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SONOMA & THE VALLEY OF THE MOON
Our Sonoma Estate is a country park resting on 2 1/4 acres in the exclusive and historic Spreckels Estate enclave of Sobre Vista. This Valley of the Moon luxury property includes a grand 6,500 square foot mid-century contemporary home that was built along side the historic 1898 Spreckels Estate tennis court. There is a classic Thomas Church designed swimming pool, a raised grass volleyball court, basketball, horseshoes, croquet, picnic areas, hammocks and an outdoor Jacuzzi. We always hear, in view of the limited photographs, that the property is so much more than our guests expected. We love it, and hope that you will too.
HOME AWAY FROM HOME... COMMON AREAS
The home features a 40 foot entrance gallery leading to the great room with its 17 foot ceilings and massive stone fireplace. On either side of the great room is the formal dining room and the den with stone fireplace. A large chef's kitchen compliments the morning breakfast room with stone fireplace and overlooks the pool, tennis court and valley views to the east. Through the adjacent billiard room you enter the family room with baby grand piano and 50" flat screen television. The artwork is historic and thought-provoking...cupids and kings, horses and cavaliers, Chinese figurines, allegories, myth and legend.
THE SPA FEELING...THE 7 BEDROOMS AND BATHROOMS
While the home's interior common areas resemble a country manor or lodge the bedrooms and bathrooms are very modern and feel like a spa. Each of the 7 bedrooms are color coordinated in soft light and dark taupes and have resort quality organic linens, waffles-robes, towels and duvets from Coyuchi. All bedrooms come with custom walnut shelving, flatscreen televisions with built-in DVD players, and Ipod compatible clock amplifiers. Each of the bathrooms are encased in seagreen limestone and installed with European Lacava counter-top sinks, custom teak shelving and hardware from the Purist Collection. And though our other bathrooms have porcelain soaking tubs, the master bathroom suite is a special and private spa experience with a "Tea For Two" jetted tub, double headed stall shower, and separate his and her unpacking and dressing areas. Very romantic.
FIGS, FAMILY AND FRIENDS
The home is big, and at the same time inviting and cozy. The many wood burning stone fireplaces, easy chairs and sofas provide ample opportunity for social settings and peaceful areas to find some time alone. Sobre Vista has many personalities just as the outdoors call for laying out on the lawns, picking figs, plums, apples, blood-oranges, white grapefruit, lemons and peaches or reading around the pool, playing tennis or volleyball and later a family game of croquet or horseshoes. You won't be bored. You and your family, friends and guests will truly enjoy the seamless pleasures of our Sobre Vista Estate. From relaxation and recreation to dining, reading, thinking and just being...your time here will be memorable...a peaceful and entertaining home away from home.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SPRECKELS ESTATE AND SOBRE VISTA
Alma Spreckels is considered by many local historians to be the "great grandmother of San Francisco," the heiress to the fortune of sugar baron Adolph Spreckels. She was born Alma le Normand de Bretteville on a sandy farm in the city's Sunset District in 1881 as Alma's parents, both Danish immigrants, struggled with near poverty during much of her early childhood.
While still in her teens, six-foot-tall beauty Alma Spreckels had earned her way through art school posing nude for professional artists. And after President William McKinley dedicated the ground breaking for the Dewey memorial in San Francisco’s Union Square she became the model for the dramatic statue atop. The nude Statuette was dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902. Alma then caught the eye of sugar multi-millionaire Adolph Spreckels, and they married in 1908. She quickly became an enthusiastic patron of the arts and museums. When Adolph died in 1924, part of her inheritance was the 280 acres of Sobre Vista in the hills in the northwest valley, her vast country estate in Sonoma, California,
Alma spent considerable time and money redecorating Sobre Vista, which provided a stable paycheck to an army of local construction workers during the desperate years of the early 1930s. The estate known to many as the "San Simeon of the North" proved to be a splendid environment for entertaining such celebrities as boxing champ Gene Tunney, San Francisco banker A. P Gianinni, and film stars Billie Burke, Bing Crosby, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and John Barrymore.
When the Great Depression plunged the Sonoma Golf Course into debt and potential foreclosure, Alma came to the rescue by purchasing the course and holding it until a buyer could be located ready to preserve the golf links for the future. Tireless on behalf of those in need she was honored by Presidents and heads of state from around the world receiving the Cross of the Legion of Honor from the French government in 1924. Today, the home she built and lived in for many years is still one of the grandest in San Francisco, now owned by novelist Danielle Steele. |
