Fountain Grove was a utopian colony founded near Santa Rosa, California, by Thomas Lake Harris in 1875. [1] Most of its settlers were followers of Harris's Brotherhood of the New Life and moved with Harris from their previous colony at Brocton, New York.
The neighborhood now refers to the modern-day Fountaingrove, in north Santa Rosa, west of Hidden Valley and east of Bicentennial Way and Piner Road areas. It has[ when? ] 3,500-4,000 residents. [2] Much of it was burned down in the 2017 Tubbs Fire; most homes were rebuilt or replaced by 2019.
Nagasawa Kanaye (1852-1934) was Harris' California lieutenant, who acted as developer and manager of the community's 2,000 acres (8 km2) of vineyards near Santa Rosa. He also succeeded Harris and acted as leader of the brotherhood until 1934.
The main structure was a two-story mansion originally occupied by Harris, his wife, and a handful of utopians; it was also used for important guest lodging and common meals. It was called "Aestivossa" by Harris, which he said meant "high country of divine joy" in a language only he understood. [3] The structure was commonly referred to as the manor house. Luxuriously furnished, it was in the center of a ring of eucalyptus trees and little gardens and a lily pond, but Harris maintained that his "real palace" was in "interspace." [4] According to Brotherhood guidelines, all of the structures in the Fountain Grove commune were built to be taken physically into the "Celestial Sphere." [5] The manor house was demolished in 1970. [6] [7]
Harris' community left a significant stamp on the history of Santa Rosa, and today that part of town is still called Fountaingrove, and a street, Thomas Lake Harris Drive, is named for Harris. The round barn that was part of the winery was a noted landmark in the area until its loss to fire in 2017.
The former Fountain Grove Winery buildings, now owned by Medtronic, are[ when? ] slated for demolition. The original winery was founded in 1882 and ceased operations in the early 1940s. [8]
Today the neighborhood is known to be home to some of the city's wealthiest residents. Fountaingrove and Skyfarm together comprise the most expensive neighborhoods in the city and the county as a whole.
The neighborhood was severely affected by the 2017 Tubbs Fire, which destroyed many homes, along with the Fountaingrove Inn and the round barn. [9] [10]
Sonoma County is located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, its population was 488,863. Its seat of government and largest city is Santa Rosa.
Santa Rosa is a city in and the county seat of Sonoma County, in the North Bay region of the Bay Area in California. Its population as of the 2020 census was 178,127. It is the largest city in California's Wine Country and Redwood Coast. It is the fifth most populous city in the Bay Area after San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, and Fremont; and the 25th-most populous city in California.
Windsor is an incorporated town in Sonoma County, California, United States. The town is 9 miles north of Santa Rosa and 63 miles north of San Francisco. The population was 26,801 as of the 2010 census. Windsor was once home to a waterslide park known as Windsor Waterworks, or as the Doom Flume, from 1980 to 2006. Windsor also has a bowling center which sits right next to the site where the former Windsor Waterworks waterslide park sat until its 2006 closure.
Thomas Lake Harris was an Anglo-American Universalist minister, spiritualistic prophet, poet, and vintner. Harris is best remembered as the leader of a series of communal religious experiments, culminating with a group called the Brotherhood of the New Life in Santa Rosa, California.
Penngrove is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sonoma County, California, United States, situated between the cities of Petaluma and Cotati, at the foot of the western flank of Sonoma Mountain. It is part of the North Bay subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 2,522 at the 2010 census.
Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC) is a public community college in Santa Rosa, California with an additional campus in Petaluma and centers in surrounding Sonoma County. Santa Rosa Junior College was modeled as a feeder school for the University of California system. SRJC is operated by the Sonoma County Community College District.
Altruria was a short-lived utopian commune in Sonoma County, California, based on Christian socialist principles and inspired by William Dean Howells's 1894 novel, A Traveler from Altruria.
Fountaingrove Lake is a reservoir in the city of Santa Rosa, California, United States. Formed by the Fountaingrove Dam, the lake is fed from the east by Piner Creek, which is also the lake's sole outlet.
Washoe House is a historic roadhouse in Sonoma County, California in the United States. It is located west of Cotati, California at the juncture of Stony Point Road and Roblar Road. It lies near the headwaters of Washoe Creek and is the defining landmark of the unincorporated community of Stony Point. It is a designated Sonoma County Historic Landmark.
The Museum of Sonoma County, commonly known as the Sonoma County Museum, is a non-profit organization located in downtown Santa Rosa, California. Its 7th St. campus comprises the historic 1910 Santa Rosa Post Office, a contemporary art gallery, and a sculpture garden. Between the two buildings, the Museum presents 10-12 rotating exhibitions per year and maintains a permanent collection of over 18,000 objects that document the region's rich history and celebrate local artists. The historic post office is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Joe Rodota Trail is a 8.5-mile paved rail trail in Sonoma County, California that spans from near the intersection of Mill Station Road and Highway 116 in Sebastopol to the area of West 3rd Street and Roberts Avenue in Santa Rosa. The trail provides a safety separation for pedestrians and bicycles from motor vehicle traffic on the parallel California State Route 12/Luther Burbank Memorial Highway.
South Park is residential neighborhood in the city of Santa Rosa, California. It is located in south Santa Rosa, east of U.S. Highway 101, south of Bennett Valley Road, west of the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, and encompasses 60 blocks. The community is known for its old houses and artistic murals in the area, and notorious for its history of an above average crime rate and gang activity. South Park was also once a settlement for African Americans during the mid-1900s and was a center of Santa Rosa's Black community. Today, the neighborhood is mainly Latino. It has around 1,500 residents.
Keysight Technologies, or Keysight, is an American company that manufactures electronics test and measurement equipment and software. The name is a blend of key and insight. The company was formed as a spin-off of Agilent Technologies, which inherited and rebranded the test and measurement product lines developed and produced from the late 1960s to the turn of the millennium by Hewlett-Packard's Test & Measurement division.
Kanaye Nagasawa was an American winemaker in California, the first former Japanese national to live permanently in the United States, a recipient of the Order of the Rising Sun, and a disciple of Thomas Lake Harris, the self-proclaimed "Father and Pivot and Primate and King of the Brotherhood of the New Life". Nagasawa followed Harris from New York out to Santa Rosa, California, where he eventually took over Harris' Fountaingrove estate. Nagasawa died in 1934, but the round barn he constructed at Fountaingrove was a landmark in Sonoma County.
Fountain Grove may refer to:
Gaye Theresa LeBaron is an American newspaper columnist, author, teacher, and local historian of Sonoma County, California. She wrote more than 8,000 columns for The Press Democrat from 1961 until her semi-retirement in 2001. She also co-authored two books on the history of Santa Rosa, California.
The Tubbs Fire was a wildfire in Northern California during October 2017. At the time, the Tubbs Fire was the most destructive wildfire in California history, burning parts of Napa, Sonoma, and Lake counties, inflicting its greatest losses in the city of Santa Rosa. Its destructiveness was surpassed only a year later by the Camp Fire of 2018. The Tubbs Fire was one of more than a dozen large fires that broke out in early October 2017, which were simultaneously burning in eight Northern California counties, in what was called the "Northern California firestorm". By the time of its containment on October 31, the fire was estimated to have burned 36,810 acres (149 km2); at least 22 people were believed to have been killed in Sonoma County by the fire.
The October 2017 Northern California wildfires, also known as the Northern California firestorm, North Bay Fires, and the Wine Country Fires were a series of 250 wildfires that started burning across the state of California, United States, beginning in early October. Twenty-one became major fires that burned at least 245,000 acres (99,148 ha).
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