Lifestyle

When one thinks of celebrations at The Matheson in downtown Healdsburg (the town’s de facto club room), one usually goes straight to the top, literally the top-floor Roof 106 brasserie and bar where all manner of shindigs have occurred over the years. However, this year’s release of Valette Wines, which shares a proprietor with The Matheson, was a decidedly ground-floor affair.

An increasingly popular local festival returns this year as Scarecrows on the Plaza, bringing the Healdsburg community together to support the arts and Healdsburg youth at Boys & Girls Clubs of Sonoma-Marin.

“We had to make a safety call. Without the bridge, there’s no safe way to get across the creek,” Skip Brand of the Lake Sonoma 100 said on Sunday afternoon. “The creek is 6-7 feet deep and raging right now. Plus, the wind picked up in the late afternoon and several trees came down, creating additional hazards.”

In what Superintendent Chris Vanden Heuvel openly said was a first, the Healdsburg Unified District School Board’s trustees voted to give a newly remodeled gym a new name: Drew Esquivel Hall, in honor of the late 2013 graduate.

Agraria is a 7.5 ton (or larger) hand created by environmental artist Larry Kirkland of Portland, Oregon, and installed at the mall in December 1996. A full 12 feet long, six feet tall and three feet wide, it was carved from a single marble block twice its size from Carrara marble in Torrano, Italy, where Michelangelo got his stone. It's now at a new home in Geyserville...

This year the Gay Wine Weekend becomes even more closely tied to Healdsburg, with the Lodge at Healdsburg on Grove Street serving as unofficial headquarters. As well as the winery tours and winemaker dinners, the signature events continue this year for the most part at Healdsburg-area locations.

The exterior parking lot of Bacchus Landing was filled with gorgeous lowriders and classics, with several food trucks off to the far side. When I walked into the interior courtyard, I found a “lowrider museum.” Many of these cars had been in actual museums and exhibits, and featured in numerous publications ranging from the car-centric to the Smithsonian.

'There’s a magic hour on Saturday mornings when the sun hasn’t quite burned through the morning mist and the scent of basil floats on the breeze. It’s in that moment—coffee in one hand, tote bag in the other—that Healdsburg wakes up..." Meet our new columnist, Liza Gershman.

Up the steep flight of stone steps to the Healdsburg Museum’s double-door entrance is a pathway to possibilities—the promise of old worlds made new. Starting last Saturday, that ascent leads to a magical gateway into Healdsburg itself, past and present, with a new multi-media...

At the start, Molti Amici gave every indication of hitting Bingo. The location was much-loved by locals, having housed Ari Rosen’s Campo Fina for 10 years, only a few steps off the Plaza, and featured not only a large stone pizza oven but a bocce court as well (both left over from Campo Fina). Then the ingredients didn't mix any more.