Guerneville Is Considered the Fire Island of Northern California Wine Country

Here's how Guerneville became the queerest part of Northern California wine country.

Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Preserve
Photo:

Mariah Harkey

An hour-and-a-half north of San Francisco, along the Russian River amid towering redwood trees, is a small town in Sonoma County that's just as queer as the Castro. Once an industrialized hub for logging, Guerneville, California, is now a veritable Fire Island for wine country and the Bay Area — an idyllic summer retreat that’s become a must-visit destination for in-the-know gay travelers.

For a town of less than 5,000, it boasts a staggering number of queer businesses and events, including summer’s wildly popular Lazy Bear Week (a spree of pool parties and events geared towards the gay bear community) and a wine-tasting room co-owned by the civil rights activist who helped legalize same-sex marriage. Plus, there's a permanent sense of Pride that has transformed Guerneville from a seasonal escape to a year-round oasis. 

A far cry from splashier Sonoma towns, Guerneville is a place that has clung to its bohemian spirit. Although mere minutes from wine country, and home to the palatial Korbel Champagne Cellars, Guerneville zigs where the rest of the region zags. It offers a more relaxed come-as-you-are vibe without any pretense — as well as a sunny nature escape with riverside beaches and forested trails.

Town shows up to celebrate PRIDE during a parade

Courtesy of Sonoma County Tourism

Guerneville emerged as a logging town in the late 1800s, resulting in so many downed redwoods that it became known as "Stumptown." After preservationist James Armstrong stepped in to save the all-natural skyscrapers, loggers were steadily replaced by vacationers, many of whom made the trek up from San Francisco to bask in the bucolic forests and swim in the river.

It wasn’t until after California’s sodomy laws were repealed in 1976 that the town became a hub for LGBTQIA+ folks, lured by its summertime sunshine and affordable prices. After a series of floods in the '60s wrought havoc, a surplus of resorts for sale enabled LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs to put their stamp on the town.

One such entrepreneur was Peter Pender, a pioneering gay man who established Guerneville’s first gay resort, Fife’s, in 1978. Its popularity ignited a wave of gay businesses and overnight stays. These include The Woods, a gay-owned hotel with cottages, cabins, and a clothing-optional pool; The R3 Hotel with its pool parties and women’s weekends; and Rainbow Cattle Company, a gay dive bar that still beckons visitors with its glowing rainbow façade on Main Street. 

The dive bar, one of the sole remaining businesses from Guerneville’s earliest queer days, opened in 1979, operating discreetly with boarded windows to prevent homophobic passersby from egging it. That’s according to Bob Frederick, a Guerneville transplant from San Francisco who began frequenting the Rainbow in 1981 and eventually became part-owner. Rainbow Cattle Company, he tells Travel + Leisure, has long been a local icon: “Being a gay bar on Main Street, our neon sign out front is the first sign they see when they come into town.”

A firetruck down main street during the Pride parade celebration in Guerneville

Courtesy of Sonoma County Tourism

While other gay businesses have shuttered, including the original Fife’s (now Dawn Ranch), Rainbow Cattle Company has persevered thanks to its welcoming ambiance and charitable events like Give Back Tuesday. Similar to other altruistic organizations — like the Equality Vines tasting room and Lazy Bear Week, both of which donate proceeds to local nonprofits — charity is an important throughline for Guerneville’s queer businesses, helping to inspire a domino effect for like-minded businesses to follow. 

Like Frederick, Crista Luedtke was another early Guerneville adopter. A native Midwesterner, she was working as a mortgage broker in San Francisco when she started weekending in Guerneville. When she decided to pivot to hospitality, the community ticked all the boxes as a safe, queer-friendly haven. 

“I wanted to afford it on my own, be within two hours of San Francisco, and be in wine country,” she tells T+L. “Healdsburg was like Aspen, priced out of the game, and a little too yuppy. Guerneville was always on my mind.”

Her first foray was purchasing a dated gay resort and reopening it as Boon Hotel + Spa in 2008 with her ex-wife. The next year, she opened Boon Eat + Drink on Main Street, followed by Big Bottom Market down the block in 2011, cocktail bar El Barrio in 2014, and German-inspired Brot in 2019. Luedtke’s made some changes — including turning Boon Eat + Drink from a casual diner-style eatery to a modern Californian bistro, selling both Big Bottom Market and El Barrio, implementing drag brunch at Brot, and purchasing the woodsy Highlands Resort — all while impacting and evolving a community she’s long felt a kinship with.

Interior guest room at Boon Hotel & Spa

Kelly Puleio

Thanks to pioneers like Luedtke, the narrative of Guerneville as a summer-exclusive gay resort town has evolved. While annual events like summer’s Lazy Bear Week remain the busiest time of year, the town no longer goes into hibernation. “Some locals weren’t receptive right off the bat,” says Luedtke of the town’s change. “But those were old-timer locals who don’t like change, and it allowed doors to open and people to understand that there’s a scene and a need there.”

Whereas the town’s dining options were once limited to a scant handful of taco trucks and pizza joints that could only sustain summer traffic, nowadays Guerneville’s got lines out the door at Boon Eat + Drink and at Big Bottom Market for its Oprah-endorsed biscuits. “People saw that this was truly a food destination, not just summer parties and gay bars, there was a thing happening here — a culinary scene and destination that there wasn’t before," says Luedtke.

Michael Volpatt was another weekend frequenter in Guerneville during his time living in San Francisco in the early 2000s. The current owner of Big Bottom Market, he eventually moved to town and bought a home, despite its early reputation as a kind of free-spirited stepchild in wine country. “At the time, a lot of my friends were like ‘You’re buying a home in Guerneville?’” he recalls to T+L. “The main street was not as busy, a lot of businesses were not around, and it was just kind of a little dead. But I just knew in the back of my mind that it really was the next thing.” 

While Rainbow Cattle Company is one of the sole holdovers, it’s the new guard that’s helped beckon a sea change. “You saw the shift of ownership,” Volpatt describes. “Businesses started to change — loved by some and hated by others. The newbies really started to be excited about what was happening in town, and there was younger blood coming in and rethinking the way the town was being seen.”

With the shift in businesses came an influx of press. “That helped to drive interest in the town as a destination, and also a place to buy homes for people in the Bay Area that have all of this money," he says. "But they don’t want to buy in Healdsburg — they want this funky bohemian town with the river, the redwoods, and the coast at your fingertips.”

After moving to Guerneville and ingratiating himself within the community, Volpatt would go on walks with Luedtke in the redwoods, musing together about what was missing and needed. They helped usher in a renaissance for the town, filling in missing pieces to turn it into an all-season destination. Big Bottom Market was born out of a desire for a wholesome sandwich shop, with biscuits that eventually came into the fold and developed a cult following.

Then, after amicably parting ways with Luedtke at the market, he helped Matt Grove and Jim Obergefell — of Obergefell v. Hodges fame — open Equality Vines, an artsy wine bar that bills itself the “world’s first cause wine portfolio." Equality partners with Sonoma winemakers to create labels that donated proceeds to local grassroots non-profits, such as Face to Face Sonoma County and Senior Advocacy for Gay Elders.

Both Grove and Obergefell echo the sentiments of Guerneville’s singular allure for the LGBTQIA+ community. It was Volpatt, who was Obergefell's publicist at the time, who recommended they bring the brand to life in Guerneville. The business was born in 2015, the first bottle of wine was produced in 2016, and the doors to the tasting room swung open in 2017.    

“I had a bias to Napa, I had never been to Sonoma that much,” Grove told T+L. “When I said Napa, he said ‘I’m out. If you’re going to make wine for the gay community, you’ll do it in the Russian River Valley.’ He explained why and it made sense, and I was off to meet new winemakers that same day. Guerneville found us, it really felt that way. It felt right. I could just tell that this was our community.” 

Aerial view of Johnsons Beach with people enjoying the water

Courtesy of Sonoma County Tourism

The future looks bright for Guerneville. Progressive entrepreneurs believe the town will retain its eccentricity, allowing timeworn mainstays to endure while new transplants continue its inclusive legacy. “I think Guerneville is proudly quirky and I don’t see it losing that,” Obergefell says. “There’s an opportunity for growth, but I think Guerneville will continue to be Guerneville. It’s proud of what it is, and the people who live there will make sure that it stays that way.”

According to Luedtke, that growth has been an organic evolution and shows no sign of ebbing, either. “More and more people are discovering what an amazing destination this is,” Luedtke says. “Such a wonderful art scene, cool vintage shops. A lot of these people are newer, and that’s what's happening. We’re trying to continue to build it.”

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