Sonoma County Fairgrounds barn honoring Saralee Kunde nearly complete

A $3 million barn-like building, nearing completion at the center of the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, is a tribute to the late Saralee McClelland Kunde. She was the tireless champion of local agriculture whose life was intertwined with the fair, the foremost showcase of the county’s farming culture.

Kunde, who died of cancer in January 2014 at age 66, was the driving force behind the building, named Saralee & Richard’s Barn after the wine grape-growing pair known as “the first couple of Sonoma County agriculture.”

The barn is “a fitting tribute to her memory and her legacy,” said Pat Emery, president of the Sonoma County Fair Foundation and a former fair board director.

Kunde, who showed Holstein cows at the fair as a 4-H member in the 1950s and ’60s, later worked for the fair and ultimately served as a fair board director and president. Along the way, she met Richard Kunde while they were both decorating the Hall of Flowers for the Sonoma County Harvest Fair, an event that Saralee co-founded. The couple married in 1982, and Richard Kunde contributed $100,000 toward the building.

The fair foundation’s ability to raise $2.6 million of the $3 million needed to complete the barn is “a natural outgrowth,” Emery said, of the community’s sorrow over losing Kunde, known for her boundless energy, floppy hats and yen for planting thousands of daffodil bulbs along local roads and highways.

Kunde’s reputation opened doors and wallets for the fundraising campaign, said Ross Liscum, a fair board director and foundation treasurer. “You talk to the ag community and tell them what we’re doing, they get passionate about it,” he said.

There hasn’t been a new building erected on the fairgrounds in about 50 years, Liscum said.

When the 80th annual fair opens on July 22, visitors will find Sweet Lil’s Farmery inside the 12,000-square-foot building, a new location for the feature that affords children contact with baby farm animals and a chance to “milk” an acrylic cow named Lil, after Lillian McClelland, Saralee’s mother.

The building - being funded entirely by community donations to the foundation, an independent nonprofit corporation - fulfills Kunde’s dream of an agricultural education and support center, and is also a key element of the fair’s future as a year-round event and conference center.

It will be a “huge component,” Emery said, of the fair’s new focus on generating revenue from non-fair events at a time when tribal casinos have diminished horse racing receipts.

The foundation will have use of the building for 30 days a year, granting the fairgrounds - now called the Sonoma County Events Center at the Fairgrounds - access the rest of the year, he said.

When the foundation completes raising $3 million for the barn, it will shift to seeking $300,000 for an endowment to support educational programs, Emery said.

The building, located next to Finley Hall in the middle of the fairgrounds, is now about 70 percent complete, said Mark Tucker, the project superintendent with Wright Contracting. By fair time, it will be 90 percent complete, he said, with landscaping, including an olive grove, and some exterior features still to be finished.

The architect, Ken Lafranchi, described it as a “barn-themed building,” with board and batten wooden siding and a steel roof, common features on barns and a match for many of the buildings on the fairgrounds.

The outside walls are painted a deep brown hue, called “Texas boot,” that will be complemented by purple accents on planters, a color named “Cabernet,” Tucker said.

Inside, the drywall just went up and work will continue six days a week, he said. The completed hall will feature a kitchen and state-of-the-art sound and projection systems, Emery said.

Ribbon-cutting is scheduled for 5 p.m. July 21, the night before the fair opens, followed at 5:30 p.m. by the traditional flower show preview.