Fountaingrove resurgence continues five years after Tubbs Fire

In the weeks after the Tubbs Fire tore through Ernest Berghof’s Rincon Ridge neighborhood, his neighbors came together intent on rebuilding.

Residents in the hillside enclave of about 50 homes off Fountaingrove Parkway and Rincon Ridge Drive formed a committee, interviewed contractors and selected a developer who rebuilt the majority of the homes in the subdivision.

Their efforts paid off. Berghof and his neighbors were among the first residents to move back into Fountaingrove in 2020.

But empty lots still dot the hillside community of northeastern Santa Rosa five years after the 2017 firestorm roared over the hills from Calistoga, destroying about 1,600 homes in the area and killing two residents there.

About 1,130 homes have been rebuilt or are under construction, 70% of the units lost, according to Santa Rosa rebuilding data. As it was almost from the get-go, that puts Fountaingrove’s recovery far behind Coffey Park a few miles west across Highway 101, where nearly all of the more than 1,400 destroyed homes have been rebuilt.

More homes are in the pipeline, including two large apartment projects at Mendocino Avenue and Fountaingrove Parkway that once completed will transform one of the main entrances to the upscale neighborhood. The projects call for more than 650 units combined at the sites of the former Journey’s End mobile home park and Fountaingrove Inn and represent the largest redevelopment in the burn area.

City officials said while Fountaingrove has come back slower than other regions ravaged by the firestorm, the work that has been completed is remarkable. After the fires, many wondered how long it would take for Fountaingrove to recover, with some tracking the effort estimating it could be a decade before the work was completed.

Still, officials acknowledged there’s more work to do.

“Our goal has always been to make whole our neighborhoods,” said City Council member Victoria Fleming, whose 4th District includes Fountaingrove. “While we have made great progress, we will not rest until we are done.”

Rebuilding slowed by challenges

After the fire, city planning staff quickly mobilized to streamline rebuilding efforts, opening a center dedicated to processing permit applications, bringing on additional staff to help with the workload, adopting policy to expedite reviews and waiving certain fees.

“That was a real key that helped put us on a path to where we are now,” said Jesse Oswald, Santa Rosa’s chief building official.

About 80 homes were rebuilt in Coffey Park in the first year. Just six homes had been rebuilt in that time frame in Fountaingrove.

The neighborhood was made up of an assortment of subdivisions built since the 1970s, offering residents expansive views of the region, access to top tech and health employers and amenities including an 18-hole golf course that survived the fire.

A total of 1,619 units — the majority large single-family homes, plus two apartment complexes and an assisted living facility — were destroyed across Fountaingrove, Montecito Heights, Hidden Valley, the Highway 101 corridor and Round Barn areas, according to city data.

Oswald said there was a lot of angst among city officials during early rebuilding efforts regarding the slower resurgence in the area.

Oswald and Planning and Economic Development Director Clare Hartman pointed to several factors that contributed to slower construction.

Debris removal in Fountaingrove took longer. Parts of the water system were contaminated with a cancer-causing chemical that took months and millions of dollars to clean up. The uneven topography, wooded landscape and larger lots hampered attempts at a quicker comeback, especially compared to the flat terrain in Coffey Park.

Many of the homeowners also faced challenges with home insurance gaps and found that payouts were far short of what it would take for costly rebuilds.

As fires menaced the city again in 2019 and 2020, some residents left, unsettled by the notion of rebuilding in an area that had burned twice in 50-plus years and the reality that it could happen again. Official maps categorize Fountaingrove as among the city’s most fire-prone areas.

Construction picked up by early 2020 with about 200 homes completed and more than 700 under construction or review. Still, there were more vacant lots in Fountaingrove than rebuilt homes.

Today, 936 units have been rebuilt and 196 were under construction as of early October, according to city data. Permits have been issued for another 40 units and 422 units were under review.

Most of the units under construction or in planning stages are apartments, according to the city.

There are about 350 parcels across Santa Rosa where no permits have been submitted and the majority, city officials say, are in the Fountaingrove area.

City officials believe most of those vacant lots are developer-owned and officials expect the lots to be developed over time.

Though the city’s permit center for fire rebuilds has since closed, City Hall continues to receive monthly requests for rebuilds, almost all in Fountaingrove, Oswald said.

Two projects to transform entrance to Fountaingrove

Hartman said while many residents rebuilt there homes exactly as they were, some used the opportunity to build their dream homes, making small tweaks or completely reconfiguring the design. Some property owners added granny units, or accessory dwelling units.

City officials also looked at how they could use the opportunity to increase density in some areas.

The city already was facing a housing shortage prior to the Tubbs Fire wiping out more than 3,000 homes citywide, or about 5% of the city housing stock. Some of the destroyed properties were underdeveloped and rebuilding presented a chance to rethink what those sites could look like, Hartman said.

Construction crews began demolition of old retaining walls at the former Fountaingrove Inn site in mid-October as they prepare the 10-acre property for construction of 239 for-rent apartments, said Justin Hayman, a project spokesperson.

It will replace the 124-room hotel, Equus Restaurant and historic Fountaingrove Round Barn that burned to the ground on the northeast corner of Mendocino Avenue and Fountaingrove Parkway.

The project is being developed by property owner Angelo Ferro, who has owned the site since 2003, and designed by Dahlin Group. Vertical construction is expected to start next summer and the project is slated to be completed in 2025, said Hayman, who was the inn’s general manager and now represents Ferro on the project.

“It’s been a long haul since the fires and we’re excited construction is underway,” he said. “We’re happy to play a small role in the rebuild process and to provide much needed quality housing to our city.”

Hayman did not say how much the project would cost, saying the projection was “yet to be solidified.”

Amenities will include a common room, outdoor courtyard with a pool, grill and seating area and hillside walking paths linking gardens and outdoor spaces.

Developers are incorporating fire mitigation strategies into the construction, such as using noncombustible materials for the exterior finish and installing a concrete tile roof, in addition to installing gutter guards and roof vents required under new construction standards in high risk fire areas. All buildings will feature sprinklers and special attention was paid to landscaping, particularly around the open space that surrounds the site, Hayman said.

An art feature at Fountaingrove Parkway and Round Barn Boulevard will pay tribute to the round barn, he said.

No plans have been submitted to rebuild the Hilton site above the former Fountaingrove Inn that was also destroyed in the fire.

Catty-corner to the former Fountaingrove Inn site, 162 affordable apartments for people 55 and older are going up at the Journey’s End mobile home park, where two residents died as the fire mostly leveled the park. Another 260 market-rate homes are planned at the site.

Construction is underway on the first two phases of the senior apartments, which is being developed by Burbank Housing, the county’s largest affordable housing developer, and San Francisco-based Related California. The first residents are expected to move in as early as June.

Burbank Housing CEO Larry Florin, who worked with the property owner to redevelop the site, said they are excited to get the project built.

“We’re honored to have had a part in the rebuilding of our community,” he said. “It will be a great day when we can welcome the former Journey’s End residents back home.”

About 40 people on the interest list are former residents of the mobile home park, Burbank spokesperson Patrick Montgomery said.

The market-rate apartments will be developed by a subsidiary of housing giant Lennar and include a 1-acre park fronting Mendocino. Work on that is expected to start next year.

Neighbors come together

Berghof, who works in real estate, moved into his home on Park Gardens Drive in the Altaire subdivision in 2010.

After the fire, Berghof said he and his family didn’t want to let the devastation totally upend their lives. Rebuilding was a way for them to move forward, he said.

He and his neighbors organized on NextDoor within a month of the fire. The Healdsburg office of one of his neighbors became the community’s headquarters where over the next several months they discussed how to efficiently rebuild their subdivision.

“It was pretty clear pretty quick that the neighborhood wanted to rebuild,” he said.

The original homes in the neighborhood were built by the same developer around 2000. The residents felt they again had to use one builder for their plans to work.

“It did not make sense to have 54 custom homes, we needed a builder that could rebuild the whole neighborhood,” he said.

The residents interviewed around 30 contractors from across the North Bay and found a builder that could take on the project. They chose San Ramon-based Lafferty Communities.

Today just two of the lots in the neighborhood are vacant, Berghof said.

“I’m not sure I could’ve done it without the group,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or paulina.pineda@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @paulinapineda22.