Musings: What makes a historic landmark?

The Sonoma Index-Tribune recently reported the pending restoration of a fire-damaged building alongside Sonoma Highway across from the west end of Spain Street occupied by Napa Sonoma Auto Parts. Somebody called it a “Sonoma landmark,” possibly because a mural was painted on it eight or nine years ago, or maybe just because it’s old and has been there a long time.

I can suggest another reason.

Those barn-like structures resting on the west bank of Sonoma Creek just north of the Ig Vella Bridge were home to Farrell’s Mill and Lumber Company for nearly 50 years until the Farrell family built a new store at Four Corners, where Friedman’s is today.

Robert Farrell, who moved his family from Marin to Sonoma in 1928, decided in 1934 to put a lumber yard and mill on property just north of his home, which is now Cinnamon Bear Creekside Inn.

The land was part of the Farrell family farm and included chicken pens and a few other farm structures, some of which were perched precariously close to the creek.

By 1938, Farrell’s mill had become where Sonomans, including local contractors, bought their lumber, nails, and other stuff for home building and ranch improvement projects. Bob’s son, Dale, a 1930s graduate of Sonoma Valley High School, took over the family business in 1938.

The lumber and mill (custom cutting) work continued into the 1950s, which was about the time I first remember going there with my dad.

Like many local businesses in those days, the owners were also the folks who greeted and waited on customers. Dale Farrell and my mother had been students at Sonoma High together. His daughter, Gail, and I were classmates all the way through Prestwood Elementary and Sonoma Valley High School.

Farrell’s wasn’t just a place where you went to buy stuff. It was also where Sonoma Valley residents caught up on each other’s projects, discussed local news, and offered each other assistance with a project. If a friend had a truck and you didn’t, you could usually persuade them to help you haul a load of lumber or other materials that you couldn’t fit in your car’s back seat.

I remember Farrell’s as a busy place where I was guaranteed to run into at least some of my friends who accompanied their dads there on weekends.

By the early 1960s, Farrell’s hardware department had expanded. Unfortunately, Dale died in 1969. His son, Bob, took over the business. In 1970, he added a nursery, which his sister, Gail, managed. The business name was changed to Farrell’s Home and Garden Center.

But the banks of Sonoma Creek were not getting any bigger. They were losing ground every year. So, Bob, Gail, and the company bought some property at the corner of Broadway and Napa Road, where, in 1979, they opened the new and greatly expanded Farrell’s Home and Garden Center.

In 1985, the Farrells sold their business to Yaeger and Kirk, another longtime Sonoma County lumber and hardware company. Yaeger and Kirk filed for bankruptcy in 1993, but their business was taken over by Friedman Brothers, which has operated it here in Sonoma Valley ever since.

Bob Farrell moved to Idaho and eventually to Grants Pass, Oregon. He died in 2018. Gail (Farrell) Chamberlen and her husband, Fred, moved to Florence, Oregon. She died in 2015.

To this day, whenever I drive by those old buildings where Napa Street turns into Sonoma Highway and then north toward Boyes Springs, I remember the Farrell family and how it was part of a very close-knit and friendly community of owner-operated businesses. It wasn’t so much the structures but the people who occupied them that made them memorable.

To me, that’s what makes it a landmark.