History Lessons in Cotati...

Due to an errand, we found ourselves in the quaint town of Cotati. The city’s unusual name, pronounced ko-ta-tee, derives from the Kota’ti, a peaceful tribe of Coast Miwok Indians who populated this valley for generations until they eventually disappeared.

A Mexican land grant, Lomas de Kotate, was established in 1844, encompassing 18,000 acres. This property passed through a number of hands, including those of Thomas O. Larkin, the first and only U.S. Consul to California. He arranged for its purchase in 1849, by Dr. Thomas Stokes Page, a friend and expatriate American physician then practicing in Valparaiso, Chile (more about that later).
It was Atlas Obscura's post about a statue called The Accordion Man that brought us here. It depicts accordionist Jim Boggio, who in 1991, became cofounder and a crucial organizer of the Cotati Accordion Festival.
Ever since, the one-of-a-kind festival has taken place at La Plaza Park every year. The aim has been “to promote the love of the accordion” while raising funds for local youth and community organizations. Boggio participated in the festival until he died of heart failure at age 56 in 1996. After his passing, members of the community quickly raised funds for his memorial statue. 

Decades later, the Cotati Accordion Festival is still a success, drawing in thousands of attendees and raising thousands of dollars to support community organizations for children and performing arts education. During the event, the statue of Boggio, who was known as the “King of the Stomach Steinway,” is crowned and caped, appearing to play along with the music of the festival he founded.
Back to Dr. Page. The City founder died in 1872, leaving his émigré sons to run the sprawling dairy and stock farm. Described in an 1875 newspaper article as the largest farm in Sonoma County and one of the finest pieces of agricultural land in California, the property became known as “Rancho Cotate.” Because of a clause in Dr. Page’s will that the ranch should remain intact until his youngest child reached 25 years of age, the Rancho was the last of the great Sonoma County land grants to be subdivided (1892).  Consequently most of the other towns and cities in Sonoma County are older than Cotati.
In the late 1880s, with young William nearing 25, older brother Wilfred, manager of the rancho, changed the name to “Cotati” with an “i” (as the previous spelling led strangers to call it Co-tate) and subdivided a large portion of the ranch into farm, villa, and town lots surrounding a hexagonal plaza. The unusual shape of the town—probably unique in the United States even today—mirrored the Page’s huge six-sided barn, its watering trough, and a portion of the main Page mansion. The significance of the shape to the Pages remains a mystery.
At any rate, Wilfred had six brothers and he named the streets surrounding La Plaza after them: Henry, Charles, Arthur, George, and William, and Olof. Apparently he did not deem his Page sisters, Anita, Lizzie, and Manuela worthy of street names; they still await the honor. For himself, Wilfred named what he expected to be a major thoroughfare: Wilfred Avenue. It now lies within Rohnert Park’s city limits and doesn’t go anywhere particular. Other Cotati street names refer to Page family connections: Page Street; Valparaiso Avenue, named after the family’s previous home; Delano Street, named after Mrs. Page’s maternal family line; and El Rancho Drive, where the Page mansion stood until it burned in the 1930s. Do you ever wonder where street names come from? Interesting!
I decided to stroll around the historic hexagon and discovered some very cool architectural treasures, beginning with St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, built in 1908.
Surprisingly, over the years the gorgeous adornment was removed from the façade and is now the Korean Baptist Church.
The Service Station (1931) was built after the highway was routed through Cotati in 1915.
No longer a gas station, it is the home of Hines Signs and intrigues the heck out of me.
"A staple in the downtown Cotati community, Hines Signs has shaped the face of businesses for over 40 years.  What was originally a gas station, has become a think tank for many of Sonoma County's new businesses, as well as providing exceptional care and attention to all of the public's most bizarre design projects."
I love the vintage British taxi in the driveway.
And I laughed out loud when I saw the Grey Poupon within.
The Frengle Metal Shop (1930) was built by Fred Frengle to house his workshop where he invented a very successful brooder stove for keeping chicks warm.
The patent, filed in 1925 states, "the invention relates to improvement in brooder stoves and its particular objective to provide a stove of simple construction in which a large heating surface is produced through direct contact with the products of combustion and in which fresh air comes in contact with the other side of the heating surface and is discharged into the space provided for the growing chicks without coming in contact with the products of combustion..."

The building's façade is noteworthy as it is tin-plated iron that was molded by Frengle to imitate stone.
George Moore opened his garage in the mid-1920s. He was not content to deal with just cars. He was a blacksmith and made airplanes and taught flying lessons. In the 1940s, the building became a paint factory, the only family-owned paint manufacturing plant in Northern California.
The building is now home to darling shops and delicious looking restaurants.
I'm a sucker for vintage signage. Rexall Drugs is always a favorite. This one's history is rather interesting. When one of the first doctor's offices opened here in the late 1940s, Dr. John Roberts and colleagues felt it would be very handy for their patients to pick up their prescriptions nearby. Unfortunately the location gave Rexall an unfair advantage and the store had to close (weird, right?). The building became a series of businesses but the sign has remained unchanged.
The 8 Ball has been a drinking establishment in Cotati since the 1940s.

I'm not certain when Tip Top Cleaners began but based on its sign, it was decades ago. Groovy indeed!
Public art is eclectic in Cotati. Chief Kotate, designed and sculpted by local legend, Vito Paulekas, was created in 1980 as a tribute to the legendary chief of the Coast Miwok Indians. The Chief was said to be "dancing on the nipple of the breast of Mother Earth which gives life to all of us."
Athena is the daughter of Zeus from ancient Greek mythology, virgin goddess of wisdom, warfare, and various other virtues. The concrete mask was sculpted by Santa Rosa artist Peter Crompton, unveiled in 2011, and intended as a temporary installation. Due to its popularity, a former city manager paid the artist for the sculpture to assure it would remain in Cotati. Pretty cool.
Research introduced me to another famous resident... The Sandalady. Fran Fleet, a young artisan, came to Cotati and started a business in the Inn of the Beginning building in the 1960s. A wood carver, candlemaker and sandal maker, she carved many of the artistic signs that identified Cotati businesses. As the years went by, she began to specialize in repairing and reconditioning baseball gloves and now the Sandalady has a national reputation for her specialized work. Sadly, Fran's shop was closed when I walked by. I would have loved to have met her.
"In the mid 1970s, while I was still a sandal maker, people began bringing their baseball gloves into my shop for repair. Since then, I have repaired and reconditioned thousands of gloves, at my shop and at baseball and softball tournaments throughout Northern California and Nevada. My customers range from children to old-timers, and they all enjoy the game of baseball/softball and have a favorite glove that they love enough to want to repair."
In 1932, the Mission Revival-style Cotati Inn, famed for its duck dinners opened. But in 1968, Cotati hit the big time as a music destination when the then defunct Cotati Inn got seriously funky and became The Inn of the Beginning.
The year 1968 saw the birth of the counter culture's influence on Cotati. The Inn of the Beginning came alive and brought nationally and internationally recognized musicians to Sonoma County. If you were a local San Francisco North Bay band you played here at one time or another. Neil Young and Crazy Horse showed up one day in 1975. In May 1971, Van Morrison played here. Old-timers recall that the Grateful Dead were regulars, playing every Tuesday to try out new material for a while and even Janis Joplin reunited with Big Brother and The Holding Company shortly before her death in 1970. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott introduced a young Arlo Guthrie here who graced listeners with the first-ever stage performance of his classic “Coming into Los Angeles.” Other major stars that played here include the Jefferson Airplane, Hank Williams Jr., Etta James, Junior Wells, Kate Wolf, Carlos Santana and Joan Baez. Oh man, I was so born in the wrong decade. I love this history and would have totally dug this place whose end came in 1982,  amid a leasing dispute, and the Inn lay silent for years.
Ladies Club Hall was organized by 12 members of the Cotati Women’s Improvement Club and was built in April 1910. The building served as a town meeting place and community center until 1978, when the women’s club disbanded and moved out.
This beautiful classic building has long been the social, political, spiritual and musical center of the North Bay Area. From the late 70s to 1990, it was known as the Cotati Cabaret. This club brought famous and soon-to-be famous singers and bands to the hub of the county, including Leon Russell, John Cipollina, Chris Hillman, Huey Lewis, Tower of Power, John Lee Hooker, The Tubes, Fishbone and many more.
It's currently home to the synagogue Ner Shalom, or “Light of Peace", and is still as beautiful with such a cool history. "If its walls could talk".
What a unique find for us, hidden in plain sight. Cotati is one of those places that has so much to offer and I hope we get to return again, for whatever reason, and learn more.

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Sonoma County's 36th Annual Art Trails

"For two weekends in September, you can explore artists’ sanctuaries and discover the person behind those paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures in glass, wood, bronze, stone or clay... Listen to their stories and learn about the talent and skill involved to reach such beauty."

Our timing to be at our younger son's could not have been more perfect. Without a lot of time allotted, I tagged along for errands with his mother-in-law and we visited the top studio on my list, that of Patrick Amiot.
Of the list of top things to do in Sebastopol, Florence Ave, lined with Mr. Amiot's sculptures, is at the top.
What a joy it was to see more of his creations, up close and at his actual home studio.
Patrick Amiot and his wife, Brigitte Laurent, are the talented team which creates junk art and wall reliefs found throughout Sonoma County. Each piece is a collaborative effort of ideas and talents, jointly conceived- Patrick sculpts and Brigitte paints.






Patrick shared with us what a great success the Art Trail event has been for them, selling all but two of his pieces.
This Owl had just sold when we were there. There was giddiness from the buyers and the artists, alike. What fun.
I loved this VW Van driven by hippies.
The cleverness is best seen up close!
If I ever find myself with an extra $4,000, I know where I would be shopping!


I even peeked 'behind the scenes' to see where all the magic happens.
What amazing chaos! I would so love to play with all his supplies.

There is nothing mundane about Patrick and Brigitte including their sweet pup.
There were 121 artists, selected by an anonymous jury of five, to open their studios to the public for this signature Sonoma County art experience. We made it to only one yet that made me very happy! Next time, I'll attempt to visit more but WOW...this was a pretty great stop along the Trail.

“I can’t think of anything more rewarding
than being able to express yourself to others through painting.
Exercising the imagination, experimenting with talents,
being creative; these things, to me,
are truly the windows to your soul.”
-Bob Ross

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