Cherished history, family dynamics driving Petrified Forest sale in Sonoma County

Selling a property is always complicated. When that property has been in the family for more than a century and is both a world-renowned tourist attraction and a rare piece of Wine Country open space, things are bound to get tangled.

“There’s not one controlling party,” said Lewise Salvadori, one of six current co-owners of the Petrified Forest, a roadside curiosity that has been welcoming visitors to the Mayacamas Mountains for more than a century. “There’s six owners, with different opinions and different visions. And completely different personalities.”

It was Salvadori’s great-aunt, Ollie Bockee (she pronounced it like “bouquet”), who purchased the property in 1914 and turned it into a destination for vacationing families and intrigued researchers before her death in 1950.

Bockee added substantially to the property and charged people a dime each to look at the petrified trees on her land. Most of them were redwoods, downed by a volcanic eruption 3.4 million years ago. Covered in ash, not exposed to the bacteria that usually decompose organic matter, the trees slowly had the water in their cells replaced by minerals.

They literally turned to stone, becoming the world’s largest petrified trees. And Bockee recognized a lure when she saw one.

Her sister, Jeanette Hawthorne, took over when Bockee died and ran it for more than a decade. The subsequent generation is where the family tree gets interesting.

Hawthorne had two daughters, who in turn had seven children between them. (Six of them are alive, and now share ownership of the Petrified Forest.) Those descendants are a mix of siblings, half-siblings and cousins. And some of them have drifted apart over the years.

One of them, Janet Angell — who leased the commercial part of the property along with her sister Barbara from 2010-2022 and still handles day-to-day operations there — has felt increasingly weighed down with managing the business. Her relatives Chris Conway and Lewise Salvadori, while taking pains not to belittle anyone, made it clear they have sometimes felt ignored in media accounts of the Petrified Forest.

“The best of families, there’s always problems getting along,” Conway said. “And the more members in the family, the more you’re going to have conflict.”

Conway, 72, lived on the property as a child; his mother, Davida Conway, ran the operation from 1963-1989.

Chris recalled searching the deeper pools of Porter Creek for steelhead when he was young, and the taxidermy shop that used to be at the Sonoma-Napa county line, and his daily bus ride down the hill to Calistoga Elementary School. Conway was giving tours of the petrified trees by the age of 9. He later moved back to the Petrified Forest in the 1980s and served as caretaker.

He is close to his cousin Salvadori, a real estate broker who lives in Glen Ellen. The Petrified Forest was her first home — her side of the family lived on 12 acres across the road — though the family moved when she was a baby. Salvadori celebrated her graduation from Calistoga High School at the Forest, and later was married there.

Now 60, she rarely visits the property but says it is imprinted upon her.

“I can’t live in a city,” Salvadori said. “I need to wake up and see nature.”

She and Conway often feel like the forgotten heirs of Ollie Bockee. Indeed, Janet Angell is usually the person profiled in newspaper accounts and TV spots. There’s an obvious reason for that: She has managed reservations, stocked the gift shop and handled the cash register for years.

Janet’s father, Max Angell, was a Sonoma County Sheriff’s deputy who died of a brain tumor at 36. Before that loss, he spent a lot of time leading Janet around the hillsides, showing her how to identify bay leaves and oak trees. Janet Angell remembers her grandmother Jeanette’s elaborate Sunday dinners in the dining room, complete with crystal and silver.

When her mother, Fay Angell, died in 2010, it dissolved a family trust. Janet and her sister Barbara then leased 146 acres from the rest of the family and ran the Petrified Forest concessions. They hired a property manager early on, but he quit after a couple years.

“There were too many cooks in the kitchen,” Conway said.

Janet has an apartment in Healdsburg. Barbara lives in Piedmont. But both frequently sleep at the property. Janet Angell said her workdays often start at 7 a.m. and end at 7 or 8 p.m. Her duties include landscaping and managing the on-site vacation rental.

“It’s really a 24-hour-a-day concern,” Angell said.

The lease she and Barbara had signed expired a year ago, setting the stage for this endgame.

The business is thriving, according to Janet Angell.

Much of the property burned in the Tubbs Fire in 2017, but all the major buildings remained intact. It didn’t hurt that fire crews used the Petrified Forest’s parking lot as a staging area. And unlike most entertainment venues, she said, the Forest didn’t take a big hit during the COVID shutdown. The long-distance visitors dwindled, but locals desperate for a diversion picked up the slack.

Now the business’ numbers are “on the uptick,” Angell said.

In other words, perhaps it’s a good time to sell.

“All the family members are within 10 years of me, so we’re all aging,” Angell said. “We always planned to sell it, even way back 20 years ago. The plan was to sell it, the question was when.”

According to her half-sister Salvadori, the lack of consensus within the family made that decision a lot easier.

The relatives agreed on Eric Drew, who is based in Healdsburg, to serve as the real estate agent. They don’t agree on all the details. “I don’t know what possessed them to say ‘party barn,’” said Conway, referring to of one of the site’s amenities, as it has been described.

“Sometimes I cringe when I read these things,” Salvadori added as the two sat in her office conference room.

A lot of people who have grown to love the hokey charm and scientific wonder of the Petrified Forest would like it to be a state park. There is actually some history there. According to Conway, California State Parks has eyed the site for decades, and on occasion has pressured the family to sell it.

No one is talking about some sort of covenant that would guarantee public access in the future, though.

“I don’t think we have the power to do that,” Angell said. “And we all have different slants.”

Angell has yet to put anything about the impending sale on the Petrified Forest website. That, she said, will be a sad moment. Overall, though, she seems relieved at the prospect of cutting formal ties to this revered place. On that, the Angells, Conways and Salvadoris agree.

“We’re open to all offers, with conditions and terms, and we’ll take it from there and move on with our lives,” Lewise Salvadori said.

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @Skinny_Post.