Roads less traveled often provide unique history lessons. When we discovered this compound, we knew we had to explore.

This institution has had four names, with its last being the Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC). Prior to its closure in 2018, it was the oldest facility in California established specifically for serving the needs of individuals with developmental disabilities.
SDC is, by bits and pieces, turning into a ghost town. Twelve of the 145 buildings, many predating World War II, stand empty in varying stages of deterioration. Vans, used to transport residents, grow webs on their tires. What an amazing place to explore.
The Main Building is a three-story over basement, steel-reinforced brick masonry and terracotta building located on the beautifully landscaped grounds (spotting it is what drew us here). The layout for the school was based on the Kirkbride model that was dominant at major eastern institutions, with a central administration building flanked by back wings.
Designed by architects George Sellon and Edward C. Hemmings in late Victorian/Gothic style, the Main Building is both a State and National Historical Landmark and is the only remaining Kirkbride asylum built in California during the late nineteenth century.

It is also the centerpiece of the complex which consists of wooded hills, with lakes and creeks running through. It is one of the most beautiful settings for an institution in the state. The Center was, for many years, the largest employer in Sonoma County and the communities of Glen Ellen and Eldridge cherish the grounds and this unique building.


When Roosevelt created his New Deal, politically conservative Sonoma County resisted the funding. By 1935 however, it welcomed FDR's alphabet soup. Materials came from the PWA (Public Works Administration). Wages were paid by the WPA (Works Projects Administration) and the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) worked on construction, drainage and irrigation systems. This building was one of those projects (1939).

The height of population occurred in 1967 with 3,700 residents. Wow.
Over the decades, theories on how these special needs children were to be treated evolved. Included in that evolution was patient housing. Client Residential Wards, designed in the Cottage Plan, developed. Originally housed in the north and south wings of the Main Building, certain client populations, such as individuals with epilepsy, began to be moved into supplementary detached buildings in the 1890s. Walnut is the second oldest surviving residential ward that served as housing for girls and women.


After 1907, the state Division of Architecture designed new ward buildings, drawing from Cottage Plan ideals of domestic architecture with hipped or gable roofs and influenced by fashionable Tudor, Spanish Revival, and French Eclectic styles.
Strolling the vast park-like property was an architectural lesson, in and of itself.
Our explore wasn't all history. We enjoyed the nature aspect of this campus, as we meandered.


When we were departing SDC, we crossed over the more current version of this bridge. Like all things there, it had a name adorning it, Marion Rose White. My curiosity was piqued. Turns out, Marion was a California woman who as a normal, albeit klutzy and strong willed 9-year-old, was committed to Sonoma State Hospital and spent much of her life confined there. Through my research, I found a film based on her life. And though her ordeal lasted 30 years, it had been condensed, by the magic of television, to span only four. But it's an ordeal all the same. Marian Rose White, is a well-executed (for 1982) movie that is at least as harrowing as it is inspiring.

Its star is Nancy Cartwright (who, for decades, has been the voice of Bart Simpson). Miss Cartwright begins the story as 14-year-old Marian, of whom her short-tempered mother declares, ''It's not normal for a girl to have so many accidents.'' Marian has poor vision and a terrible tendency to bump into things, qualities that her father fondly excuses. But when he dies, Marian becomes her mother's charge, and her mother can't handle her. The rest is disturbing history and really worth a watch. At the end however, we learn that Marion returned to SDC in 1979 to be a mentor to children with cerebral palsy, showing that silver linings can be found almost anywhere. What a very interesting detour on the road less traveled.