Vanoni Ranch: 6
Generations Carrying on the Tradition
By:
D.H. Eraldi
Published in the Sonoma-Marin Farm News, November 2007;
Volume 20, Issue 1
It’s
not hard to understand why six generations of Vanonis dedicate themselves to
living and working on their cattle and horse ranch overlooking the Russian
River valley. One only needs to swing open the well-oiled gate at the bottom of
the driveway, and proceed along the graded road through the bottomland and up
the winding canyon dotted with oak trees, to understand why anyone who was born
and raised on these hills, would not want to leave. Wild flowers sway under the trees, geese feed
in the grasses alongside the lake, and fat shiny cattle watch the passing
vehicles on the long driveway.
The
Vanoni Ranch spreads across 1800 acres in prime Sonoma County real estate,
offering the visitor a glimpse of how Northern California looked a hundred, or
even two hundred years ago. The land was originally part of several Spanish
land grants, considered in that day to be some of the most ideal cattle raising
country anywhere. The lush grasslands
are fed by numerous springs – the main reason that the earliest Vanonis, Mark
and Angelina, chose the area in 1902. The large dairy they had owned near San
Simeon had been devastated by drought, and the land sold into the Hearst
holdings. This provided the funds to move north, and to purchase the ranch that
the family still lives on today.
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