How the Greenfield Ranch Came to Be
A First-Person Account
Tim Baker
Greenfield’s birth was due as much to the times as will or effort. Forces building for centuries were erupting and converging just then. And most forcefully in that small area bounded by the reach of fog horns on a damp San Francisco night. That was a time and place of magic and creation. There is not near enough room or talent here to condense those times to ink. Following are simply the surface causes of Greenfield Ranch:
And now, return with us to those thrilling days of yesteryear…
The first direct event leading to the birth of Greenfield Ranch occurred in Greenfield Mass. In late September of 1969 my aging VW bus and I returned to Berkeley after spending an especially enjoyable summer there with several friends. Before leaving, the idea had surfaced that once back in California I should find land in the country, where if fate permitted, we would all move and live happily ever after. Once back in Berkeley I spent a few months getting reestablished, then started seriously looking for land.
Weighing climate, beauty, flora and fauna, accessibility and price, the choice narrowed to the coast range, up to one hundred miles north. I decided to look for a BIG piece of land, up to 40 ac. While looking I couldn’t help noticing that the bigger the tract the cheaper the price per acre. As a result, while ‘I’ looked for sub-40 acre plots, some impractical parallel mental process also looked for ranches of several hundred acres, even though there was no way to afford such.
An especially appealing 1600 acre Sonoma County sheep ranch appeared in the SF Chronicle Classified. There was no sensible reason to look at such a large stretch of land. But in a cloud of unreality I found myself doing just that, white-lying to the realtor that I represented a group of ready buyers.
The place was a smaller Greenfield Ranch, somewhat less hilly, less forested, a smaller creek running through. It felt right! And I wanted to be part of that land, the whole big wonderful thing. But this was impossible.
I knew it was impossible. But something like mental indigestion kept insisting a way be found. And insights began to surface that made the prospect even more enticing: With such a large piece of land you could arrange to have compatible neighbors; and be sure the wilderness around you would never disappear; and since 1600 acre ranches sold at less than one-third the rate of forty-acre plots everyone could have a better place at near one-third the going price…
After days of mulling the germ of a plan materialized. The kind of simple and unlikely idea you’d find in a fairytale: Just advertise for other similar folks, everyone pick out their pieces, pool their money, and buy the land. So simple!
I found myself semi-involuntarily moving forward with this idea. And rational portions of my mind were playing along: I’d have to write an ad. And if someone called I’d need a detailed plan to present.
Of course this was all a daydream. It couldn’t really work. And because it wasn’t real I was free to make the plan unrealistically idealistic, not like actual real estate developments that serious-faced adults put together. This plan would be the most good-willed, sensible, safe, human, ecological, economical, golden ruleish plan imaginable, better than anything in real life. You can imagine the pure excited fun creating this imaginary little world… (to be continued).
