Jenner area alive with history

Ft. Ross was established in 1812.

Story & Photos By Stan Wawer

Jenner is about midway between San Francisco and Mendocino on Highway 1, but don’t let distance fool you. If you have ever driven that stretch of Highway 1, you know that the town of 200 belongs to an antediluvian era before cell phones.

What Jenner has to offer is impressive scenery and solitude in southern Sonoma County at the mouth of the Russian River. The area is alive with history. A few miles to the southeast is the tiny town of Bodega where Alfred Hitchcock filmed his 1963 thriller, “The Birds,” which starred Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy and Suzanne Pleshette.

About 20 minutes north of Jenner along the rugged, winding coastline is Fort Ross State Historic Park. The settlement of Ross, the name derived from the word for Russia (Rossiia), was established in 1812 by the Russian-American Company, a commercial hunting and trading company chartered by the tsarist government. The company controlled all Russian exploration, trade and settlement in North America and included permanent outposts in the Kurile Islands, the Aleutian Islands, Alaska and a brief settlement in Hawaii. The fort sits on an isolated bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

The 1841 sale to John Sutter and the subsequent influx of American settlers began what is called the Ranch Era at Fort Ross. The sale did not include the land itself. Sutter hired a succession of managers whose job it was to transfer everything they could to his holdings in the Sacramento Valley.

Restored or reconstructed buildings within the fort include the chapel, Kuskov House, Rotchev House and blockhouses. The Kuskov House was the residence of Ivan Alexandrovich Kuskov, who founded Fort Ross and was the first manager. Rotchev House is the only structure with original Russian materials. It was refurbished for Alexander Gavrilovich Rotchev, the last manager of Fort Ross, in the mid 1830s. Rotchev and his wife, the former princess Elena Gagarina, and their three children lived there until the fort was disbanded in 1841.

The site also includes a visitor’s center and museum. The grounds are open from dawn to dusk daily. The visitor’s center is open from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily. The fee is $8 per private vehicle; $7 if over 62.

Two miles north of Fort Ross is the Timber Cove Inn. It has a Jenner address, but it’s a spectacular 25-minute drive from downtown Jenner provided there is no construction in progress.

The Timber Cove Inn, on the “wild” Sonoma Coast, is an oceanfront resort that takes you away from the maddening crowds. You get views of the ocean from most rooms. You will want to check out lazy seals and sea lions resting on jagged rocks below the bluffs. The Timber Cove Inn has been newly renovated and is under new management.

The resort offers rooms with a hot tub and fireplace. Twenty-six acres of trails traverse half a mile of ocean frontage that’s worth exploring.

There is an obelisk, the work of the late Beniamino Bufano, that rises some 72 feet above the rocks behind Timber Cove Inn. It was completed in 1969 after seven years of labor. Bufano called his largest work “The Expanding Universe.” His wish was that it be dedicated to the United Nations and to world peace. The late Pat Brown, when he was governor, promised to perform the dedication, then reneged.

The Madonna, the children and the hand were for Bufano all symbols of peace, which appeared frequently in his work. Bufano lived a near monastic life. Except for a few coins in his pocket, he did not handle money; and he had no orthodox sense of its value. (The torso in the pool is a casting of a piece for which he sued and won $50,000 because the city of San Francisco did not display it properly. It was a gift to Timber Cove Inn because Bufano liked the setting. It is an interesting piece of work that immediately catches your eye as you drive up to the resort.

On Jan. 13, 1988, the San Francisco board of supervisors approved the renaming of 12 San Francisco streets after famous authors and artists, one was named after Beniamino Bufano.

My wife and I were sitting in the massive lounge, with its floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace one afternoon. Inside the double open doors was a cat’s dish filled with food. As we talked about the area with the bartender, a rather large male raccoon waddled into the lounge and started eating the cat food. Moments later, a second large male shuffled in and then a third. They were quickly joined by two females and two babies. Three more raccoons kept their distance on the wall outside the doorway.

The babies made several attempts at squeezing in for a bite or two, but were frightened away by the hissing sound of one of the males. When the dish was empty, one of the males started pawing at the dish, using his paws as a hockey stick and dish as a puck. The Timber Cove Inn’s manager refilled the dish three times before the raccoons were finally satisfied and headed back outside to join their friends on the wall. At one point I walked out the door to see how the raccoons would act. The babies ran under a nearby table while the adults continued to push and shove for position around the dish. When was the last time you stayed at a hotel and experienced a moment like that?

Timber Cove is a wildlife preserve, no pets or firearms are allowed on any of the resort’s acreage.

We had a room with a fireplace and spa. It was cool enough on an August night to light a fire and then sit back and enjoy a good book. We used the spa one night, but it was leaking a little so we shut it down.

Rates run from $169 with a number of excellent packages. Timber Cove Inn is at 21780 N. Coast Highway 1. For information or reservations, call (800) 987-8319 or go online at www.timbercoveinn.com.

The resort has an excellent restaurant, but there are several good restaurants in Jenner and in Bodega Bay, 25 miles (about 45 minutes) south of Timber Cove Inn.