Fountain Grove

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Western access to the courtyard

Fountain Grove (also: Fountaingrove ) was a major winery in Sonoma County , California . The no longer existing estate with winery was in what is now the area of ​​the city of Santa Rosa on Round Barn Blvd and gave its name to a district of the city. The estate was founded by a spiritual commune under the direction of Thomas Lake Harris .

history

The preacher Thomas Lake Harris (1823-1906) had founded several socially utopian communities in New York State in the 1860s , which had become known as living and working communities under the name Brotherhood of New Life . These municipalities operated various business activities, including viticulture.

Founding time

In 1875, Thomas Lake Haris and four members of his New York commune moved to Sonoma County, California, to establish another commune 2 kilometers north of Santa Rosa. This commune, which was also part of the Brotherhood of New Life movement, was called the New Eden of the West . The farm and later winery was known as Fountain Grove or Fountaingrove . The purchase price for the land (initially 800 acres , equivalent to around 320 hectares ) was US $ 21,000 . The members of the community built a spacious Victorian-style manor house (called: Aestivossa ) in which Harris lived with his family and guests. It was surrounded by a park with a fountain and was also used for community events. This building contained a ballroom and a library with around 10,000 books. There was also a printing press here. In addition, two more houses were built: a two-story building for female members of the community, called Cottage or Familistery . The redwood house for the men, the Commandery , consisted of three floors and had space for up to 100 residents. It burned down completely in 1908 after a kerosene lamp burst . Courtyard buildings were also built.

In the first few years the dairy industry was the main business. But as early as 1878 350 acres (around 140 hectares) of vineyards were cultivated. From 1883 the focus of business activity was on wine growing and production. Of the land that had grown to 2000 acres by then, around 400 were used for growing vines and 400 as orchards. The winemaking took place in a three-story, steam-heated brick building and had a production capacity of 300,000 gallons (equivalent to about 1,140,000 liters) in 1883 , which was later increased to 600,000 gallons. In 1886 it had already produced 70,000 gallons, and in 1888 about 200,000 gallons of wine.

The winery had modern technical equipment and oak barrels. The Missouri-born winemaker John S. Hyde was responsible for setting up and running the winery. The wine varieties Pinot Noir , Cabernet and Zinfandel were grown. Sales on the east coast were through an agent in New York who also ran a restaurant and bar on 56 Vesey Street . The California State Wine Company exported the wines; In 1897 the exporter was acquired by the London wine merchant Richard Hooper & Sons . The winery also published its own magazine, the "Fountain Grove Wine Press". In 1899 the Fountaingrove Round Barn was built.

  • Mansion by Fountain Grove

  • Winery

  • Barrel storage

  • Round Barn - round stable for horses

Margaret Oliphant , sister of a late, former Harris follower, Laurence Oliphant , published a biography of her brother in 1891 in which she attacked Harris as a schemer and false prophet. The work inspired Alzire Chevallier, an editor of the San Francisco Chronicle , to live in the commune for half a year undetected. She described her experiences in a critical series of articles in which she described Harris as a cheater and called for a police investigation into the circumstances on Fountain Grove. As a result of the allegations, Harris left Fountain Grove in 1892 and retired to his property in New York. When Harris died in New York in 1906, the estate in Santa Rosa fell to his companions from 1875 until the last survivor, the native Japanese Kanaye Nagasawa , was the sole owner of the winery.

1906-1935

Under Nagasawa, Fountain Grove developed into one of the most important producers of Californian wines. Before and after the prohibition period , the wines produced here won awards and were traded as cult wines (“cult winery”). On the Fountain Grove Vineyard Co. mainly grapes of the varieties Zinfandel, Riesling and Pinot Noir were grown. Other grape varieties were also used. Wine brands used were Fountaingrove , Goldengrove (Angelica, Riesling, Muscatel ) or Sonoma Valley Vineyard (California Claret , California Muscatel, Cote Doree Sweet Vermouth, Cote Doree Sparkling Burgundy). During the prohibition period, a Fountaingrove Vineyeard Golden Chasselas Grape Juice and a sherry-based Fountaingrove Tonic were produced; both officially for medical use only.

Nagasawa maintained a wide range of contacts and correspondence with other vintners and wine experts in the country, including the plant breeder Luther Burbank, who also lives in Santa Rosa .

After 1935

Nagasawa died in 1934. Childless himself, he bequeathed Fountain Grove to a nephew, who was unable to inherit due to the Exclusion Act . It first fell to the county, from which it was taken over by Errol McBoyle, an Idaho mining company . McBoyle's widow married Siegfried Bechthold, who switched from wine production to cattle farming . 1957 Robert and Barbara Walters acquired the property from the again widowed Glendolyn McBoyle-Bechthold; they continued cattle breeding until 1975. The real estate developer Robert Fitzpatrick bought about half of the property in the late 1970s to build a residential complex and a golf course. In 1984 the golf course was created by Ted Robinson (1923-2008), he is called Fountaingrove Golf and Athletic Club . Wine production had already come to a standstill in the early 1950s, and the Fountaingrove wine label was taken over by a neighboring winemaker . The last vintage produced at Fountain Grove was 1954.

The last relic of the Santa Rosa winery: the Fountaingrove Round Barn, which burned down in October 2017

In 1969 the mansion was demolished after an earthquake. Medtronic, a medical device manufacturer, acquired the farm and former Gutsland in 1998. A parking lot for employees was created on part of the land. The attempt to sell the unused courtyard and cellar buildings in 2007 failed. The buildings, some of which had already collapsed, had to be demolished in 2015 for security reasons.

The district of Santa Rosa in which Fountain Grove was and is now an upscale residential area is called Fountaingrove. In the district is Fountaingrove Lake, which was created by damming the Piner Creek through the Fountaingrove Dam.

Web links

Commons : Fountain Grove  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Thomas Pinney, A History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings to Prohibition , Volume 1: A History of wine in America , University of California Press, 1989, ISBN 978-0-52-006224-5 , pp. 332 ff. (In English)
  2. ↑ The use of the two forms of name is controversial. According to James Knight, the spelling Fountaingrove was only used after Prohibition. According to another source, the estate was called Fountain Grove and the wines produced there were sold under the Fountaingrove brand .
  3. ↑ a b Beth Winegarner, The Bizarre History of Santa Rosa's Fountaingrove Neighborhood , from: Sacred Sonoma , 2007, in: Medium.com, October 10, 2017 (in English)
  4. ↑ The forgotten fires of Fountaingrove and Coffey Park , October 22, 2017, santarosahistory.com (in English)
  5. ↑ Eric Stanley, Santa Rosa: Then & Now , Arcadia Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-0-73-855979-7 , p. 90 (in English)
  6. ↑ a b c Gail G. Unzelman, Sonoma County Wineries: Postcard history series , ISBN 978-0-73-854667-4 , Ed .: Wine Library Associates of Sonoma County, Arcadia Publishing, 2006, p. 41 ff. (In English)
  7. ↑ Douro Alto Richard Hooper's & Sons ( Memento of the original from November 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in: Catalog: Weine , Belgian Beverages cvba, March 2014, p. 22 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kuepper.be
  8. ^ John E. Van Sant, Pacific Pioneers: Japanese Journeys to America and Hawaii, 1850-80 Asian American experience , ISBN 978-0-25-202560-0 , University of Illinois Press, 2000, pp. 90f. (in English)
  9. ↑ a b c James Knight, Fountaingrove District Wine Region and Appellation , sanomacounty.com (in English)
  10. ↑ Website ( Memento of the original dated November 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of the Fountaingrove Golf and Athletic Club (in English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fountaingrovegolf.com
  11. ↑ Thomas Pinney, A History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings To Prohibition , University of California Press (cdlib.org), Berkeley 1989, pp. 332 ff. (In English)
  12. ↑ Kevin McCallum, Historic, dilapidated Fountain Grove Winery in Santa Rosa to be demolished , April 16, 2015, The Press Democrat.

Coordinates: 38 ° 28 '44.4 "  N , 122 ° 43' 31.5"  W.