Santa Rosa man shares his fascination with tankhouses

Tom Cooper’s fascination with old-time tankhouses has gotten him into hot water before, but not even the threat of arrest has cooled his interest in the towering relics once used for residential water supply.

He hits the brakes - on his bike or his car - whenever he spots one while traversing country roads around Northern California.

He was biking in the Livermore Valley more than a dozen years ago when he first spotted a tankhouse, the trim, three-story design catching his eye.

“I saw one and didn’t know what it was. A tankhouse looks kind of curious, really. It attracts attention,” said Cooper, 86.

Since moving to Santa Rosa in 2007, his interest in tankhouses has only grown stronger. The countryside with old farmsteads and rural homes is rich with the old structures, some ramshackle, others repaired and converted into living and storage spaces.

“I’m in tankhouse heaven here,” said Cooper, a father of five, grandfather of 11 and great-grandfather of three, who is retired from a career in international pharmaceuticals marketing.

The ever-curious and amiable Cooper has been known to knock on strangers’ doors to learn more about tankhouses and their histories. Most homeowners are gracious and welcome the chance to share their stories - but not everyone.

While passing through Windsor, he spotted a tankhouse almost entirely hidden by trees and brambles, set off the road on a property that was for sale. When he approached the acreage to take photographs, the unamused homeowner called police and wanted Cooper arrested for trespassing.

“He said, ‘You’re lucky I didn’t have my shotgun or I’d a shot you,’ ” Cooper recalled. “That was a bad mistake on my part.”

Though shaken, Cooper was undeterred. He left without photos but later found an overhead picture from Google maps online, a satisfying consolation.

“There’s a happy ending for a bad beginning,” he said.

With little published about tankhouses outside a few newspaper articles, some master’s theses and journal records, Cooper has discovered the best way to gain information is to go to the source.

“If you want to learn about it, you’ve got to talk to people,” he said. “I like to meet the people who own them.”

It’s all part of his quest to chronicle the fascinating story of tankhouses. He’s become something of an expert on the wind-powered water systems, most locally built from redwood and dating from around the time of California’s statehood to the 1930s, when improved technology and expanded municipal water agencies made the structures obsolete.

The enclosed tankhouses have underground wells, with water drawn up into a storage tank beneath the roof. Through gravity flow, and often propelled by windmills atop the roof, water is delivered to homes and gardens.

Storage tanks typically held 5,000 gallons of water some 20 feet above ground.

Cooper wrote a book on the topic, “TANKHOUSE: California’s Redwood Water Towers From a Bygone Era,” self-published by his Barn Owl Press in 2011. Cooper still searches for tankhouses and writes a blog about his new discoveries.

He’s discovered more than 500 tankhouses, mostly in Northern California, but has found others in Oregon and Texas, even discovering a rather primitive one while vacationing in New Zealand.

“The guy came out and was delighted to talk to me, though he talked to me in Kiwi (slang),” Cooper said of his visit Down Under.

He’s as much fascinated by the histories of tankhouses as with their conversions. He’s discovered tankhouses transformed into home offices, spare bedrooms, art studios, a memorabilia gallery, a man cave and storage spaces.

One in Sebastopol has webcams to film barn owls that make their home there; another in Glen Ellen is part of an historic bed-and-breakfast inn.

Cooper heard about a rather enterprising use from new homeowners who discovered their tankhouse once served as a hydroponic marijuana farm.

“They’ve all got their individual stories,” he said.

Cooper believes German settlers to the U.S. may have brought the tankhouse designs with them. He spotted many while visiting Germany, a country “full of old water towers.”

Though all have similar features and technology, designs differ; many are square and straight upright, others octagonal, some with architecture narrowing toward the rooftop.

“It’s vernacular architecture. It’s done skillfully and for a very good purpose,” Cooper said.

He believes tankhouses were a measure of “success and progress” for homeowners, who invested considerably in their design and construction. “It wasn’t everybody who could have them.”

Cooper loves sharing his knowledge of the structures and their early green practices. He conducts informational tours for neighbors at the retirement community where he and his wife, Amy, live, and recently gave a lecture sponsored by the Sonoma Valley Historical Society showcasing his photographs and documentation of tankhouses.

“I’ve gotten to be a go-to guy,” he said.

Cooper is charmed by the landmarks and their place in history, and always welcomes tips about where to find the next one.

Like a veteran collector searching for just one more mint-condition coin or exquisite postage stamp, Cooper also awaits the discovery of another tankhouse.

“It’s about a way of life that’s gone,” he said.

He’s hopeful homeowners will restore and repurpose the aging relics rather than tear them down, a fate befallen many.

“If they’re going to survive,” he said, “they have to be converted to some other use.”

“TANKHOUSE: California’s Redwood Water Towers From a Bygone Era” is available at Copperfield’s Books in Santa Rosa, in Sonoma at Readers’ Books and Depot Park Museum, and from amazon.com.

More information is available at sites.google.com/site/tankhousetomsplace/tankhouse and barnowlpress.com and sites.google.com/site/thebarnowlpresspage.

Contact Towns correspondent Dianne Reber Hart at sonomatowns@gmail.com.