Local Business

As Q1 2025 data reveals, Healdsburg’s real estate market is defying conventional wisdom with a 150% surge in luxury home sales while Sonoma County’s high-end market continues to decline. These counterintuitive trends are reshaping our understanding of the local market in ways that might surprise even longtime residents.

Now when most winemakers talk about “clones,” they’re talking about varietals selected for specific qualities, such as flavor, color or intensity. The Dijon clones of pinot noir or chardonnay are well known; but the canine clone of a winery dog is a new thing entirely.

What makes Healdsburg’s market particularly unique is the continued dominance of non-primary residence purchases. In 2024, 61% of all purchases were for second homes or investment properties, with rural properties showing an even higher rate at 76%. This tracks with 2023 when 64% of properties were purchased as non-primary residences, writes a local realtor.

There’s been a new face on the campus of The Healdsburg School this fall: Tracie Mastronicola, has officially become the fourth Head of School for the 14-year-old independent TK-8 school at 33 Healdsburg Ave.

Here are the latest business openings, closings and other goings-on, from a new place to get a fresh juice or smoothie, a hot old winery and a hot new bakery, plus a new fire station to cool things down if it gets too hot for Healdsburg.

The new proposal was to expand the formula-free zone one block further into the Downtown Commercial district. McDowell showed a map where a red line marked the border of the proposed formula-free zone; it surrounds most of seven city blocks adjacent to the Plaza, marking a significant expansion of the prohibition zone.

The little store on Powell Street is closed once again. Most recently known as Summer’s Market, it shut its doors for good in early October and has been listed for sale since mid-month. But there's more to the story than just "real estate news" - check it out...

As the first cannabis dispensary opened in Healdsburg, more than one customer observed he was cutting down on VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled), a key metric in the city’s goal of reducing greenhouse gasses. The next nearest dispensary is 10 miles away in Larkfield, and beyond that twice that far to Cloverdale...

In 1926, Foppiano Wines was forced by Prohibition revenue agents to discard 140,000 gallons of red wine into a ditch next to the highway, where the current winery is located. From there, it flowed into a nearby creek and then into the Russian River—but not before locals scooped up buckets full of the illegal beverage...

Healdsburg’s only full-time yoga studio, the nearly 20-year-old Yoga on Center, is moving back to the downtown area this summer—two-and-a-half years after the owners say they got kicked out of their original location at 401 Center St...