Healdsburg, CA

I was in downtown Healdsburg last night and saw the greatest thing. The Alexander Valley 4-H club has put up its annual display in the window at the south east corner of Matheson and Healdsburg Ave. Clearly the Brandt's have donated this space for the best work yet that I have seen from this wonderful club. I was a leader in this club for the past years and I am always amazed at the work these kid's and all 4-H'ers do.

If you have kids and you want them involved with a great group check out 4-H, it may be just the thing for you. I know that it was one of the great experiences in raising my twins and it gave them a great foundation for so many things that they will run into in life.

I remember the first person that I talked to about this was Dave and Bunny Lewers. Dave said "Bob I could tell you a lot of great stories about our experience but this is something you need to live through to experience. Imagine it is Xmas eve morning and your kids 4-H sheep gives birth and you are all huddled around each other, It's cold, rainy and you are in the barn watching the look on your kid's face as the miracle happens. You will never feel closer to God and your family".

Dave was right! We spent a lot of hours taking care of our animals. My kids were into rabbits and chickens. It was a lot of work with endles rewards. We will never forget what 4-H did for us.

If you need any information about 4-H and how to get involved drop me a line. I would be happy to help and in the meantime stop by the window and see what the kids did.

I showed a great piece of property today.

I know it's great, but the client and his agent just know it's got a lot of trees on it.

The seller has already done a little bit of clearing on the six acres, but has resisted our urging to do additional opening up of the forest canopy. My broker and I are both fans of filtered views, so we would encourage any buyer to be cautious about removing too many trees, but this land is still in the heavily forested stage, so we aren't worried about taking out too many trees.

Some big bay trees have been removed and some of the smaller redwoods and Douglas fir have been removed. Still, unless you are familiar with how trees can overwhelm a property, you could almost look at this land and wonder if anything had ever been cut. The picture gives a pretty clear representation of what this property looks like to a buyer. The trees in the picture are primarily Douglas fir with a few redwoods scattered around the acreage. These are big trees, especially compared to the immediate neighbor who has clearly logged more recently. This is the start of a great private park, but the trees are masking some amazing sights.

What I couldn't show today.

What the first picture doesn't show is the other side of the trees. This pretty six acre parcel is on the west side of Dry Creek Valley, one of the finest grape growing regions in Northern California's wine country. By taking out a few trees, the view is going to be vineyards in the foreground and middle ground with various mountains and hills in the background.

There may be better views on some properties, but this ranks pretty high on my "sit on the porch and stare all day." view-o-meter.

The dilemma for me or other agents in this situation is that the proper mix of show-and-tell and imagination are rarely present in buyers. If you leave issues like the view to the imagination, most people will fail to understand what they can't see. It's normal. On the other hand, the proper way to choose which trees to remove or prune really depends on where the new buyer would build a house and how they would locate their windows and decks. So, we're stuck in the middle between buyers who can't visualize the view and owners who are reluctant to choose views on behalf of clients they can't visualize either.

I'm pretty certain we can eventually persuade the seller to find the happy medium and remove a few trees and some low-hanging branches. Today, however, I showed a beautiful view...that the clients can't see.

Healdsburg Sotheby's International Realty has great listings in Dry Creek Valley.

Does anybody remember the old TV show, Rowan and Martins Laugh In. It was a variety show and it often featured "Beautiful Downtown South Healdsburg' There used to be a restaurant there by the name of Lonnie's. Lonnie senior was a hell of a business man and self promoter. He was always up to something. Anyway he got the show to run a feature every few weeks from his dining room. It soon became the place where Pat Paulsen the comedian launched his presidential campaign. It was the longest running unsuccessful presidential campaigns in US history. If you asked Pat what his stand was he would point at the sign of Lonnie's restaurant and say "It is a hamburger stand. I will write more about this little part of town again soon.