Hotel Petaluma Archives - Petaluma Historian

Petaluma’s Hotel Déjà Vu

HOW CITIZENS GOT PLAYED 100 YEARS AGO

*Stock rally celebration for Hotel Petaluma at corner of Washington & Kentucky streets, 1922 (Sonoma County Library)*

The new hotel was touted to be Petaluma’s saving grace, a means of reviving the downtown economy after a four-year pandemic and a national recession. With tourists increasingly drawn to Sonoma County, the city needed something to hook in those just passing through. What better lure than a high-rise, luxury hotel, the likes of which Petaluma had never seen, positioned at the corner of B Street and Petaluma Boulevard?

The year was 1922.

The economic recession following World War I was beginning to lift. The deadly influenza afflicting the country since the war had mutated into a less deadly seasonal flu. The town’s last livery stable had closed, motorcars having replaced horse-driven buggies. Auto tourism was suddenly all the rage in Northern California.^[1]

*Members of the Save the Redwoods League, 1920s (Humboldt County Historical Society Collection)*

It began in 1918 with the Save the Redwoods League who set out in to preserve what remained of California’s old growth redwood groves by making them state parks.^[2]Their call of the wild spoke to the new wave of automobility sweeping the country. No longer hampered by the limited speed and endurance of horses pulling wagons and stages, motor-savvy tourists were setting out on excursions to the most remote natural settings.^[3]

*Trailblazing auto tourists on the new Redwood Highway, 1920 (public domain)*

In 1921, a group of promoters created the Redwood Empire Association to capitalize on the new craze. Their plan was to rechristen the route from Sausalito through Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte counties as the Redwood Highway.^[4]Petaluma, having recently declared itself “The Egg Basket of the World,” was quick to jump on the bandwagon, becoming one of the first cities to declare its Main Street (today’s Petaluma Boulevard) part of the Redwood Highway.^[5]

*Proposed map of the Redwood Highway, 1921 (San Francisco Examiner)*

Now, all the city needed was an eye-catching attraction to ensnare the gas-powered, tree huggers passing through town.

The idea of a new downtown hotel had been kicking around for a decade. Petaluma’s existing hotels—small, outdated, and shabby—were patronized mostly by traveling salesmen and itinerant workers. In 1912, a group of local businessmen formed the Petaluma Development Company to promote building a grand new hotel. After ten years, they were still struggling to make it happen.^[6]

The breakthrough came in the spring of 1922, when Sophie Hammell, chair of the Chamber of Commerce’s publicity campaign, brought to town the Hockenbury System, a Pennsylvania outfit who specialized in raising local capital to build landmark hotels.^[7]

Hockenbury recommended erecting a hotel along the promising new Redwood Highway, close to the downtown commercial district. They estimated the hotel would generate annual revenues of $100,000, with a net profit of $40,000 ($1.9 million and $750,000 respectively in today’s currency). That didn’t include the indirect return from what guests spent around the city, which they projected to be as much, if not more.^[8]

Their speculative projections generated considerable excitement around town. Launching a time-limited stock rally, they pulled in $258,000 from 855 local investors ($5.3 million in today’s currency. The money, less Hockenbury’s commission, was deposited in the Petaluma Hotel Company Trust under the purview of a board of local business leaders.^[9]

*Sophie Hammell (center beneath sign) and fellow hotel stock sale boosters, 1922 (Sonoma County Library)*

Site selection quickly coalesced around an empty lot at the northwest corner of Washington and Kentucky streets. The site of the Brooklyn Hotel from the 1850s until it burned down in 1900, the property had recently gone on the market. A San Francisco movie theater syndicate had purchased it earlier with plans to build a new motion picture theater, but instead sold it to a local speculator.^[10]

*Empty corner lot at Washington & Kentucky streets, 1920 (Petlauma Historical Library & Museum)*

The speculator already had two bids for the property from outside developers, but offered the hotel board first preference. The board’s vice-president and largest stockholder, George P. McNear, objected that the site was too far away from the new Redwood Highway. As an alternative, he offered a lot he owned at the southwest corner of B and Main streets, kitty-corner to his grain and feed mill (today’s Great Petaluma Mill).^[11]

The site was occupied by a gas station and two brick commercial buildings McNear had constructed just six months before. He told the board he was willing to tear down the buildings at his own expense, and sell the lot for the same price the speculator was asking for the Washington Street site.^[12]

Public opinion quickly shifted in favor of McNear’s proposal. A four-story, 100-room hotel at B and Main streets would be visible for blocks in every direction. Most importantly, it had parking—McNear owned a garage on the adjacent corner of C and Third streets—which the Washington Street site lacked. There was just one hitch. Demolition couldn’t begin at the site for a year, until the leases held by McNear’s tenants expired.^[13]

The hotel board couldn’t wait that long. They moved forward with the purchase of the Washington Street lot, along with two adjacent buildings slated for demolition. Within weeks of closing the deal, they hired a San Francisco architect to begin designing the hotel.^[14]

*Hotel Petaluma soon after opening in 1924 (public domain)*

In April 1924, the Hotel Petaluma opened to great fanfare, California’s governor serving as a guest of honor. Rising five stories above street level, the new hotel offered 96 guest rooms, with an additional 12 rooms for staff lodging. The ground floor featured a spacious lobby, a state-of-the-art kitchen, and an ornate dining room that seated 200.^[15]

The hotel’s opening coincided with an economic upswing for Petaluma thanks to the city’s egg boom, the Roaring Twenties’ bull stock market, and the increasing popularity of the Redwood Highway. The hotel quickly became a valuable community hub for luncheons and conventions of local service clubs and civic organizations. It struggled however to fill beds, passing through a rotation of hotel operators.

*Hotel Petaluma postcard, 1928 (Sonoma County Library)*

The arrival of the Great Depression only made matters worse. The opening of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937 had little effect, despite an immediate surge of tourist traffic that forced Petaluma to expand Main Street from two to four lanes. The final death knell came with the 1957 opening of the 101 Freeway, which became the new Redwood Highway, putting an end to downtown tourist traffic. In hopes of luring in travelers, Petaluma changed the name of Main Street to Petaluma Boulevard.^[16]

As motels sprang up along the freeway, the Hotel Petaluma was converted to a residential hotel, or SRO. In 1959, the Elks Club, seeking more space for their member gatherings, purchased the hotel from the Petaluma Hotel Company trust for $91,160. Adjusted for inflation, that represented only a fifth of the $285,000 locals invested in the hotel 25 years before.^[17]

*Entrance to restored Hotel Petaluma (Photo courtesy of Scott Hess)*

In 2015, new owners undertook a full-scale historical restoration of the building, returning it to a hotel for overnight guests. As such, it asserted a new prominence as an anchor landmark in the city’s downtown historic district.^[18]

Historical preservation became the economic engine for revitalizing the downtown in the mid-1970s. It began when Petaluma’s visionary mayor, Helen Putnam, enlisted developer Skip Sommer to convert George P. McNear’s abandoned grain mill at B Street and Petaluma Boulevard into a historically-themed center of boutique shops and eateries called the Great Petaluma Mill. A restoration fever soon overtook the downtown, drawing developers of adaptive reuse to town.^[19]

*B Street entrance to the Great Petaluma Mill, 1978 (Sonoma County Library)*

Today, 100 years after the Hotel Petaluma’s grand opening, a new six-story, luxury hotel is being proposed for the empty lot at southwest corner of B Street and Petaluma Boulevard—the same site George P. McNear offered for the Hotel Petaluma in 1922.

The proposed new high rise will require an overlay to amend the building height limit for parts of the historic district from 45 feet to 75 feet, changing the current character and human scale of the downtown. Proponents say the trade-off is worth it. They expect the new hotel to lure in tourists and developers, revitalizing local businesses and generating needed tax revenues for the city’s coffers.

It sounds a lot like the stock rally Hockenbury pitched 100 years ago to raise money for the Hotel Petaluma. That turned out to be what Wall Street calls a “sucker rally.”

*Rendering of the proposed EKN Appellation Hotel at B Street & Petaluma Boulevard (City of Petaluma)*

******

A version of this story appeared in the Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 11, 2024.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] J.R. Vernon, “The 1920-21 Deflation: The Role of Aggregate Supply,” Economic Inquiry, July 1991, Issue 29, Volume 3, pps. 572–580; “Why the 1918 Flu Pandemic Never Really Ended,” History.com. https://www.history.com/news/1918-flu-pandemic-never-ended; “Will Close Stable on May 1^st,” Petaluma Argus, April 19, 1919.

[2] “Redwood Highway Opens Vast Scenic World to Autoist,” San Francisco Examiner, July 21, 1921; Save the Redwoods League website, https://www.savetheredwoods.org/about-us/mission -history/

[3] Peter J. Blodgett, “How Americans Fell in Love With Taking Road Trips,” Time magazine, August 15, 2015. https://time.com/3998949/road-trip-history/

[4] “Redwood Highway Suggested for Hiway,” Petaluma Courier, July 11, 1921; “Redwood Highway Opens Vast Scenic World to Autoist,” San Francisco Examiner, July 21, 1921; “Redwood Highway to Traverse Scenic Wonderland,” Cloverdale Reveille, January 27, 1922.

[5] “Petaluma, the World’s Egg Basket,” Petaluma Courier, June 25, 1918; “Redwood Highway Suggested for Hiway,” Petaluma Courier, July 11, 1921; “Redwood Highway Opens Vast Scenic World to Autoist,” San Francisco Examiner, July 21, 1921; “C.C. Endorses Naming of State Highway and Boulevard Road District,” Petaluma Courier, September 9, 1921; “Great North of Bay Development Program Outlined at S.R. Session,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, November 6, 1921; “North of Bay Association is Formed,” Weekly Calistogan, November 18, 1921; “Petaluma C. of C. Urge Highway Completion,” Petaluma Courier, February 19, 1922.

[6] “The New Hotel Project is Being Well Received,” Petaluma Argus, December 27, 1912; “Development Co. Officers,” Petaluma Courier, June 21, 1917.

[7] “Definite Plans Made for New Hotel Campaign” Petaluma Argus, April 12, 1922; “Mrs. L.B. Hammell Has Resigned,” Petaluma Argus, February 23, 1923.

[8] “Definite Plans Made for New Hotel Campaign,” Petaluma Argus, April 12, 1922.

[9] “Enthusiasm Shown at C.C. Banquet,” Petaluma Courier, April 19, 1922; “Legal Notice for Petaluma Hotel Company,” Petaluma Courier, February 7, 1923; “Petaluma Realizes a Dream of Years Today as the Doors of the Hotel Petaluma Swing Open,” Petaluma Argus, April 10, 1924.

[10] “A Warm Old Time,” Petaluma Argus, April 10, 1900; “Turner & Dahnke Buy Brown Lot; Build Theater,” Petaluma Courier, May 18. 1921; “T&D Co. Theater Lot is Sold,” Petaluma Argus, June 8, 1922; Classified ads, Petaluma Argus, December 28, 1921; “Free Market Moves to Old Fire House,” Petaluma Argus, March 10, 1922.

[11] “Hotel Committee Confer with L.W. Clark for Purchase of Brown Lot,” Petaluma Courier, June 11, 1922; “The Largest Stockholder,” Petaluma Argus, April 10, 1924.

[12] “Brick Layers Complete Work,” Petaluma Argus, April 20, 1922; “Offers Site at Third and B Street for the New Hotel,” Petaluma Argus, July 31, 1922.

[13] “Council Votes Parking Place on Lower Main,” Petaluma Courier, October 19, 1920; “Beautify Main Street,” Petaluma Courier, October 20, 1920; “The Lower Main Street Park Will Remain as Originally Planned,” Petaluma Argus, November 2, 1920; “Offers Site at Third and B Street for the New Hotel,” Petaluma Argus, July 31, 1922.

[14] “Site for New Hotel Selected by Board of Hotel Trustees,” Petaluma Courier, August 8, 1922; “New Hotel Committee Buys Site,” Petaluma Courier, November 9, 1922; “Frederic Whitton Named as Architect of New Hotel,” Petaluma Argus, December 16, 1922.

[15] “How This City Made its New Hotel a Fact,” Petaluma Argus, April 10, 1924; “Unique Opening of Hotel Petaluma,” Petaluma Courier, April 11, 1924; “Dazzling Gayety at First Formal Banquet at Hotel Petaluma,” Petaluma Courier, April 23, 1924; “Argus Scribe Tours Hotel Petaluma,” Petaluma Argus, April 10, 1924.

[16] “Improved Highway Facilities,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 15, 1937; “Petaluma Bottlenecks Doomed,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 11, 1938; “Active Council Works for Petaluma Progress,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 15, 1938; “Comments in Brief: Main Street Traffic,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 9, 1957; “Old Redwood Highway Renaming,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 23, 1958; “Supervisors Vote to Change Name of Old U.S. 101,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 9, 1958; “Comments in Brief: New Hotel Petaluma,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 6, 1959.

[17] “Soon-to-be Elks Property, Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 10, 1959.

[18] “Historic Hotel is Sold,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 5, 1994; “Hotel Petaluma Sold Again,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 19, 2015.

[19] Interview with Skip Sommer by John Sheehy, December 23, 2022, Sonoma County Library Archives; “He’s Not Your Typical Developer,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 28, 1975; “Ambitious New Business Owners See Potential in Old Buildings,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, November 8, 1977; “Mill Played a Key Role in Downtown Revitalization,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 9, 1980.

Eggs and Petaluma’s 15-Minute City

*Petaluma’s Main Street, ca. 1900 (Petlauma Historical Library & Museum)*

In the 1920s, Petaluma found itself facing a housing shortage. The local egg industry was booming, drawing hundreds of new families to the area. Some came to purchase chicken ranches, others to work for hatcheries and other industries in the prosperous “Egg Basket of the World.” Dave Batchelor, a local realtor and developer, believed he had the solution: restricted residential neighborhoods. [1]

Since its incorporation in 1858, Petaluma had developed in a haphazard manner. Not only were residential neighborhoods dotted with corner groceries and taverns, many sat cheek-by-jowl with chicken hatcheries, foundries, hospitals, and factories for processing everything from incubators to silk and dairy products.

*Petaluma Cooperative Creamery in residential area at Western Avenue and Baker Street, ca. 1920 (photo Sonoma County Library)*

On the plus side, city residents—who numbered just under 4,000 between 1870 and 1900—were able to access all their needs by foot, bicycle, or the city’s horse-drawn streetcars.[2] For those wishing to travel outside the city, downtown stables provided rentals of horses and carriages. Messy as it might seem, Petaluma was the definition of what urban planners today call the “15-minute city.”

Then came the egg boom.

By 1920, Petaluma was one of the largest poultry-producing regions in the country. Its population had grown to more than 6,000. Automobiles now filled the streets. New home buyers came looking for safe and quiet residential neighborhoods with garages for their cars.[3]

*David W. Batchelor (photo findagrave.com)*

As Petaluma lacked zoning ordinances, local developers like Batchelor began creating their own , buying up small farms at the western edge of town and subdividing them into residential-only lots for cottages and bungalows.

A Scottish immigrant, Batchelor got in early on the egg boom, purchasing Penngrove’s second poultry ranch in 1903.[4] The boom originated in the 1880s with the local invention of an efficient egg incubator by Isaac Dias and Lyman Byce. It took off a decade later thanks to the innovations of Chris Nisson, a Danish immigrant, who industrialized egg production by developing America’s first commercial egg hatchery on his Two Rock ranch. After hatching baby chicks in the Dias and Byce incubators, Nisson placed them in a brooder house equipped with a stove to serve as a mother surrogate until they were old enough to sell as laying hens.[5]

*Chris Nisson’s Pioneer Hatchery Ranch, Two Rock (photo Sonoma County Library)*

Batchelor, the son of a realtor, saw the boom coming. He began buying up Penngrove farms and subdividing them into small tracts for aspiring chicken ranchers, offering them a fully equipped, five-acre chicken ranch for $2,500 ($85,000 in today’s currency).[6] His speculative tendencies caught the attention of the Page brothers, who were in the process of subdividing the 10,000-acre Rancho Cotati they inherited from their father, Thomas Page. Batchelor succeeded in selling more than 900 poultry ranches for the Pages in the Cotati district.[7]

Penngrove chicken ranch, 1914 (Sonoma County Library)

In 1909, Batchelor built the Hotel Penngrove across from the train depot in Penngrove, setting up his main office on the bottom floor, with branch offices in Petaluma and Cotati.

*D. W. Batchelor’s Real Estate & Insurance office, bottom floor of the Hotel Penngrove, 1915 (photo Sonoma County Library)*

Three years later, he moved his headquarters and family into Petaluma, purchasing a stately home on a large lot at the corner of Howard and Prospect streets. In typical fashion, he subdivided the lot for three new spec houses.[8]

*D.W. Batchelor’s new office on the bottom floor of the Wickersham Building, 168 Main Street, 1920s (photo Sonoma County Library)*

Hailed as one of Petaluma’s “red hot live wire businessmen,” Batchelor ventured south in 1913 to pursue a new development in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles County. Opening a branch office in Van Nuys, he began purchasing farmland and subdividing it into 400 hundred poultry ranches, creating what soon became known as “Southern Petaluma.”[9]

It was in Los Angeles that Batchelor first encountered restricted residential districts. In 1908, the city became the birthplace of city zoning when it banned a wide range of businesses and industries from residential zones. The intention was to promote orderly development, controlling noise, traffic flow, and activity levels as a means of protecting property values.^[10]

Returning to Petaluma, Batchelor turned his focus to residential and commercial real estate as the city began to grow with the egg boom. In 1921, he was appointed to fill a seat on the city council after an elected member resigned.[11] The next year, he co-led a community fundraising drive to build the Hotel Petaluma, raising $258,000 ($3.5 million in today’s currency) from 855 local investors.[12]

*Fundraising celebration for new Hotel Petaluma, 1922; Batchelor at far right under raised hat (photo Sonoma County Library)*

At the time, Petaluma was undergoing a generational shift. To help address the housing crisis, Victorian mansions built by wealthy capitalists during the city’s river town era, were being carved up into apartments, and their large property estates sold off in subdivisions by their widows and descendants.

One such widow, Harriet Brown, whose estate extended along the south side of D Street from Eighth Street to Sunnyslope Avenue, engaged Batchelor to subdivide her property. Positioning the development as a showcase for the new egg boom elite, Batchelor marketed the subdivision as Petaluma’s first “restricted residence district,” anchoring it with a quiet cul-de-sac named Brown Court.[13]

Gallery of houses built on Brown Court in the 1920s (Sonoma County Library)

Two years later, he purchased an adjacent tract along Eighth Street between D and F streets from descendants of the Fairbanks family, who owned the mansion at the northeast corner of D and Eighth streets. After subdividing the tract into another restricted residence district, he carved out a cul-de-sac of tiny lots he called Batchelor Terrace, offering buyers a choice of modest four- and five-room modern cottages he built to order.[14] (An adjacent lot he sold off was later developed in a similar manner as Coady Court).[15]

In 1922, the National Association of Real Estate Boards advocated city zoning as a means of stabilizing property values. Three years later, Petaluma adopted its first residential and commercial zoning ordinances.[16] The National Association of Real Estate Boards also championed adding covenants to deeds that restricted certain neighborhoods exclusively to Caucasians. Those racial covenants were adopted in Petaluma, and remained in place until a Supreme Court ruling in 1967.[17]

*1931 Petaluma Deed with restrictive residential and racial exclusionary covenants (Sonoma County Official Records, Liber 293, page 328)*

In 1925, Batchelor declined to seek re-election to the city council, turning his attention instead to a new endeavor south of Santa Cruz. Leaving his partner to run the Petaluma realty office, he purchased a 290-acre retreat center from the Jesuit Fathers to develop a beachside town and resort he called Rob Roy, after the famous highlands chief, Rob Roy McGregor. He assigned Scottish names to all the streets, and moved his family into a new Mediterranean-style beachfront home.[18]

*Batchelor’s promotion brochure for Rob Roy beachside town and resort (Santa Cruz Sentinel, February 8, 1976)*

After investing a quarter of a million dollars in Rob Roy ($5 million in today’s currency), Batchelor found himself in a financial crisis as home sales in Rob Roy slowed during the Depression. In 1935, he sold the town to another developer who changed its name to LaSelva Beach and its street names from Scottish to Spanish. That same year, Batchelor shut down his office in Petaluma, new housing development having slowed there as well.[19]

The next Petaluma housing boom would not come until the end of World War II, when influx of discharged servicemen arrived with their families bearing low-interest VA loans. With subsidies provided by the government, developers began building a cascade of suburban tract homes, driving the city’s population up to 14,000 by 1960.

*1950s Madison Square development at Madison & Payran street*s, East Petaluma (photo Sonoma County Library)

Built in exclusionary and restricted residential districts, and designed around cars and shopping malls, the new developments scrambled what remained of Petaluma’s 15-minute city.[20]

Batchelor didn’t return to Petaluma to ride the new suburban housing boom. He chose instead to open a real estate office in LaSelva Beach, where he happily resided until his death in 1963 at the age of 90.[21]

*LaSelva Beach (originally Rob Roy), California, 2024 (photo public domain)*

******

A version of this story appeared in the Petaluma Argus-Courier September 6, 2024.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Ad, for “Dave” Batchelor, Petaluma Courier, March 9, 1924.

[2] http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/cities/Petaluma50.htm#1940

[3] Thea Lowry, Empty Shells: The Story of Petaluma, America’s Chicken City (Novato, CA: Manifold Press, 2000), pp. 1-3; http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/cities/Petaluma50.htm#1940.

[4] Irene Hilsendager, “History-David William Batchelor,” The Community Voice, August 25, 2023.

[5] Lowry, pgs. 33-35, 49-53.

[6] Hilsendager; “Live Real Estate Firm at Penngrove,” Petaluma Courier, April 12, 1904; Ad for poultry ranch, San Francisco Call and Post, June 20, 1909.

[7] Hilsendager; “History of Cotati,” Cotati Historical Society, cotatimuseum.com; “D.W. Batchelor Now Agent for Cotati Land Company,” Petaluma Argus, May 19, 1910.

[8] “Hotel for Penngrove,” Petaluma Courier, June 7, 1909; Ad for Batchelor & Rankin, Petaluma Argus, November 29, 1911; “Batchelor Buys Geo. Young Home,” Petaluma Argus, October 31, 1912; “D.W. Batchelor to Build Three Houses,” Petaluma Courier, February 3, 1922.

[9] More Activity in Poultry Business,” Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet, October 17, 1913; “Batchelor Goes South,” Petaluma Courier, October 12, 1913; “Chickens By Wholesale,” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1913; “More Activity in Poultry Business,” Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet, October 17, 1913; “Hail to Van Nuys, the Southern Petaluma,” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1913; Hilsendager.

[10] Jonathan Vankin, “Zoning Out: Why We Have Zoning Laws, and How They Shape California and Society (Not Always For the Best),” June 15, 2023, CaliforniaLocal.com; Jeremy Rosenberg, “The Roots of Sprawl: Why We Don’t Live Where We Work,” March 19, 2012, PBSSoCal.com, https://www.pbssocal.org/history-society/

[11] “The New Hotel Project is Being Well Received,” Petaluma Argus, December 27, 1912; “Chamber of Commerce in Annual Session,” Petaluma Courier, May 11, 1915; “Development Co. Officers,” Petaluma Courier, June 21, 1917; “White Leghorn Mining Co. Move Offices Here,” Petaluma Courier, March 11, 1924; “D.W. Batchelor Made Member of City Council Succeeds W. Stradling,” Petaluma Courier, October 4, 1921.

[12] “First Stock In Hotel is Sold,” Petaluma Argus, June 10, 1922; “Legal Notice for Petaluma Hotel Company,” Petaluma Courier, February 7, 1923; “E.J. Hockenbury Was Here,” Petaluma Argus, January 27, 1923; “Mrs. L.B. Hammell Has Resigned,” Petaluma Argus, February 23, 1923 “Unique Opening of Hotel Petaluma,” Petaluma Courier, April 11, 1924; Hilsendager.

[13] “Death of Samuel Brown,” Petaluma Courier, December 17, 1902; “Brown Tract on D Street to be Sold by Batchelor,” Petaluma Courier, December 16, 1921; “New Home for Dr. F.W. Anderson,” Petaluma Argus, July 12, 1922; “Will Build Elegant Home,” Petaluma Argus, August 7, 1922; “Dr. Dreyer Will Build Fine Home,” Petaluma Argus, March 17, 1923.

[14] “A Chance to Own a Modern Home,” Petaluma Courier, September 20, 1919; “Will Build on Laurel Ave,” Petaluma Argus, December 8, 1921; “Splendid New Restricted District for Beautiful homes is Opened Up Today,” Petaluma Argus, August 12, 1924; “Batchelor Terrace is Accepted,” Petaluma Argus, December 2, 1924.

[15] Note on Coady Court: Batchelor originally sold the large lot to Leo Burke, owner of the Must Hatch Hatchery, to build a large estate. After Batchelor Terrace was developed next door, Bourke changed his mind and sold the lot to developer Frank Coady, who developed Coady Court. “Fine New Home for Leo Bourke,” Petaluma Argus, August 12, 1924; “Coady Apartments 11 Lots and A Fine Cottage Change Hands,” Petaluma Argus, June 5, 1925.

[16] “Zoning Plan Advocated in All Cities,” San Francisco Examiner, June 2, 1922; “Zoning Ordinance Introduced,” Petaluma Argus, October 24, 1925 “Ordinances No. 284, Charter Series,” Petaluma Argus, October 26, 1925; “City Zoning Ordinance Formally Adopted,” Petaluma Courier, November 3, 1925; “Zoning Protest Report,” Petaluma Argus, December 8, 1925.

[17] Vankin; “Is There Racism in the Deed to Your Home?” New York Times, August 17, 2021; Marisa Kendal, “For Whites Only: Shocking Language Found in Property Docs Throughout Bay Area,” Bay Area News Group, February 26, 2019. Bayareanewsgroup.com; sample Petaluma deed in Sonoma County Official Records, Liber 293, page 328, dated April 13, 1931, for sale of property on Western Avenue in Petaluma to Clifford B. Murphy and Minnie J. Murphy; Moore, Montojo, Mauri, “Roots, Race, and Place,” Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, University of California, Berkeley, October 2019, p. 22.

[18] Note: the property included almost a mile of black sand beach, four acres of which Batchelor set aside for a new plant by his development partner Triumph Steel, who extracted manganese from the sand to use as an alloy in the making of steel. “D.W. Batchelor Buys Tract of Land in South,” Petaluma Courier, February 8, 1925; “F.A. Allenberg Now Associated with D.W. Batchelor,” Petaluma Argus, July 13, 1925; “Sales Among Those Sure to Be Kept in Office,” Petaluma Courier, May 21, 1925; “D.W. Batchelor Is Home from Rob Roy,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 16, 1926; “Was Up From Rob Roy Townsite,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 14, 1931; “Rob Roy District Now Being Transformed into Modern Home Subdivision,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, November 4, 1932; “D.W. Batchelor Is Here on Business,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 9, 1934; “Let’s Go to Beautiful, Secluded La Selva,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, February 25, 1951.

[19] “David Batchelor, LaSelva Beach Founder, Dies,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, July 9, 1963; “The Sand Was Gold,” Santa Cruz Sentinel,” June 2, 1985.

[20] “$500,000 Housing Program Here,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 2, 1946; http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/cities/Petaluma50.htm#1960

[21] “David Batchelor, LaSelva Beach Founder, Dies,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, July 9, 1963; “The Sand Was Gold,” Santa Cruz Sentinel,” June 2, 1985.

Petaluma’s Night Club Row

Bar at Gilardi’s Corner, 1940s (photo Sonoma County Library)

The swanky Lanai Lounge opened in the Hotel Petaluma on August 16, 1938. Taking up the hotel’s entire front corner, it was adorned with South Seas murals, bananas hanging from the ceiling, a koi pond, and a horseshoe-shaped bar that served exotic rum cocktails, transporting its customers to a romantic and languorous tropical paradise of rattan furniture, flower leis, and live Hawaiian music.

To the delight of hotel operator Vernon Peck, the lounge was an overnight sensation. The Golden Gate Bridge had opened the year before, and waves of tourists were passing through town on the Redwood Highway, headed for resorts along the Russian River, where they danced the night away to the big bands of Harry James, Buddy Rogers, and Glenn Miller.

*Hotel Petaluma, with lanai Lounge sign, 1938 (photo Sonoma County Library)*

Meanwhile, Tiki culture was sweeping the Bay Area, having made a big splash in 1937 with the opening of Trader Vic’s restaurant in Oakland. As word spread of Peck’s exotic roadside attraction, members of the Bohemian Grove, an exclusive Monte Rio men’s club, made ritual stopovers at the lounge on their way from San Francisco to their annual summer gathering on the Russian River. Their chauffeured limousines lined up outside the hotel caused a sensation in town.

Ad announcing Lanai Lounge opening, 1938 (Petaluma Argus-Courier

That cachet helped draw in Peck’s other target clientele, Petaluma’s “smart set.” While a number of bars and grocery taverns sprang up around town following Prohibition’s repeal in 1933, there was a crowd of young men and women more attracted to the lure of night clubs. That was largely a hangover from the speakeasies of Prohibition, which ushered in both the cocktail culture and mixed sexes drinking together in a semi-public establishment.

Mike Gilardi, owner of a cigar store across the street from the hotel, had converted his store into a popular cocktail lounge in 1937, offering jazz, dancing, and an exciting mixology of new slings and fizzes.

Gilardi’s Corner at Washington & Kentucky streets, c. 1949 (photo Sonoma County Library)

Piggybacking on the success of Gilardi’s Corner, the Lanai Lounge quickly became the second anchor of Petaluma’s “night club row.”

Peck needed the business. The Great Depression had sent many hotel properties into receivership, or else turned them entirely into single-room occupancy hotels (SROs). Traveling businessmen and salesmen were starting to take rooms in the inexpensive new motels being built along the highways, which, in addition to convenient parking, also relieved them from running a gauntlet of hotel staff with their hands out for tips.

Lanai Lounge matchbook cover (image in public domain)

In 1940, after successfully guiding the Hotel Petaluma through the Great Depression, Vernon Peck departed for a hotel in Los Angeles, selling his lease to Harold Eckart, a hotelier from Olympia, Washington. Eckart undertook a major renovation of the hotel in 1945, including a complete makeover of the Lanai Lounge, which he rechristened the Redwood Room. Newly decorated with large photo murals of the redwoods, the cocktail lounge quickly became a favorite hangout of Petaluma’s postwar café society, known as “the 400.”

Postcard of mural in the Redwood Room (image public domain)

They were serenaded most evenings by Earle Bond, a locally renowned organ player. Eckart also created a studio in the hotel for the local arm of the Santa Rosa radio station KSRO, and on the roof a Civil Air Patrol spotting station that continued to operate during the Cold War.

Redwood Room at corner of Hotel Petaluma, 1954 (photo Sonoma County Library)

The opening of Highway 101 to the east of town in 1956 put an end to travelers passing through the downtown on the Redwood Highway. As inexpensive motels were available just off the freeway, the Hotel Petaluma converted to being primarily an SRO.

In 1959, the local Elks Club, seeking more space for their club gatherings, purchased the hotel from the original Petaluma Hotel Company trust for $91,160, far short of the $285,000 local citizens had invested in 1924, when the hotel was built in a GoFundMe fashion. The Elks closed off the Redwood Room, carving it up into retail shops, blocked out the lobby for meeting spaces, and roofed over the open courtyard entrance, turning it into an exclusive barroom for club members.

Ed Mannion and Bill Soberanes of the Argus-Courier standing outside Gilardi’s Corner on the eve of its demolition in 1967 (photo Sonoma County Library)

In 1967, Gilardi’s Corner fell to the wrecking ball when Washington Street was widened into four lanes. A parking lot for the corner bank was eventually built in its place, erasing the last of Petaluma’s night club row.

*****

SOURCES:

Petaluma Argus-Courier: “Lanai Cocktail Lounge Opens at Hotel,” August 17, 1938; “KSRO to Close Local Station,” February 16, 1951; “Through the New Hotel Petaluma This City Offers Accommodations to Local People, Travelers-Unexcelled,” November 29, 1953; “Elks Hotel Project Will Cost $50,000,” January 22, 1960; “Colorful Fifties in Petaluma,” January 22, 1969.

Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier: July 3, 1959, August 17, 1971, October 29, 1974, July 7, 1978, October 24, 1980, February 2, 2000.

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: “$35,000 to be Invested in ‘Motels,’” March 20, 1938.

Petaluma’s First Movie: The Farmer’s Daughter

A Romantic Story of Political Opposites

Loretta Young and Joseph Cotten in still photo from “The Farmer’s Daughter” (photo courtesy of Gregg Fautley Collection)

In the spring of 1946, Louis Shapero, a Hollywood location scout, spent three days in a chartered plane scouring Sonoma County for a picturesque setting that would pass as a Minnesota dairy ranch. Then he came upon the Bundesen Ranch. Nestled in the green rolling foothills of Sonoma Mountain, the ranch’s setting struck him as the perfect backdrop for what would become the first Hollywood film shot in Petaluma.

A 150-acre dairy, the Bundesen Ranch sat at 4295 Old Adobe Road, two miles south of the Petaluma Adobe on the road to Sonoma. Originally settled by an Irishman named James Sullivan, it was purchased in the late 1880s by Sophus Bundesen, an immigrant from the Isle of Fohr. After his arrival in America in 1873, he adopted the Anglo-Saxon first name Charles in place of his given name, which along with its feminine variation Sophia, stands for wisdom in Greek.

Charles was joined in Petaluma by his brothers Martin and Henry, who settled on chicken ranches west of town. Charles and his wife Marie, another Isle of Fohr immigrant whom he married in San Francisco in 1884, raised five children on the ranch.

The Bundesen Ranch at 4295 Old Adobe Road, with Charles and Marie Bundesen in buggy and sons and daughters standing outside the gate, 1905 (photo courtesy of Sonoma County Library)

After Marie’s death in 1912, Bundesen retired from ranching and moved into town, leaving his son Martin to operate the ranch. Following Charles’ death in 1919, and Martin’s subsequent move to Eureka, the family leased the ranch in 1930 to an Irishman named William Scott, who immigrated to Petaluma during Ireland’s civil war in the early 1920s.

Scott was on his deathbed at the ranch, being cared for by his son Bob, when Shapero came calling to secure a release for using the ranch as a movie set. Sophie Bundesen, a Petaluma nurse representing the Bundesen family, also signed off on the release. In early May of 1946, a few days after Scott died, a crew of 100 carpenters, painters, landscapers, location directors, and film crew members descended upon the ranch to spruce it up for the shoot.

Still from the film set of the Bundesen Ranch with new silo and paint job, 1946 (credit: The Farmer’s Daughter)

That included applying a fresh coat of white paint to the two-story farmhouse and painting the barn, chicken coops, and sheds bright red, despite the fact the film would be shot in black and white. A second large barn was erected at the ranch’s entrance with a large mural depicting the rolling countryside, which would play into the movie’s storyline, along with a duck pond and a grain silo to make it look more like a Minnesota farm. The line of eucalyptus trees lining the short lane from Old Adobe Road to the farmhouse were cut down and replaced with pine trees, which were more akin to Minnesota.

Once the stage was set, filming began in mid-May. Each day for ten days, a small fleet of swanky, chauffeured cars delivered the director, producer, and stars Loretta Young and Joseph Cotten, to the ranch from the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, where they were lodged. The rest of the film crew stayed at Hotel Petaluma, which also provided picnic-style meals on the set each day.

Hotel Petaluma with Redwood Room on ground floor, 1954 (photo courtesy of Sonoma County Library)

The hotel’s owner, Harold Eckart, had undertaken a major renovation of the hotel the year before, including a makeover of the cocktail lounge. He rechristened it the Redwood Room (current site of the Shuckery restaurant). Decorated with a large photo mural of the redwoods, it quickly became a favorite hangout of Petaluma’s postwar café society, known as “the 400.” They were serenaded most evenings by Earle Bond, a locally renowned organ player.

Members of the 400 looking to catch a glimpse of the movie’s stars at the Redwood Room were disappointed however, as the evenings they were in town they chose to dine at the Golden Gate Grill on Main Street near Western Avenue (current site of the Sake 107 sushi restaurant).

Golden Gate Grill, 107 Main Street, 1947 (photo courtesy of Sonoma County Library)

A popular stop for celebrities and tourists traveling the Redwood Highway north to the Russian River resorts, the grill was owned and operated by two Yugoslavian immigrants, Pete Goich and chef “Big Tom” Kasovich. It being Petaluma, the house specialty was chicken.

Both the opening and closing scenes of the film were shot at the Bundesen Ranch. A cheerful comedy-drama originally called “Katie Goes to Congress,” it opens with a convertible driving into the Bundesen Ranch to pick up Young, who plays a Swedish-American farmgirl headed to the big city to attend nursing school.

Filming at Bundesen Ranch (photo courtesy of the Ed Fratini Collection, Petaluma Historical Museum)

While waiting at a bus stop created for the film on the corner of Stage Gulch and Old Adobe roads, Young’s character warily accepts a ride from an itinerant sign painter who just finished painting a mural on the side of her family’s barn.

Bus stop set up at the corner of Old Adobe and Stage Gulch roads (credit: The Farmer’s Daughter)

Taking advantage of her good nature—along with all her savings for school tuition—he leaves her scandalously stranded that night at a roadside motel.

The motel featured in the film was the Pioneer Auto Court on the southeast corner of Fern Avenue and Redwood Highway, just south of Cotati. Opened in 1938 by John Frankfurter, the Pioneer featured 13 small cabins, a cocktail lounge, and a large swimming pool. In its heyday, it catered to travelers headed north along the Redwood Highway.

Loretta Young’s character at the Pioneer (credit: The Farmer’s Daughter)

During the nighttime shoot at the Pioneer, an inebriated local, drawn by the bright studio lights outside the motel, drove up to the set and stumbled into the bar to order a drink. “Nice opening you’re having,” he said to the bartender, “just like in Hollywood.” Turning to Young, who was waiting inside the lounge to shoot a scene outside, he added, “And, baby, you’re a dead ringer for Loretta Young. What won’t they think of next?”

Cocktail Lounge at the Pioneer Auto Court featured in the film (credit: The Farmer’s Daughter)

In the film, Young’s character, broke but determined to stand on her own two feet, hitchhikes from the motel into the big city, where she manages to secure a job as domestic in the home of a prominent congressman played by Cotten.

After Cotten’s right-wing political party decides to back an unscrupulous alderman for Congress, Young, an outspoken progressive just as comfortable discussing politics as she is washing sheets and ironing shirts, stands up at a campaign rally to deride the two-faced alderman, leading to an offer from the opposing party to run against him.

Loretta Young plays Katie Holstrum, addressing a campaign rally in this still shot from the film (credit: The Farmer’s Daughter)

Propelled into the lead in the race thanks to her plainspoken and honest aphorisms, Young is tripped up at the eleventh hour when the sign painter, paid by the opposition, shows up to publicly slander her with false salacious accusations regarding their night together at the Pioneer Auto Club.

Returning to the ranch to console herself with feeding the chickens, Young is encouraged by both her father and Cotten, who’s come to propose to her (in the chicken yard), to fight the smear campaign. With Cotten’s help, she gets the sign painter to confess to his lies and is elected to Congress. She also accepts Cotten’s hand in marriage, despite the fact they are on opposite sides of the political aisle.

Love scene, Petaluma style (credit: The Farmer’s Daughter, courtesy of Rocco Rivetti)

Ironically, Young was dealing with one of Hollywood’s biggest cover-ups at the time. It involved her 10-year-old adopted daughter, who accompanied Young to the Bundesen Ranch during filming. Despite rumors swirling around Hollywood, it wouldn’t be until just before Young’s death in 2000 that it was publicly confirmed the girl was actually her biological daughter. Later came the disclosure that she had become pregnant after being date raped by Clark Gable while the two of them were shooting Call of the Wild in Washington state.

Originally shot as Katie Goes to Congress, Petaluma’s first movie was released in 1947 under the title, The Farmer’s Daughter. It opened that summer to packed houses at Petaluma’s California Theater (the current Phoenix Theater). A popular box office hit, the film earned Young her first and only Oscar.

Ad for “The Farmer’s Daughter” (credit: Pinterest)

After the 101 Freeway opened in 1957, travelers no longer took the Redwood Highway through Petaluma when heading north to the Russian River. That hurt a lot of local businesses.

Casualties included Hotel Petaluma, which was sold to the Elks Club for use as a clubhouse and a single-room occupancy hotel until 2017, when it was restored as a boutique hotel. The Pioneer Auto Court was also forced to become a short-term SRO, although its swimming pool remained a popular attraction for local kids until the early 1970s, when the motel was torn down and replaced by a horse pasture.

Former Bundesen Ranch today, 4295 Old Adobe Road (credit: John Sheehy)

Out on the Bundesen Ranch, the film company tore down the Minnesota silo and barn after the shooting ended. The ranch itself was sold in the 1950s to dairy rancher Frank Flochinni, an Italian immigrant, and later passed down to his descendants. Over the years, the ranch house and original barn were torn down and replaced by a new house and barn.

*****

Thanks to Gregg Fautley for his research assistance on this story, and as always, to Katie Watts for her editing.

Video trailer for The Farmer’s Daughter:

The Farmer’s Daughter is also available for free viewing on youtube:

SOURCES:

Petaluma Argus: “A Mother is Called to Rest,” December 2, 1912; “Barn Dance at Bundesen Home,” September 2, 1922.

Petaluma Argus-Courier: “Leased Dairy Near Town,” December 15, 1930; “William J. Scott Claimed by Death,” April 19, 1946; “RKO Picture Co. Inc. to Shoot Movie, ‘Katie Goes to Congress,’ on Bundesen Place,” May 14, 1946; “Sunny Skies Hoped for by ‘Katie for Congress’ Artists,” May 23, 1946; “Elizabeth Olga Olberg Meets Loretta Young, Poses with Star for Picture on Lot,” May 25, 1946; “Carl Bundesen Succumbs to Illness,” May 31, 1946; “Katie For Congress Picture Completed at ‘Location,’” June 1, 1946; “Motorist Was Slightly Mixed,” June 10, 1946; “The Farmer’s Daughter Filmed Here; At Cal,” July 28, 1947; “So They Tell Me with Bill Soberanes column,” January 27, 1958; “ Ed Mannion’s Rear-View Mirror column,” April 12, 1962, “Frank Flochinni,” May 25, 1977.

Petaluma Courier: “Arrived from Germany to Remain,” December 6, 1912; “Chas. Bundesen Has Passed into Rest,” July 22, 1919;

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: “Hollywood Location Party Using Ranch Near Petaluma,” May 15, 1946; Bundesens’ Roots in Ranching,” December 17, 1989.

“Yesterday’s Favorite Spot Just a Memory,” Cotati Historical Society Newsletter, Vol. 8, No. 2, June, 2015, pp.1-2.

Charles Bundesen, U.S. Census, 1880, 1890.

Herman Martin Theodore Bundesen, U.S. Census, 1910.

Helen Petersen, “Clark Gable Accused of Raping Co-Star,” Buzz Feed News, July 12, 2015. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/loretta-young