Neighbors upset over proposed Kenwood luxury resort

Steve Rose scowled, and shook his head.

The biodynamic farmer was looking up at the lush hillside from his sun porch, imagining his solitude strung up in lights.

“Something I don’t cherish is having to look up at night and see a bunch of hotel rooms lit up,” he said. “My concern is seeing all the light pollution, and my neighbors are concerned about it, too.”

Rose, 63, lives with his wife, Colleen, on Rose Ranch, a 13-acre spread at the base of Kenwood’s Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. Nearby, Tohigh Investments of China is expected to break ground on its 50-room hotel resort in late 2017.

Rose has short cropped silver hair, and he’s wearing a sweater, jeans and socks. He has kicked off his clogs, resting his feet on a chair, as he recounts his efforts to preserve the tranquility of his property.

Back in 2004, one of the original investors of the resort, Save Mart Supermarkets, asked Rose if he would provide an easement to allow delivery trucks to cut across his property to enter the backside of the resort.

Rose said an engineer told him, “These people have deep pockets and they’ll pay you whatever you want for this easement.”

Rose said he replied, “I’m not for sale.”

The grower, who tends vineyards and an ever-expanding range of vegetables, explains: “I’m sure there are a lot of people who would have jumped at the opportunity to get a check for a million dollars, but not me because I love being a part of this community. I’m not the sort of person who would sell out.”

Rose was the co-owner of Vineyards Inn restaurant from 1981 to 2016. He recalls when there were only two stoplights between his Kenwood restaurant and the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa.

“Now, there are 11,” Rose said, “and the traffic on the weekends is overwhelming. There are people with wine glasses wandering around the highway from buses, limos and vans. ... It has gotten out of hand. Highway 12 was never designed to cover as much traffic as it sees now.”

What’s most upsetting, Rose said, “is the feel of the community has changed a lot.”

One great example, Rose said, is how Kenwood Elementary School has begun taking interdistrict transfers, which never happened when his son was enrolled. Vacation rentals, he explained, are beginning to dot the landscape, narrowing the scope of local families populating Kenwood homes.

Rose has mixed feelings about development, acknowledging he has personally prospered. The 5.5 acres he purchased in 1982 has increased in value tenfold, he said.

“I live here and I understand that wineries are great for the community and bring a lot of visitors,” Rose said. “But I don’t want Highway 12 in Sonoma to become Highway 29 in Napa Valley, because it’s already becoming that.”

Peg Melnik