, Santa Rosa. 707-244-4885, sugarloafwineco.com

Windsor

Sonoma-Cutrer’s Sunday Funday summer concerts, held from noon to 4 p.m. on July 21 and Aug. 18, features live classic rock and Americana music as guests enjoy food, drinks and lawn games. Tickets are $25 per person and include a glass of wine, cheese and charcuterie, and access to croquet, corn hole and more. Reserve on Tock. 4401 Slusser Road, Windsor. 707-237-3489, sonomacutrer.com

Healdsburg

Breathless Wines’ Bubbles & Music summer music series features an eclectic lineup of jazz, Latin, rock, indie pop and more paired with estate sparkling wine, from noon to 2 p.m. every Sunday through August. Tickets are $10 per person and $5 for wine club members. Reserve on Tock. 499 Moore Lane, Healdsburg. 707-395-7300, breathlesswines.com

Bella Winery’s summer music series, Storytellers, explores the musical stylings of cities such as Austin, Nashville and New Orleans along with Dry Creek Kitchen-crafted menus inspired by the regions and local wine pairings. Upcoming events will be held on July 26, Aug. 23 and Sept. 13. Tickets are $175 per person. Find more info and reserve online. 9711 West Dry Creek Road, Healdsburg. 707-473-9171, bellawinery.com

On select Fridays, Arista Winery hosts its signature summer music series Vineyard Vibes featuring live bands, estate wine and local chef-prepared pizzas baked in a wood-fired oven. Upcoming events will be held from 5:30-8:30 p.m. on July 26, Aug. 16 and Sept. 13. Tickets are $45 per person. Reserve on Tock. 7015 Westside Road, Healdsburg. 707-473-0606, aristawinery.com

Leo Steen Wines is hosting an evening of live music and barbecue starting at 5 p.m. Aug. 3 at its Healdsburg estate. The local Americana folk group Fitch Mountaineers will perform from 6-8 p.m. and California barbecue fare will be available. There’s no cover fee and seating is first come, first serve. Reserve a spot online. 53 Front St., Healdsburg. 707-974-6822, leosteenwines.com

Geyserville

Catelli’s Backyard Concert Series brings in top local musicians like Steve Pile and Nick Otis (plus occasional touring acts) for lively back-patio jams every Thursday from 6-9 p.m. The best thing? It’s totally free. 21047 Geyserville Ave., Geyserville. 707-857-3471, mycatellis.com

West County

There’s plenty of room for dancing in front of the Rio Nido Roadhouse outdoor stage. Expect live music every weekend at this river-rat hangout that staged the 13th annual Bob Dylan celebration and Chuck Prophet’s Summertime Thing festival earlier this summer. Tickets range from free to $25. 14540 Canyon 2 Road, Rio Nido. 707-869-0821, rionidoroadhouse.com

Multiple locations

The third annual Songwriters in Paradise — a weekend festival full of musical talent, seasonal bites and fine wine — will be held from July 24-27 at select north county wineries. The participating wineries include Geyserville’s Banshee and Robert Young and Windsor’s Bricoleur Vineyards and La Crema. Tickets start at $300 for single day passes, $900 for VIP single day passes, $1,200 for a four-day pass and $4,500 for a VIP five-day pass. songwritersinparadise.com

The post Where To Find the Best Live Music in Sonoma County This Summer appeared first on Sonoma Magazine.