Dolcini Adobe

The Dolcini Adobe, Sonoma, CA

The Dolcini adobe house, formerly located at 20160 Broadway, alternately 20100 Broadway, was built in 1898 by German immigrant George Wallman 1851–1922 (1). The twenty-acre property where the adobe was built is located where the Adele Harrison middle school now stands. George Dolcini, grandson of the above George Wallman and son of Georgiana Wallman and an unknown Dolcini husband, was born and lived in this house his whole life until his death in 1988.

Nathanson Creek bordered the property the east and Broadway to the west. Denmark was the northern boundary. I don’t know how much land the family owned south to Napa Rd. At its full extent the property was surely the amalgamation of a number of city lots. The 1877 Sonoma County Atlas shows possible lots of 172, 181, 173 and 180. The lot numbers then change on the 1898 County Atlas. A full accounting of the title history remains to be done at the County Recorder’s Office.

The Dolcini adobe house was of the ‘Mission revival’ style, had five bedrooms, no foundation and no indoor plumbing. The adobe was not from the Rancho Period, i.e. from before 1848.  The Dolcini adobe was built in a time when adobe construction was not in favor and in fact, at a time when many Rancho Period adobes were being torn down to make way for more modern types of construction.

The League for Historic Preservation Cochran Binders refers to the building as the Wallman Adobe (Dolcini Adobe) and as the Wallman-Dolcini Adobe. It “was constructed in a fruit orchard located on Broadway south of the Plaza in the 1890s… Black bees live in the east wall as they have for many years. The exterior walls have remained exposed and are deteriorating, particularly at the base for lack of a proper foundation.”  The house was set “in a large fig orchard”.  A 7/9/1993 Google Earth ‘back in time’ satellite photo of the ranch property before middle school was built, shows a home site just to the west of the fig orchard; the house set pretty much in the center of the property.

In the 1980s the borrow pit used to harvest the soil to make adobe blocks was still evident near the house. Also on the property were also the remnants of a fishpond.  This fishpond could have been built by Japanese immigrant Frank A. Matsuyama, the second husband to Georgiana Wallman. Frank had imported goldfish to Sonoma and donated some for the fountain at the Plaza in 1917.

The pond could also have been for carp. German immigrants had a taste for carp, ‘the peasant’s turkey’. Julius Poppe brought German carp to Sonoma Valley in 1872, from, Reinfeld, Holstein. (2) Julius Poppe’s ranch, located where Cline Winery is, had a big fishpond for carp. George Wallman, as a fellow German immigrant, would have known about the carp and perhaps emulated Poppe in cultivating hos own supply.

As of this writing I don’t know the actual location of the adobe on the property or if the adobe pit or fish pond remains are still visible.

There must have been multiple dwellings on the property. Five to six buildings can be made out from the 1993 Google earth satellite photo. Various families lived there over time. Frank Atsuo Matsuyama’s address on his funeral record was 20160 Broadway. 20160 is currently the northeast corner of Broadway and Napa Rd. The League for Historic Preservation Survey refers to ”several buildings on the property built by George Dolcini’s grandfather” George Wallman.

 Frances Rubke, b. 1924, step-daughter of George J. Wallman, biological daughter of Lena (Heilmann) Wallman and Ludwig Heilmann, listed a 20500 Broadway address on her mother, Lena’s funeral record.  20500 is currently where the Four Corners auto shop is, on the southeast corner of Broadway and Napa Rd. Apparently this group of people, the Wallman-Dolcini-Matsuyama clan, colonized southern Broadway, either on the ranch or nearby.

When George Dolcini died in 1988 his half siblings inherited the house and property. There were seven Dolcini heirs, the youngest of which, Ginger, was 57 at the time in 1989. Frank Wallman was the executor of the estate, Frank being the eldest son of Frank Atsuo Matsuyama and Georgiana Wallman (Dolcini) Matsuyama.

 The siblings wanted to demolish the adobe and sell the property to pay a $400,000 inheritance tax and also to gain some financial benefit. However, the property had a special agricultural tax status under the Williamson Act that would need to be lifted to be able to sell at the highest market value. The Dolcini/ Wallman/ Matsuyama family signed the Williamson Act contract @ 1969. (see  essays on George Dolcini and Alvin Wallman)

The city had annexed the land where the farm was in 1977. Nancy Parmelee, then on the city council remembers that the family refused to sell her corn after that. Bob Parmelee remembers the corn as being ‘exceptionally good’.

The farm had produced figs, walnuts, corn and cattle, among other products. George Dolcini was listed in the 1930 census as a (single) truck farmer. The property was one of the few Williamson Act farms to be located within a city limit in the state of California.

The Cochran Binders refer to produce grown at the farm and “figs sent to San Francisco market for many years”. “It was always a fruit producing property.” “The rows of fig trees can be seen from Broadway.” “The farm (was) well known to produce fresh vegetables in season.” Pictures of the adobe can be seen in the Cochran Binders and Historical Survey at the Maysonnave House and also from clippings in the Historical Society’s files in the Depot Park museum.

As the heirs took ownership and sought land use changes, the local preservation community contested the family’s desire to demolish the adobe. The adobe could not be moved as it had no foundation. A dispute ensued between the Dolcini heirs and the preservation community over historic values and property rights. In the end if property owners don’t care about historic values and there is no groundswell of public opinion, nothing can really be done to save particular buildings. Some value historic designation as a badge of character, others see it as a shackle to the free disposition of their property.

It is a shame for the past to be wiped away. It leaves us poorer not knowing the depth of the ground we stand on. Who has any inkling of the Dolcini adobe now and the life lived there on that property? On the other hand, the earth is made of 99% extinct species; the recycling of matter inevitably obscures the rich assemblages of the past. These essays are an attempt to shine a light, to preserve a memory, a part of one story.

For the Dolcini heirs Williamson Act status would have to be taken away and back taxes paid in order for the property to be sold at highest market value. Williamson Act status would be easier to evoke if the city could reclassify the land use as for a ‘public good’ and a future school constituted just such a purpose.

The heirs vs. preservation community was not the only dispute happening at the time. Alice (Wallman Matsuyama) Kemper led a family effort trying to have little brother Alvin (Matsuyaman) Wallman kicked off the property, for various reasons. (see Alvin Wallman bio) Alvin did not take kindly to this and went to the fig packing shack with a 12 gauge shotgun and killed Alice point blank and severely wounded her husband Charles Kemper. Alvin was later pronounced unfit to stand trial and spent the remainder of his days in the Napa State Hospital.

The Dolcini adobe was eventually torn down and the property sold to real estate investors from San Francisco. The middle school was built after that. What was once a ranch of immigrants and first generation Californians is now a school. The fig orchard now replaced by large solar panel structures.

The League Survey refers to another house on the property built in the 1940s, a house in a Monterey Colonial Revival style, where the wife of Alvin Wallman, among other things a Sunday School teacher, lived in 1978.  This is the lone remaining building on the ranch property, 20100 Broadway, between the high school and the middle school. The son of Alvin Wallman lives there now in 2014.

The family still has a presence on the land. Three large fig trees stand to the south of the remaining house.

References

Sonoma Index-Tribune:

2/28/1989 I-T Dolcini adobe

4/28/1989 I-T Dolcini adobe

5/2/1989 I-T Dolcini adobe

5/ 9/1989  I-T Dolcini adobe

5/16/1989 I-T Dolcini adobe

5/25/1989 I-T Dolcini adobe

League for Historic Preservation,

(1) Cochran Binders, Adobes Vol 2. pp. 93-97 with photos, pp 91-92 missing (1) Historical Survey Area #13B  Site # N-18, parcel # 023-050-010 Dolcini incorrectly spelled as Dulcini

(2) Daily Alta California, Volume 42, Number 13882, 3 September 1887

Nancy and Bob Parmelee

Jason Bell

Patricia Cullinan

(3) 7/9/1993 Google Earth ‘back in time’ satellite photo

(4) 1877 Sonoma County Atlas