Two Nineteenth Century California Ranches Restored

The Grand Victorian at Spring Ranch. —Nikolas Zvolensky photo

The guest loft (or “honeymoon” suite) and the Grand Victorian at Spring Ranch. —Nikolas Zvolensky photo

The Grand Victorian at Triple S Ranch. —Mike Larson photo

The Vintner’s Barn at Triple S Ranch. —Mike Larson photo

NAPA VALLEY, CALIF. — Growing up in New England, former finance guru Derek Webb loved the small farms all around him and the history that they represented. After the crash of 2008, he decided to give in to his passion for history and the countryside and devote himself full time to restoring Nineteenth Century ranches. To that end, Webb purchased Triple S Ranch outside Calistoga in the Napa Valley, and Spring Ranch on the Mendocino Coast. Both ranches were essentially in ruins but “the bones” were in place. In his quest to restore them, Webb scoured the world, searching for period-appropriate artifacts and architectural salvage and collected materials from all over the United States, Europe, South America, India and beyond. Webb also updated the ranches with Twenty-First Century amenities, striking a balance between preservation and modernity, ensuring guests could journey to the past in comfort and luxury. Webb now rents both properties for private events.

“My goal was to create an environment at my ranches where people felt a sense of place,” says Webb. “Humans lived agrarian existences until around 1900 and I wanted to celebrate the way they lived. “Both ranches were at the center of their communities through the decades. I felt it was my job to return them to their former prominence, while allowing guests to have an interlude filled with authenticity and history.”

Webb’s first purchase and restoration project was Spring Ranch on the Mendocino coast in Little River, Calif. One of the oldest complete coastal ranches in California, Spring Ranch is surrounded by 350 unspoiled acres of meadows, forest and trails on the Pacific Ocean.

William Henry Kent, a prosperous logger turned farmer, built a 5,500-square-foot Carpenter Gothic Victorian on the property in the early 1860s. The house, which was the grandest for miles around, has elegant wainscoting crafted from the resource that made Mendocino’s fortune and sparked their own version of the Gold Rush: enormous, old growth redwoods. Marble sinks and slate floors from Vermont, arched windows from Australia and lead-paned windows from Newport, R.I., were among some of the fixtures Webb imported for the house. He added pieces such as ornate light fixtures from Eureka, Calif., just up the coast; beds from Nice, France; and a wooden coffee table from Bath, England.

The largest piece of salvage at Spring Ranch is an 1840s hay barn that was saved from a wrecking ball in Ontario, Canada. The barn was deconstructed by removing the wooden pegs that held the old growth beams together. It was then shipped by tractor-trailer and reassembled at the ranch with an oldfashioned barn raising. Webb renovated the barn using materials, including bricks recycled from old factories in Oakland, Calif., arched windows from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and doors from the Russian Consulate in San Francisco. The barn sits in a meadow with a stand of giant eucalyptus trees that Kent planted, encircled by hard-tofind iron fencing that came from San Francisco, Calistoga, New York City, Paris and Montreal.

Webb built a guest loft with views of the ocean and coastal prairie atop the property’s original redwood carriage barn. The barn’s hand-split beams were intact, but the structure was finished with wood paneling from old barns in upstate New York, redwood molding from various Victorians in San Francisco, and shuttered doors from a 1700s house in Alexandria, Egypt, among other components.

A small private museum of early American agricultural tools powered by humans, animals or water, can be found on the upper level of Spring Ranch’s hay barn turned Event Barn. Guests can wander upstairs and admire implements from the 1800s through early 1900s. Among the highlights are a treadmill for goats, circa 1885; shuckers for corn and root vegetables; and 40 different kinds of pitchforks. No two pitchforks are alike — each farmer made his pitchforks according to his own unique design. Webb likens the practice by farmers and blacksmiths of the era to experiment with and improve upon tools they used for their daily tasks to what goes on in Silicon Valley today.

Webb states, “Their work was arduous, but in those days, people took the time to handcraft tools that were beautiful as well as highly functional. I collect and restore to remind us of an age of ingenuity when objects were well-made and buildings were gracious, no matter how humble.”

Webb’s largest project was the Triple S Ranch, located in Calistoga, Calif. The ranch was part of an original Spanish land grant and encompasses 20 acres overlooking the grapevines of Knight’s Valley Appellation. Guests enter the grounds by passing through an ornate period iron fence that was imported from Buenos Aires. The property is then anchored by a 2,400-squarefoot Victorian mansion that consists of an original homestead built in 1854 and a “high Victorian” built in 1869. The hallmarks of the home are the large rooms, high ceilings and intricate Victorian details. To recreate the design of the period, Webb hung an 800-pound chandelier from Albany, N.Y., that dates to 1878; mid- to late-1800s pier mirrors from Nevada City, Nev., and Savannah, Ga.; late 1800s cabinets from Nice, France and nearby Healdsburg, Calif.; and installed late 1800s parts from Portland, Ore., to repair the grand staircase in the front entry.

The other main building on the property is an original 1860s dairy barn built on the side of a hill, so hay could be stored upstairs while the cows were milked downstairs. In the 1920s, the structure was changed into a winery as the ranch moved from raising cattle to growing grapes and apricots. The building was reconfigured to process the grapes on the main floor and store the wine in barrels in the basement. In the 1950s, the building morphed into a roadhouse restaurant frequented by locals such as Robert Mondavi. In order to repurpose the versatile structure into a 2,200-squarefoot event space, Webb added antique elements such as doors from Argentina and Paris that open out on to newly built stone terraces and a 30-foot vintage bar from Ukiah, Calif. Argentine wainscoting, fittings from London, railings, newel posts, and newel post bronze statues — among other items — all date to the mid- to late-1800s. The Triple S Ranch is at 4600 Mountain Home Ranch Road. For information, 415-760-3432 or www.triplesranchnapa.com.Spring Ranch is at 8475 North Highway One. For information, www.spring-ranch.com or 707-367-6109.