What Healdsburg is like to work in
Two calendars run side by side in this town. One belongs to the people who live here year-round on Powell Avenue and North Street and want a regular Tuesday visit. The other belongs to the houses that fill and empty every three days: book a turnover for eleven o’clock, get in, reset the whole property, be out before the next arrival. We do both, and the second kind has to run to the minute.
The building stock rewards care. Houses on the blocks off the Plaza are Victorian and Craftsman shells with modern kitchens dropped inside them, so a single room might hold original fir floors, a period baseboard and a slab of honed marble that stains if you leave a wet cloth on it. Up on Fitch Mountain the houses are more informal, all cabins and river places, wood everywhere, decks shedding needles through the door.
Inside a typical Healdsburg home
In-town houses average 1,600 to 3,000 square feet, one and a half or two stories, with wood floors, tall windows and renovated bathrooms sitting inside old envelopes. Kitchens are often the newest and most delicate part of the house: natural stone, integrated appliances, unlacquered brass that marks. Fitch Mountain properties are smaller and rougher, built into slopes with exterior stairs and a lot of unsealed timber. Summers are hot and dry, the river keeps mornings damp, and both leave their own residue on glass.