The View That Introduced Me To Sonoma — Janis Kobe
Janis’s Sonoma Journey — I Visited
This is the first of three stories about Janis’s relationship with Sonoma Valley.
🟩 The View That Introduced Me to Sonoma — Chapter 1 — I Visited (You are reading this story.)
🟥 A Piece of My Heart — Chapter 2 — I Found & Stayed
Click above to continue Janis’s journey as life on two Sonoma Valley mountaintops gradually gives way to a home in town and the certainty that she belongs here.
🟦 Teaching Sonoma to See — Chapter 3 — I Helped Build
Janis shares how teaching young artists, co-founding Art Escape and creating distinctive gourd art allowed her to help shape Sonoma’s arts community.
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Janis’s first experience of Sonoma was not on the Plaza. It came from high above the town, where she lived on a 143-acre ranch with a community of friends who raised goats, grew organic food and shared the free-spirited life of the 1960s.
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I came to Sonoma Valley in the 1960s, but I did not come as a tourist. My introduction to Sonoma was from the top of Cavedale Road.
I moved onto a 143-acre ranch called the old Six-Day School. It was a commune, and a whole group of us lived up there. We were mostly vegetarians. We raised goats, grew an organic garden and tried to live from what the land gave us.
It was the 1960s, and the people around me were interested in the music and ideas of that time. We were a community of friends living far above town, and it was delightful.
In those early years, I did not know downtown Sonoma very well. I was out in the boondocks, up on a mountaintop. My first Sonoma was the valley itself—the land, the open space and the community we created there.
Later, I moved to an 18-acre property on Lovall Valley Road. The house was at the top. From there, we could look out over Sonoma and see the city lights below us.
For a long time, that was how I knew Sonoma: from a distance, looking down from the mountain while living close to the land.
Some people first meet Sonoma by walking around the Plaza. I met it from above. Before I became part of the town, I had already fallen in love with the valley surrounding it.
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Janis’s story expands the meaning of a first visit. Her introduction to Sonoma did not happen during a brief stay or in the center of town. It unfolded while living on the valley’s edge, where the landscape, communal life and view of Sonoma below created her first lasting connection to the place.
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This story was created from an interview with Janis Kobe conducted by Don Lundgren. Janis’s words have been edited for length and clarity while preserving her voice, experiences and meaning.
