History of VG

Waiting for the train to Duncans' Mills.  Note the three train tracks for both the narrow gauge  train (shown coming into the station) and the broad gauge trains that also stopped at "Mesa Grande" station. Circa 1910.

Russian River

Long before prospectors headed west to seek their fortune in gold after its discovery in 1849, indigenous Pomo tribes inhabited the rich lands and the south-facing banks of the fish-filled waterway that they called “Ashokawna”. In 1812, the Russian-American Company created a fortress-like trading post on the ocean bluff 13 miles north of the river estuary. The settlement was given the name “Ross” most likely to poetically highlight its connection with Imperial Russia (Rossia). One of the leaders of the Ross Settlement Alexandrovich Kuskov and his team explored the area and named the waterway “Rossyskaya Reka” (meaning “Russian River”) after their country of origin. The name was later anglicized to “Russian River” by American settlers who came to the region.

Mesa Grande

Villa Grande began as a redwood forest on the curve of the lower Russian River. The area was originally known as “Big Flat”. After the old growth redwoods were logged in the late 1800’s, to build local and San Francisco homes during the 1800's, North Pacific Coast Railroad created a subsidiary real estate company, North Shore Land Company. Beginning in May, 1897, the North Shore Land Company subdivided the newly named “Mesa Grande” into 151 lots: 40 x 80 feet. Riverside lots were sold for $75 and the others for $50. The “Grandville” (aka Grandeville) Post Office was established on June 21, 1907, in the Old Mesa Grande General Store. The town was called “Grandville” for a while (1909-1921),” but due to a duplication of the name by another town in California, the name was changed to “Villa Grande” in March, 1921. Unfortunately the Terraces which were designated as “Mesa Grande Addition #1” in 1906,, did not get included in the newly named town and were lumped into the adjacent “Monte Rio”.

The issue related to the lack of inclusion of the Terraces into the County's separation of the Terraces from Villa Grande is addressed in the section Community Identification.

TRAINS TO MESA GRANDE

To transport logged redwood from Guerneville and the many logging mills (including one on the site of the Guerneville Safeway), the original Korbel owner, who logged trees before growing grapes, and the area’s mill owners funded the standard gauge railroad (the Broad Gauge) to bring and take logs to & from the Bay area. The commercial logging trains came up from Sausalito, Petaluma and Santa Rosa, then literally down Guerneville’s main street, past the Monsanto (whose train station also known as Angie’s Hideaway was torn down at the end of 2024), through Northwood, crossing the river at the current Bohemian Grove beach, continuing on through the current Monte Rio Amphitheater, and continuing on Moscow Road past Mesa Grande to its terminus at the Duncans (Brothers) Mills. After the 1906 earthquake, with the construction of hundreds of cabins in Mesa Grande and Monte Rio, entrepreneurs created a smaller passenger train on narrower tracks (Narrow Gauge) which could manuever through smaller tunnels and bridges from Sausalito, through Valley Ford, Freestone, Occidental (Howard’s Station), and Camp Meeker to Monte Rio where a third track was added to the Broad gauge line to bring the San Francisco passengers to Mesa Grande, Sheridan, Duncans Mills, and on to Casadero. The impacts of the automobile, and the depression ended the use of the Narrow Gauge Railroad in 1931 and the Broad gauge service ended in 1935.

With the end of train service, train tracks were ripped up, and the Northwood-Bohemian Grove bridge taken down. Cars no longer had to travel above the train trains from Guerneville to Monte Rio on the old “Monte Rio Road” or travel from Monte Rio to Mesa Grande via Starrett Hill Road (a route still used for access to the Terraces and an emergency alternative during emergencies) The broad gauge train tracks became Route 116’s River Road and the narrow/broad dual tracks became Moscow Road.

Homes of Mesa Grande

The turn-of the -century “California Arts & Crafts” cabins of Mesa Grande, were meant for summertime use, are the core of the Villa Grande architectural community. Many of these homes were made of virgin redwood milled locally at a small mill near the corner of Starrett Hill and Russian River Avenue. A short spur of the broad gauge railroad ran a few yards down Russian River Avenue to load the wood from the Mesa Grande Mill. The Mesa Grande Mill foreman, James Pat(t)erson, was an early builder of several homes that line Patterson Point Preserve along Russian River Avenue and is the source of the name of the Preserve (which was accidentally misspelled on the FoVG deed).

The oldest house in Villa Grande is still under debate. Some think that the main cabin of the three that were put together on the corner of West & 5th Street (21898n West) was an old PG&E substation that was floated to Mesa Grande from San Francisco. Another legend is the original cabin that is the core of the house at 21880 Russian River Avenue was the first house built in Mesa Grande by James Paterson who continued building redwood cabins along Russian River Avenue.

The Old Hotel (reprinted from November 2012, FoVG Newsletter #12

Herman Blossfeldt, a member of guards for the last Russian Tsar, was born in Lieãja, a town on the Baltic Sea in Latvia in 1866. Legend has it that Herman was a body double for the Tsar Nicholas II, but he was long gone when the revolution ended the rule and life of the Tsar and his family in 1918. Herman left Russia before 1900, spending time in Alaska and San Francisco, eventually owning (with Lawrence Fauth) the Hotel Vermont on Valencia Street in the Mission District.

Sonoma County records sow Blossfeldt was a resident of “Grandville” in 1913, the name of our town after it was “Mesa Grande” and before it was “Villa Grande”. One of his cousins, also from Liepãja, was the patriarch of the Girot clan, which had already settled here and continue to this day in the “Here Tis”. George Girot, wo was born in 1916, summered in Villa Grande with family, and remembered Uncle Herman building the Old Hotel around 1920.

In addition to the main building, Herman built 10 tent cabins on platforms and a goat house that were used for summer visitors. Two of the tent cabins and the Goat House were later converted to year-round cabins, which are still occupied.

The Old Hotel along with the General Store was the town’s center of activity. It’s dining room was always busy since several houses didn’t have proper kitchens. Chef Anna Hartman,, known for her delicious meals and famous pastries made the “Villa Grande Dinner” a destination for summer visitors who arrived on the noon train from San Francisco. The hotel would pick up visitors from the “Mesa Grande” train station on Moscow Road, which was next to the current VG Fire House, and drive them the two blocks to the hotel.