On a recent sunny afternoon, traffic slowed to watch men pushing a giant elephant out the doors of the historic River Theater in Guerneville.
“This used to belong to Mick Jagger,” one explains, while the other twiddles a beer-can weather vane on the elephant’s trunk. “He had two made for his daughter’s wedding on Treasure Island. I got this one and painted it pink.”
Yes, it’s your typical day in everyone’s favorite boho Sonoma town, Guerneville. Tourists clutching sun block and ice cream head down to the Russian River beach, while a shirtless dude who has hooked an amp up to a VW van blasts wah-wah-infused funk. It’s hard to believe this place was underwater three years ago, in one of the most disastrous floods this flood-prone area’s witnessed.
The effects of the deluge and other calamities – Guerneville seems to attract misfortune – still linger. “The flood was definitely the beginning of a massive hit on the town. We went from that to COVID to nine days of being evacuated due to the Walbridge fire. It’s like kicking a guy while he’s down,” says Crista Luedtke, chef and owner of Boon Eat + Drink and other local establishments.
Many people have raised their homes; others have moved out of smaller in-law units knowing the risk of future flooding. On the flip side, there’s been an influx of new blood, thanks to COVID luring folks out of cities.
“Because people are able to work remote, we have a lot more full-time residents. It’s nice to see more people during the week and the off-season,” says Luedtke. “I do think there’s a fair amount of new energy coming to town and a new shift we’re seeing.”
This remote worker recently traveled with a companion to Guerneville to poke a tuning fork into the postdiluvian vibes. What we found were exciting new enterprises – places to dine, stay and groove to live music – and natural wonders like the river and majestic redwoods that still retain their well-deserved popularity. Plus there’s a ghost, which we should just get into now.
Where to stay: The Stavrand
The first thing we heard while checking into the Stavrand Russian River Valley, a posh retreat that opened last year at the site of the old Applewood Inn, is that we had unexpected company. “The original owner was Gretchen, and she haunts the Belden House,” says the concierge, referring to a building on the property that’s celebrating its 100th anniversary. “It’s low-key,” she reassures us. “Just stuff randomly falling down.”
The Stavrand clusters Spanish Revival-style villas and a rustic dining hall on six shady acres scented with fruit-tree blossoms. There’s a pool by a forest and trails that lead up a small hill or into a garden of tomatoes and artichokes and summer squash. A chef roots through the veggies to prepare seasonally inspired dinners. Lovely tilework and strategically positioned pottery give the grounds a comforting feeling best described as quasi-Anthropologie.
We considered cooking s’mores over the outdoor fire pits, but being homebodies went to our room instead. It had the pleasures you’d expect from a Russian River cabin in the woods, if it were run by discriminating hoteliers. A gas fireplace embedded in the wall pushes warmth over a king bed with a leather headboard. On the back patio, a cedar hot tub simmered under flowering vines. Walls protect it from view if you wanted to, say, shed some clothing, not that it’s explicitly encouraged in the hotel literature.
We took a plunge and went to sleep … at least until 3 a.m., when there was a loud thump. A frantic scan of the room with a phone flashlight revealed no sheeted apparitions or ectoplasm dripping from the faucets so, after a while, we headed back to dreamland. The morning light revealed an unexpected pleasure of the Stavrand: Roll up the curtains, and you’re looking directly into quiet redwoods. It’s a much more zen way to start the day than watching “Law & Order” reruns on TV.
Details: Find the Stavrand at 13555 Highway 116, Guerneville; 707-869-9093, thestavrand.com
Other options: Mine + Farm is a modernist B&B in a restored farmhouse, where breakfast includes locally butchered meat and eggs from the farm’s own chickens (mineandfarminn.com). The recently redone Highlands Resort provides rustic-chic cabins and glamping tents (highlandsresort.com). And Dawn Ranch has just reopened with riverside cabins and live music in its bandshell (dawnranch.com).
Where to eat: Saucy Mama’s
Walk into the brand-new Saucy Mama’s restaurant – formerly a pop-up from chef Yvette Bidegain – and you might think you’re in a place called Richardson’s Ribs, given all the signage. That was the restaurant chain of her parents, with locations in Santa Rosa and Sebastopol, who came from the South and raised Bidegain and her siblings on soul-food staples. The chef keeps the tradition alive with, yes, ribs, both of the beef and pork variety and cooked until tender and smoky. Folks who remember Chris Rock’s character from “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka” will be delighted you can order just one rib here – it comes with tangy barbecue sauce and a steak knife, asking you to carve it like a miniature Thanksgiving turkey.
Hanging ferns and festive streamers give Saucy Mama’s a New Orleans feel, as do remoulade-drizzled catfish and oyster po’boys on French bread. Fried chicken marinated for 24 hours in buttermilk and herbs drips with juices while maintaining a crust that shatters like glass. (Fried-chicken skin itself is an appetizer here.) A soul-food joint lives and dies by its sides, and to its credit, the kitchen turns out good versions: The collards are bacon-y with the appropriate amount of vinegar, the mac and cheese gooey with four cheeses, and the cornbread formed into waffles with “crack butter” – with honey, molasses and cinnamon, it’s worthy of its addictive name. There are also Southern desserts done well, like peach cobbler and banana pudding topped with Nilla Wafers.
Details: Saucy Mama’s is open from 4 to 9 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday at 16632 Highway 116 in Guerneville; 707-604-7184, saucymamasjookjoint.com.
Boon Eat + Drink
It’s with relief we found Boon Eat + Drink – perhaps the town’s most well-known casual-upscale restaurant – was as good after the flood as before. The place was thronged with diners enjoying Crista Luedtke’s Californian fare with international accents like preserved lemon and black-garlic crema. The turnip soup was root-vegetable velvet, needing little more than a slash of fresh olive oil. A glossy orb of burrata was nestled with watermelon and cantaloupe that likely had been ripening in the sun that week. (Boon maintains a produce garden down the block that’s available for seating, too.) A flat-iron steak from NorCal’s Five Dot Ranch was grilled perfectly and accompanied by truffle fries with the interior of buttery mashed potatoes.
Details: Open from 4 to 9 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday at 16248 Main St., Guerneville; 707-869-0780, eatatboon.com.
Nimble & Finn’s
Nimble & Finn’s makes Straus Family Creamery ice cream with uncommon flavors like lavender honeycomb and bourbon cornflake. It’s inside the Guerneville Bank Club, a historic establishment with a new wine shop (The Wine Vault, thewinevaultsonoma.com) and an old bank vault you can inspect (if you’re casing your next job). The building is also home to a collection of photographs from the Russian River Historical Society. The photos are meant to serve as a tribute but come across more as a highlight reel of the tragedies the area has endured. Gordon Herr’s Hexagon House, built in the 1940s as part of an artist colony, burned down in 1991. The popular resort and dance hall Guernewood Park Tavern burned in the ’70s. Gori’s Tavern, that Russian River mainstay with fancy Italian dinners? You better believe it “burned down with the other businesses in the middle of the block in the big Guerneville Fire of October 9, 1963.”
Details: Opens at noon daily (closed Wednesdays) at 16290 Main St., Guerneville; 707-666-9411, nimbleandfinns.com.
Other options: Big Bottom Market has breakfast- and lunch sandwiches and also bakes Oprah’s favorite biscuit; it’s like biting into a sweet cloud (bigbottommarket.com). Brot is a German-inspired eatery with sausages from Journeyman Meat in Healdsburg (brotguerneville.com). The Guerneville Taco Truck in the parking lot of the local Safeway has a passionate fan base for its authentic carnitas and lengua (guernevilletacotruck.com).
Explore nature: Armstrong Redwoods
A fantastic way to experience natural prehistory is to walk the valley trail at Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve. It’s a gorgeous, deeply contemplative park with original-growth redwoods saved from loggers by local preservationists. (There’s a reason Guerneville was known in the 1800s as “Stumptown.”)
The trail from the visitor’s center is easy and partially paved, with alternatives for more strenuous hikes available by climbing into the dry hills. In the valley, sound is dampened by “duff,” a carpet of plant debris on the forest floor. Light filters through towering trees, and thick moss coats everything from fences to fallen trees, which rest like Godzilla bones feeding the ecosystem with their decay.
Some of the most impressive redwoods south of Humboldt County are here, including the Colonel Armstrong Tree rising more than 300 feet and the Icicle Tree with its pendulous burls. Some of the trees are charred, a testament to the fires that regularly torch the land, while others are hollow for kids to explore. There’s also a cross section of a dead tree with date markers: On this ring in 1620, the pilgrims arrived in America; here in 1300 was the beginning of Aztec civilization.
Details: Open daily from 8 a.m. until one hour after sunset at 17000 Armstrong Woods Road, Guerneville; 707-869-2015, parks.ca.gov/?page_id=450.
Explore: The river
There are many ways to explore the Russian River from tubing to canoeing to swimming in the peaceful dusk or dawn hours. We rented a tandem kayak from King’s Sport and Tackle, mostly because you get a cool code name for your group, such as Hammerhead, Shark or Monk. Ours was Surfperch, and we were thrilled to be living a Tom Clancy novel, until we realized it would probably only be used by the operator yelling into a radio, “Find Surfperch, you idiots! They’ve lost their way and are trying to paddle to Japan!”
The journey started in town at Johnson’s Beach, a privately owned waterfront that changed hands this year. It has a Mediterranean atmosphere with reclining chairs and umbrellas, small stones instead of sand and a snack service with alcohol. We pushed off downstream between a sheer canyon of trees with houses impossibly nailed to the side, like an old painting that didn’t understand physics. Islands of vegetation floated on tea-colored water populated by minnows and ducks with mohawks. Occasionally, a great blue heron hunting fish on the shoreline would disengage and flap so close we could almost feel the draft of its wings.
The river has released its whitewater flood energy – for now – but still put up a fight with winds blowing in from the ocean. Thankfully, there are plenty of small beaches where you can pull over to tan and read books. The trip back was basically a matter of taking the paddles out of the water and drifting, while admiring verdant woods and real estate with floating docks and people in lawn chairs enjoying the view. “The houses along the way,” noted my companion, “make you jealous of the life you could’ve had.”
Details: 16258 Main St., Guerneville; 707-869-2156, kingsrussianriver.wixsite.com/kingsrussianriver
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