We Knew This Was the Place - John Meserve
John’s Sonoma Journey - I Visited page
This is the first of three stories about John’s relationship with Sonoma Valley.
🟩 We Knew This Was the Place – Chapter 1 (You are reading this story.)
🟥 A Life Among Trees – Chapter 2
Click the story title above to continue John’s journey as a chance drive through Sonoma Valley leads to a lifelong career caring for its trees.
🟦 The Ideal Community – Chapter 3
After building a life and raising a family in Sonoma Valley, John finds purpose in community service—and a new community on the pickleball court.
-
A chance drive through Sonoma Valley changed the course of John Meserve’s life. He and his wife immediately knew they had found their place, leaving Southern California to build a new life in the valley.
-
I had never really heard of Sonoma before I visited. I had seen the name, but I had never been here and knew almost nothing about the North Bay.
After college, my wife and I moved to Ventura County. We were living in Ojai, and I was managing commercial greenhouses. My in-laws lived in Danville, and they had purchased 20 acres in Geyserville where they planned to build their retirement home.
One Christmas, while we were visiting family, they invited us to see the property. They decided to take the long way to Geyserville because they had distant family who had lived in Sonoma Valley.
As we drove through the valley, my wife and I looked at each other. It was one of those immediate moments.
“Oh my God, what is this?” we thought. “And what are we doing where we are in Southern California?”
Ojai was a nice place. Interestingly, it is also sometimes called the Valley of the Moon. We were not unhappy there, and we had not been looking for a change. Sonoma Valley simply felt different.
We went home, quit our jobs, sold our house, packed up the dogs, the other animals, the furniture and everything else, and moved here. We did not have jobs waiting for us. We just knew this was our place.
Our first landing spot was on First Street West in Sonoma. We found a place to live and then went about finding jobs and establishing ourselves in the community.
Looking back, it was a pretty bold thing to do. At the time, though, it did not feel scary. We both recognized our place, and it was here in the valley.
We lived in Sonoma for a while and then decided to try Sebastopol. We bought a house there and stayed for two years. Sebastopol was a nice place, but one day we came back to the valley for a barbecue with friends in Kenwood.
Their next-door neighbor was in the front yard pounding one of those plastic “For Sale” signs into the ground. We stopped, fell in love with the little house and returned the next day to buy it on the spot.
I guess we were pretty spontaneous.
We finished remodeling our house in Sebastopol, sold it and put our energy into our new home. I have lived in that same place in Kenwood ever since.
I do not live in the town of Sonoma, but I live in Sonoma Valley. I consider myself a valley person. When I look out, I do not look toward Santa Rosa. I look toward Sonoma. I look south. That is where I like to spend my time.
Friends I grew up with on the Peninsula have moved to Washington, Seattle, Montana and all kinds of other places. They ask where I am going when I retire.
I tell them I am not leaving.
I love the feeling of driving down the valley. It has changed and grown, like every place has, but I have never looked back and thought I wanted to live somewhere else.
We knew this was the place when we arrived, and it has been the place ever since.
-
John’s story shows that a sense of belonging can be immediate and powerful. Although moving without jobs was a bold decision, he and his wife trusted their connection to Sonoma Valley and created a life they have never regretted.
-
This story was created from an interview with John Meserve conducted by Don Lundgren. John’s words have been edited for length and clarity while preserving his voice, experiences and meaning.
