Sonoma County's countryside a destination for the wealthy

May 6, 2001

By TOM CHORNEAU and MATT WEISER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

For 25 years, Sonoma Rental has served growers in temporary need of a tractor or backhoe. Today, the business also caters to a new breed of rural landowner with little day-to-day contact with the soil.

Half of the customers now come in to rent tents, dance floors, fine china, linens and party chairs.

"There are lots of gentlemen farmers out there today," said co-owner Jim Hanson. "These are people who just were not here five or certainly 10 years ago."

The shift in Sonoma Rental's business illustrates the transformation sweeping Sonoma County's countryside, changing it from a homey mix of middle-class farm families to an enclave of the wealthy.

"Rural Sonoma County is a different place these days," said Jim Doerksen, who has owned a tree farm on St. Helena Road for nearly 40 years. "I've got a neighbor, a rich doctor from Marin, who has bought herself 80 acres and a nice house. It's her weekend retreat, I believe. You see that a lot nowadays."

In large part, the changes being seen in rural Sonoma County are the result of land-use decisions made 25 years ago.

By directing growth toward cities and restricting division of large rural parcels, county officials have preserved open spaces. It's a pattern that is jealously guarded by county officials, who now are discussing a third revision of the general plan.

But a key result of the limits is that only the wealthy can afford the large rural parcels on which new homes are allowed. Over the past five years, an increasing number of rural sites have been snapped up, and the homes being built are bigger and more luxurious.

In 1996, only nine homes were built in rural Sonoma County with construction costs of $250,000 or more. Last year, 43 were built, with the largest concentration in the Sonoma Valley.

Across the county, the five biggest and most expensive country homes are being built on parcels of 60 to 507 acres, the largest the Franz Valley ranch of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana.

Government services -- from school districts to volunteer fire units -- are feeling the impact as wealthy landowners, many of them successful professionals whose children are grown and whose time for community involvement is limited, move into the back country.

Reviewing the records

A Press Democrat computer analysis of 1.6 million county building records shows the trend has developed since the mid-1990s. Economic data from the 2000 U.S. census that would further document the change has yet to be released, but the evidence is unmistakable from public records, interviews and the physical changes visible from practically any countryside hilltop.

The most obvious sign is the construction of huge homes by enormously successful newcomers.

One of the most notable is the new home Montana and his wife, Jennifer, are building on their 507-acre High Ridge Ranch above Franz Valley. With an estimated construction cost of $1.2 million, the hilltop home will include 12,000 square feet of living area, a bocce ball court, swimming pool, spa, guest house, wine cellar, antique iron balconies imported from Europe, and a stone entry tower with a moat.

Other newcomers have less recognizable names but the business success to bring a grand vision to their homes.

Richard Pope, president of Taylor Woodrow Homes Inc., a London-based developer of luxury properties, is building a $1 million mansion on Lawndale Road in Kenwood.

J. Roberts Fosberg, chairman of Systemed Inc., a pharmacy benefits corporation based in Torrance, has a home under construction near Healdsburg expected to cost $986,000.

Fred Wiele, marketing vice president at Auspex Systems Inc., a Santa Clara computer manufacturer, is spending $887,000 to build a house in the Mark West Springs area north of Santa Rosa.

"We've found our little piece of paradise here," said Dieter Thurow, a financial adviser who with his wife, Ursula, spent many years in Southern California and Marin County before paying $875,000 for a Tudor-style hilltop house and 10-acre vineyard in Dry Creek Valley in 1995.

"It reminds me of Europe," said Thurow, a German native. "We feel at home here -- in fact, so much so that we've bought our plot in Olive Hill Cemetery."

While there is no precise count of the number of wealthy people who have moved in over the past 10 years, county records provide evidence of their arrival.

The average construction cost of a new home in unincorporated Sonoma County has increased 50 percent since 1996, from $139,350 to $210,558. The figures, which exclude land prices, cover a time in which actual home building costs increased only 17 percent.

The number of new rural homes built in Sonoma County with a construction cost of more than $250,000 has quadrupled in the last five years. There were 10 such homes built in 1996, compared with 43 in 2000.

Furthermore, the average size of new homes in rural Sonoma County has increased dramatically in the last five years. During that time, the average size climbed by 32 percent, from 2,493 square feet in 1996 to 3,290 square feet in January 2001.

The large-parcel effect

Like others, wealthy people are drawn to rural Sonoma County by its charm and desirability. But they have the money to afford the large lots that largely are a result of a county planning document created two decades ago to limit urban sprawl.

To curtail growth and direct development toward cities, Sonoma County supervisors in 1978 created a general plan that prevents large rural parcels from being subdivided. The result is that, while some building is allowed on parcels as small as 1 acre, the vast majority of rural home construction requires at least 20 and as many as 600 acres per home.

Trophy home sites in picturesque parts of the county now command huge prices. The cost of big parcels has jumped during the last year a minimum of 50 percent and as much as 150 percent, depending on a property's characteristics, according to real estate agents.

To longtime observers like Doerksen, the St. Helena Road tree farmer, the effects of the planning restrictions are unsurprising.

"What do you do with a big parcel of land that you cannot subdivide and you're not interested in farming?" he asked. "There are not a lot of options, but building a big house is one of them."

For environmentalists, some of whom fought a pitched battle against development interests to preserve the county's open spaces, large parcel sizes that effectively limit growth have become a two-edged sword.

"We're certainly losing the rural character and the diversity," said David Katz, director of the Sonoma Land Trust, the county's oldest land preservation organization. "It is sad in a way."

Open space preserved

On the other hand, the growth limits have been successful.

Planning records for the period between 1977 and Februrary 2001 show that 53,480 permits for new home construction were issued by the county's nine cities. During that same time, the county issued only 4,427 permits for new home construction in the rural areas.

Census figures demonstrate even more clearly how growth has been funneled to cities. Between 1990 and 2000, the county as a whole added 71,000 people, but only 9,500 of those were in the unincorporated areas. Today, according to census data, 67 percent of the county's population live in cities, compared with 55 percent in 1980.

"The general plan works," said Eric Koenigshofer, a Santa Rosa land-use attorney whose election to the Board of Supervisors in 1976 paved the way for the board to adopt the first general plan.

"Look around: We've protected the hillsides, we've stopped urban sprawl in its tracks, and we have a viable agriculture community," he said. "I think we should be proud."

But the trade-off is that a county once populated by salt-of-the-earth farm families is becoming a refuge for the affluent.

Role of the newcomer

While many old-timers lament the demise of a way of life, others argue that well-to-do newcomers invigorate the county's culture and institutions with a much-needed dose of sophistication and financial wherewithal.

Recent immigrants point out that in addition to paying much higher property taxes that support schools and local government, they also are generous supporters of cultural and social programs.

The effort to build a new children's home in the county, for example, has been led by wealthy benefactors from Sonoma Valley, several of whom are recent arrivals, said Katherine Kennedy of the county's Human Services Department.

Lauren Maddox, vice president of development for the Sonoma County Community Foundation, said her agency and other charities receive support from big-name residents such as Montana, Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart and Hollywood producer John Lasseter. A growing source of philanthropy comes from more-anonymous donors in the high-tech industry, many of whom have only recently moved to Sonoma County.

Not all those involved in philanthropic work are products of the technology boom. Thurow, the Dry Creek Valley resident, spends his days working as a financial adviser for a number of wealthy clients while his wife, Ursula, tends the gardens and works their vineyard. The Thurows have also spent a number of weekends holding fund-raising dinners for neighbors and friends, collecting close to $40,000 last year for charity.

"We think of it as a way of giving back to the community," said Ursula Thurow.

Some of the new arrivals are donating more than money, even though their contributions are not universally appreciated.

Marvin Krasnansky, a retired public relations executive who moved to rural Sonoma Valley in 1995, has been active in local politics since he arrived. He knows first-hand that longtime residents do not always welcome the opinions of those they view as outsiders.

"I find it interesting that people sometimes resent the newcomers," he said.

Krasnansky said he doesn't dispute the fact that those who have been in the community many years have "superior knowledge" about the area.

"But I've lived in San Francisco, two towns in New Jersey and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I bring a certain depth to my knowledge, too."

Inevitable or unimaginable?

Whether the cultural and economic changes produced by wealthy newcomers is a phenomenon that was foreseen by decision-makers in the 1970s and 1980s is a matter of debate.

Koenigshofer recalls that it was generally acknowledged that gentrification was a possibility. "People knew that if we were successful in holding back residential development, we might attract wealthy landowners," he said. "It was a trade-off."

Ernie Carpenter, Koenigshofer's successor as west Sonoma County supervisor and also a key architect of the county's 1989 general plan update, said the process is the inevitable result of success in making the rural areas desirable.

"Some of the people who voted for these growth controls while they were living in communes are today running around in Volvos and doing quite well themselves," he said. "I see what is going on in part as the natural progression of things. I also agree that we've made this a very attractive place."

Others, however, view things differently.

"I don't think anyone could have imagined 25 years ago that Sonoma County's rural areas would become what they are today," said Hal Beck, a longtime political activist who lived many years in the west county before recently moving to Santa Rosa.

Beck said those who drafted the county's general plan had two primary goals -- protecting agriculture and "holding the line on zoning."

"We've done that," he said. "What we didn't see was how the general plan would contribute to what I consider to be gentrification."

Room to change

The apparent conflict between growth restrictions and housing affordability is one that continues to vex lawmakers.

Over the next year, the Board of Supervisors will debate a new update of the general plan, and the issue of gentrification may become part of the discussion. But supervisors say there are few options available to them.

"It does bother me when you look at what has happened to some of the old families and the old ideas," said Mike Cale, who represents Sonoma Valley on the board. "There are things that are slowly being diminished, but I don't know what we can do about it."

That does not necessarily mean, however, that some accommodations won't be made.

The county was taken to court two years ago by housing advocates who claimed the general plan did not provide enough affordable housing. Last year, a Superior Court judge ordered supervisors to change the plan to satisfy state requirements that the county provide land for 2,500 affordable housing units in the rural areas.

Planners say there remains plenty of room in urbanized communities of the unincorporated county, such as Forestville, Penngrove and Boyes Hot Springs, which have sewer and water service. Locating growth there would mean no rural farmland would have to be disturbed.

Nevertheless, the issue pits environmentalists against housing advocates and puts a spotlight on the changing demographics of the countryside.

While housing advocates point out the obvious need for more affordable housing, environmentalists like Katz, of the Sonoma Land Trust, say sacrificing rural land for housing is not an option.

"Allowing more development in rural zones to accommodate more housing is a slippery slope," Katz said. "I think we have to be extremely careful about opening that up."

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