Geyserville, CA

Dominica Catelli’s family heirloom jewelry mistakenly sold

Deborah Mitchel Serval — Tue, 21 May 2013 00:41:21 +0000

By CHRIS SMITH / The Press Democrat

Domenica Catelli, the Geyserville chef, advocate of healthful eating and occasional TV celebrity, wouldn’t change a thing about her life.

Except maybe that recent garage sale at which her husband, Michael, mistakenly set out for sale — cheap — her box of family heirloom jewelry.

“Nothing in that box was supposed to be sold,” said Domenica, who co-runs her family’s landmark restaurant, Catelli’s.

She’s doing what she can to undo the sale of jewelry that was handed down to her and whose substantial cash value is dwarfed by what the pieces mean to her personally.

The keepsakes ended up for sale along with mismatched glasses and box games lacking pieces because the April day of the sale at her former home on University Street in Healdsburg was a Perfect Storm sort of day.

In the midst of moving and preparing for the sale, an uncle of hers died and she had to run her injured dog to the vet.

“It was this comedy of errors,” she said.

For Michael to come upon the box and mistake the contents for costume jewelry was simply one more error in the not-so-funny comedy.

The two of them have done their best to get the word out to the buyers that the jewels were treasures of the heart, and that Domenica would dearly love to buy them back.

Two people who bought three pieces between them have returned the jewelry. Domenica wept at the humanity and at the sight of the pieces: the pearl-and-diamond ring long worn by her late grandmother, Virginia, the co-founder of Catelli’s; a gold watch and a wedding bracelet from the late 1800s.

“It was so refreshing, and such a blessing” for the buyers to return them, Domenica said.

Of the jewels still outstanding, she hopes most to get back the diamond brooch that had been her great-grandmother’s.

She said wishfully, “If anybody got anything and they’d be interested in exchanging it for food from Catelli’s … ”

Modern design

Deborah Mitchel Serval — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:21:02 +0000

By MEG McCONAHEY

Say “modern” and “design” in the same sentence and your mind is likely to conjure up images of steel and glass boxes filled with minimalist, Danish-modern furnishings and an iconic leather and molded-plywood Eames lounge chair.

But modern design did not remain in the 1950s. It has continued to evolve over the decades, standing on the shoulders of giants like Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler.

And with its sun-blessed climate, casual lifestyle and progressive consciousness, the West has proven particularly fertile ground for architecture that stands on the shoulders of past giants while casting a clear eye into the future.

“Our modernism can look back 100 years. We have Deco, Modern, Streamline Moderne, all of those are laced together in modernism here,” said San Francisco-based design writer Zahid Sardar, who sifts out some of the best western architecture of the last decade in a new, sumptuously illustrated coffee table book, “West Coast Modern: Architecture, Interiors & Design” (Gibbs Smith publishers).

“Essentially the way in which things have moved forward is in our material expression,” he added, offering as an example Cor-Ten, a real signature West Coast high-design steel alloy that weathers to a desirable rust.

Collaborating with photographer Matthew Millman, Sardar leads a visual tour that takes readers from the coast to the city, from the desert to the mountains and finally to California Wine Country, with stops at Geyserville’s Oliver Ranch, an art cave in Calistoga, a retreat in St. Helena and a striking family compound set within the rugged landscape above the Alexander Valley.

Sardar was born and raised in Bombay, but after a visit to San Francisco in 1979 he found he couldn’t leave.

“I didn’t pick San Francisco. It picked me,” said the writer, who came for a three-day visit he then extended to nine days. After hopping a plane home, he turned around and boarded a plane back to San Francisco, where he has spent more than 30 years writing for major design publications, speaking about architecture and design and, for the past four years, teaching design history at the California College of the Arts.

Part of what separates the western vernacular from East Coast modern is the influence of MesoAmerican forms, Spanish colonial and mission design and Southwest Indian cultures, according to Sardar. Wood is much more prevalent as a material, said Sardar, and the good weather makes possible a kind of indoor/outdoor design and interior courtyards that would make no sense in other parts of the country where homes have to provide cover from harsh winters. The East Coast is probably more influenced by European modern whereas the west coast, he says, “is a homegrown modernism at work.”

Closer to home, Sardar finds that Wine Country invites an even more distinctive regional western style that incorporates more natural materials and capitalizes on the rural landscapes.

To exemplify that he focuses on several properties in Sonoma and Napa counties, including a family compound nestled onto 384 acres above the Alexander Valley outside Geyserville.

Designed by Sonoma architects Amy Nielsen and Richard Schuh, the hilltop compound is a cluster of pavilions of varying sizes built in a circle around a courtyard shaded by a giant madrone. A rectangular 3,000-square-foot main house connects to several smaller structures cantilevered out at an angle from stone foundations. A concrete-walled loggia connects the structures, designed so the owners can host big family gatherings that include grandchildren.

Materials were selected so as not to clash with the pristine natural setting — Douglas fir in the ceilings, board-formed concrete, glass, oxidized steel and stone. Exterior rain screens made of horizontal fir slats and shed roofs with large overhangs add shade for those hot summer days.

“In the Wine Country there is a tendency to want more wood. It’s a rural setting,” said Sardar. “A very harsh steel and glass white box is not going to sit well in this neighborhood and it’s not going to sit well in its landscape. West Coast modernism is very well attuned to that.”

Schuh explained that the curvature of the land dictated much of the design.

“Rather than shape the land to fit the house, we designed the house to fit the site,” the architect explained. “It gives a feeling that the land was a priority rather than molding the land, which is a developer way of handling a project.”

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com or 521-5204.

Maxwell Heiges runs home to Geyserville

Deborah Mitchel Serval — Sat, 18 May 2013 02:46:20 +0000

“Run Home” by Max Heiges is installed at the south end of Geyserville. (John Burgess / The Press Democrat)

By DEBORAH MITCHEL SERVAL / Geyserville Correspondent

Maxwell Heiges may be living in Brooklyn, but in his heart he is always running home to Geyserville.

He transformed that daydream of years past, with help from the Voigt Sculpture Foundation, into “Run Home,” a 26-feet-tall, 750-pound pink stick figure with a box-shaped head.

Heiges’ sculpture now stands at the south end of Geyserville on Sculpture Row.

Heiges, 25, was born in San Francisco and raised in Mill Valley, but he spent weekends and vacations in Geyserville. Whenever his parents moved, Geyserville was the home he ran to.

Now that Victoria and Larry Heiges live in Geyserville full time, it has truly become Max’s home even though he now lives in Brooklyn.

Heiges said art has always been a part of his family home, with his mother encouraging him to to make an art mess.

“Mom has always kept the artist pot stirring for me,” he said. “There was always a project going on at home, lots of mosaic and sculpture.

“Art has always been around. I would just look over my mom’s shoulder, and there it would be.”

At school, Heiges’ time was split between art and sports.

“Tamalpais Elementary School teachers just let me make a mess and use all my creativity,” he said.

During high school at the Marin School of the Arts, his obsession was creating realistic paintings, taking pages from National Geographic and copying them in oils. Yet high school football was what got him to Dartmouth College in Hanover, N. H.

Photo by Rick Tang

At Novato High, he also served as football captain and lettered in track, lacrosse and baseball.

“To me, college was all about football, the coach and the team,” he said. “I was not intending on majoring in studio art, but that is where I found a place for myself.”

While majoring in studio art, Heiges played quarterback for the Dartmouth team. After graduating in 2010, he received a yearlong fellowship to work in the school’s art department.

During that time, he had free access to the studio and acted as the shop manager. He got to experience what it was like to create when not on a deadline.

“I could make all the things I wanted to make with all the resources I needed,” he said. “Resources are everything. Without my mother as a resource, the Running Man would not have happened.”

An artist-in-residence at Dartmouth offered Heiges a job in his New York studio, cleaning, stretching canvas, mixing paint and doing other basic studio upkeep.

He now spends part of most days in New York cleaning up for that artist and others. He pays the rent on his one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with an evening job with a catering company, and has turned the living room into an art studio.

“Now I am trying not to say yes to all the lucrative catering jobs so I will have more time for my own art,” he said.

The “Run Home” is a character idea in graffiti terms, Heiges explained. “I saw the Running Man as my signature, including the home plate shape of his head.”

Rather than say more about its meaning, he said he would rather leave that to each person viewing it.

“Run Home” went through three stages of development on the Voigt Foundation property in Geyserville. “Judy Voigt sees things in special ways and is such a special lady,” Heiges said.

The first 3-foot model now resides at his parents’ Geyserville home. The second 6-foot version is part of the Voigt Foundation Collection, and the final 26-foot piece is on Sculpture Row, at the edge of town on Geyserville Avenue.

Backyard chicken workshop

Deborah Mitchel Serval — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:42:29 +0000

Sonoma poultry expert Nick Rupiper will share his seven years’ experience raising chickens in a family setting with fun facts and anecdotes of life with his feathered friends.

“There’s been a huge increase in people raising chickens in the last few years,” says Nick Rupiper. He’s a man who really knows his way around a chicken, known to many in Sonoma Valley as simply “the chicken guy.”

Topics covered will include selecting breeds, egg laying, hatching and raising baby chicks, shelter, health and nutrition. There will be chickens in residence in the coop for a hands-on experience.
Tickets include a free wine tasting at Preston Winery on the day of the class. Part of the proceeds will be donated to local youth.

Backyard Chicken Workshop, Sunday 19 May 10:30 a.m., Preston Farm & Winery, 49282 W. Dry Creek Road, 433-3372.

Program for teens and up.

Shama Viola teaching at Isis Oasis

Deborah Mitchel Serval — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:45:55 +0000

Shama Viola at Isis Oasis

Shama Viola from the Damanhur Spiritual Community in Italy will be at Isis Oasis, 20889 Geyserville Avenue, teaching a one day course in decoding the signs of what life and the universe is offering you.

The class will be Wednesday 29 May, 10-3 p.m.

The Federation Of Damanhur, often called simply Damanhur, is a commune, ecovillage, and spiritual community situated in the Piedmont region of northern Italy about 30 miles (50 km) north of the city of Turin.

It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the Chiusella Valley, bordering on the Gran Paradiso National Park.

The community has its own constitution and currency, the Credito.

Learn to answer your questions and to support yourself in making conscious and appropriate decisions in your life.

Shama Viola will be teaching with Bral Talej.

Bral Talej is an original divination system that uses a deck of 111 cards with ancestral symbols of Damanhur’s “Sacred Language”.

Shama Viola will also host a premier showing of Dreams of Damanhur on Tuesday 28 May and a discussion following the movie.

RSVP to Loreon at 707-857-4747, www.isisoasis.com

Overnight accommodations available, call for reservations.

Dreams of Damanhur one night only

Deborah Mitchel Serval — Fri, 17 May 2013 01:30:10 +0000

Community of Damanhur

Dreams of Damanhur, a film about the community of Damanhur will show one night only 8 p.m. Tuesday 28 May at Isis Oasis.

Shama Viola from the Damanhur Spiritual Community will lead a discussion and talk after the movie.

The Federation of Damanhur, often called simply Damanhur, is a commune, ecovillage, and spiritual community situated in the Piedmont region of northern Italy about 30 miles north of the city of Turin.

It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the Chiusella Valley, bordering on the Gran Paradiso National Park.

Damanhur community has its own constitution and currency, the Credito.

Damanhur was founded in 1975 by Oberto Airaudi with around 24 followers, and had grown to 800 by the year 2000. The group holds a mix of New Age and neopagan beliefs.

Overnight accommodation at Isis Oasis, 20889 Geyserville Avenue, will be offered for those taking the course with Shama Viola the following day.

RSVP to Loreon at 707- 857-4747, www.isisoasis.com

Geyserville sex offender suspected of indecent exposure near Eel River swimming hole

Deborah Mitchel Serval — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:25:04 +0000

By MARY CALLAHAN

A Geyserville man whose criminal history includes convictions for rape, sexual battery and child molestation was arrested for suspected indecent exposure this week after Mendocino County authorities tracked him down through a vehicle left near an Eel River swimming hole where the incident occurred.

Carlton Lawrence Draper, 53, already has bailed out of the Mendocino County Jail, where he was booked Wednesday morning on the recent allegation as well as violation of probation stemming from a similar case in Fort Bragg two years ago.

Authorities believe Draper was a man reported by a group of adults and their adolescent children. The group went swimming Sunday near Leggett and observed a man masturbating in the bushes above the river, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office said.

The swimmers found a car parked nearby and reported the license plate number to sheriff’s deputies, who linked it to Draper and learned of past crimes through his sex offender registration and other records, authorities said.

The woman who reported the incident to deputies identified Draper in a photo line-up, and a be-on-the-lookout bulletin was issued, sheriff’s Sgt. Greg Van Patten said.

Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies arrested Draper at his home Tuesday night and turned him over to Mendocino County authorities, Van Patten said.

Draper, whose criminal history dates at least back to 1989, when he was convicted in Florida of sexual battery, also has a record of rape by force or fear and forced oral copulation on a child under 14, according to state Department of Justice records.

In 2011, then a Windsor resident, Draper was arrested for indecent exposure after Fort Bragg police investigating a case in which a woman on the beach saw someone masturbating nearby also tracked him down through a car left behind.

In that case, the victim’s husband gave chase when she called out to him, and the culprit ran off. But he left behind his keys, which permitted the husband to locate his car, police reported at the time.

Draper was released after his latest arrest after posting bond for $15,000 bail, Mendocino County Jail personnel said.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com.

Create your Mothers Day bouquet one winery at a time

Deborah Mitchel Serval — Sat, 11 May 2013 15:06:34 +0000

Celebrate Mother’s Day in Alexander Valley. Enjoy wine tasting at any or all of the participating wineries below. At each winery you visit, mom will receive a flower to create her own bouquet.

Participating Wineries:

Alexander Valley Vineyards, 433-7209

Field Stone Winery, 433-7266

Hanna Winery, 433-4310

Hawkes Winery, 433-4295

Soda Rock Winery, 433-3303

Stryker Sonoma, 433-1944

Trione Winery, 814-8100

White Oak Vineyards and Winery, 433-8429

Tasting fees may vary, contact participating winery for information.

Old Redwood Highway: Pastori Winery 99 years old, Frank Pastori 93 years young

Deborah Mitchel Serval — Fri, 10 May 2013 22:12:03 +0000

Frank Pastori, 93, was born and raised on the Pastori Winery that he still runs. Pastori took over the business from his father in 1941.
(Christopher Chung/ The Press Democrat)

By DEBORAH MITCHEL SERVAL / Geyserville Correspondent

At 93, Frank Pastori drinks his own wine most days, half a glass with dinner.

Originally the Pastori address was Route A Box 48 also known as Old Redwood Highway. Almost a century later, Frank Pastori, 23189 Geyserville Ave., lives an eighth of a mile away from his birthplace.

The journey of a lifetime lived along the Old Redwood Highway.

Since 1914 the Pastori family has been growing grapes and making wine on the property. It was homesteaded by Constante Pastori, who left Lombardo, Italy, in 1912 with his brother on a freighter bound for America. Shoveling coal in the bowels of the ship, neither brother knew that the cargo was olive oil. Constante’s brother got off the ship in New York bound for Argentina. They parted with a wave and a hearty goodbye, never to meet again.

That was a sign of the times, Frank says. You just moved on to your new life, and left the old one behind.

Frank Pastori, 93, was born and raised on the Pastori Winery that he still runs. Pastori took over the business from his father in 1941.

Shoveling coal all the way to San Francisco, Constante Pastori got off the ship and found a little Italy right down the street. He soon headed north to work at Italian Swiss Colony in Geyserville. He lived in Signa Ridge, then Asti, while logging on the Louie B Ranch. He worked with a man who said, “If you send money to Carrara, Italy, for my sister, she will become your wife.”

Constante Pastori and Erminia Domenicelli married at St. Peter & Paul Church in San Francisco and honeymooned for one day before heading back to work.

“My parents bought this ranch in 1914, and immediately planted grapes,” says Frank. They sold the wine in bulk to Italian Swiss Colony and Petri Wine Company, reserving some to fill jugs for locals when they stopped by.

“He once sold 16,000 tons, two rail road cars, to a guy in New York named Aquino,” Frank says. “No one thought my dad would get paid, but he did. That’s how it worked back then.”

Prohibition stopped everything in 1920, the year he was born. “I was the last child. My older sister Emma and brother Amrico have both since passed on.”

They pulled out every other grape vine and planted fruit trees, mostly prunes, and sold the remaining grapes to Welch’s for grape juice. Pastori doesn’t remember suffering during the time, since everything the family needed came off the farm.

“We had cows, goats, made our own butter and us kids hunted. Anything that moved we killed and my mother cooked up,” he says with a smile. “We were not as affected as others. We grew most everything and did a fair bit of bartering.”

By 1938 they were back in the wine business.

Frank Pastori, 93, drives around his Pastori Winery vineyards in Geyserville.

At 19, Frank was at the Canyon School dance with his cousin and saw the prettiest girl in the world, Edith Buchignani. Frank thought she was too pretty to be a local girl. As it turned out, she was born and raised in Dry Creek. Soon after, Edith sent him a valentine that Frank still has squirreled away with other family mementos in a bedroom drawer. Franks valentine to Edith sits in a frame in the family living room.

They were married a few years later at St. John’s Church in Healdsburg and honeymooned from San Diego to Catalina Island. Their first home was in Healdsburg, renting a “brand spankin’ new home” for $22 a month from Simi, who had the Lucca Barber Shop.

The 1940s brought lots of changes. Frank took over from his dad and started to bottle Pasto

Frank’s first valentine to Edith

ri wine for sale. Money was tight, so Frank leased vineyards from the Nervo (now Trione) Winery on the south end of Geyserville, using its crush facility in exchange for 60 percent of the sales.

One year stretched to 14, with Edith holding down the Pastori vineyard and managing everything from hiring the pickers to tallying the tub counts during harvest. They were in the business together from the very beginning and had long since moved back onto a house on the north end of the family property.

In 1950, when the ranch got skinnier as a result of Highway 101 construction, they had their house moved across the road and shared it until Edith’s passing in 2011. Their daughter Sharon, 66, went off to college and never came back to Geyserville. She lives in Oakland with her husband Paul and their two sons, and has been bringing the boys to Geyserville since they were little to share in the harvest. So far neither has shown interest in joining the family business.

With half the ranch in Cloverdale and half in Geyserville, Frank straddles the line. “Now if I lived on the north end, I would vote in Cloverdale,” he said, “but I vote in Geyserville.”

Frank continues to manage the vineyards and make the wine he sells from the wine tasting room at the front of his property. He sells port, zinfandel, merlot, burgundy, cabernet, claret for making vinegar and wine vinegar, all for under $10 a bottle, cash or check only.

Customers know to call before they come (857-3418 or 217-1447) or look for Frank’s white truck. If it’s parked by the house and they knock on the door, he’ll meet them at the winery for a taste and a conversation. “We catch up on the world,” Frank says.

How long he continues the business is anybody’s guess. Frank has 10,000 gallons in of bulk wine that can be bottled as needed or sold in bulk, he says with a sly smile. In the meantime, he is content to run the ranch he was born on and welcome the customers who find their way to the winery.

“When you live on a main road, the world comes to you.”

Read about key stops along those early day Sonoma County roads in the special May 12 issue of Towns:

Santa Rosa’s Cloverleaf Ranch

Windsor’s roadhouse with a reputation and Mark West market

Cotati’s Inn of the Beginning

Cloverdale’s barnside medical advertisement

Petaluma’s Poehlmann Hatchery and Cinnabar Theater

Penngrove’s ‘Electric Hatchery’

Kenwood’s railroad depot

Guerneville’s former Murphy’s Guest Ranch

Stewarts Point to Point Reyes Station: The winding legacy of Highway 1

Stargazers: What to look for in May

Deborah Mitchel Serval — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:35:09 +0000

Take advantage of Sonoma County’s dark nights this month to lean back and look for Mercury, Saturn, Venus and a full “flower moon.” See the full list of key sightings below, courtesy of the Sonoma County Astronomical Society’s “Sonoma Skies” newsletter, sonomaskies.org, and download a larger file of the star chart HERE. Still want more stars?

The Sonoma County Astronomical Society meets at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 8, at Proctor Terrace Elementary, 1711 Bryden Lane, with Dr. Lynn Cominsky of SSU delivering a talk about the NuStar X-Ray telescope and how it can be used to study the universe.

And Robert Ferguson Observatory in Sugarloaf State Park has public solar viewing at noon and a public star party at 9 p.m., $3, free under 18, plus $8 parking. It’s located at 2605 Adobe Canyon Road near Kenwood. Get directions HERE.

What to look for in May skies

Thursday, May 2 – Last Quarter Moon

Friday, May 10, 8:30 p.m. – 1.2% Crescent Moon

Saturday and Sunday, May 11-12, 8:30 p.m. – Crescent Moon near Jupiter

Friday, May 17 – First Quarter Moon

Wednesday, May 22 – Moon very near Spica at 2 a.m., Mercury in west at 9 p.m. through June 23

Thursday, May 23 – Moon near Saturn at 2 a.m.

Friday-Monday, May 24-27 – Large tides

Friday, May 24 – Full “Flower Moon” at 9:30 p.m.

Sunday, May 26 – Venus, Mercury and Jupiter form a triangle between the horn tips of Tarurus the bull at 9 p.m.

Friday, May 31 – Last Quarter Moon at noon