The 600+ acres of land at Whispertree covers two peaks and a valley known by western settlers as Bell Valley. The diversity and resilience on the land is palpable to observant visitors. As a sub-watershed feeding Soda Creek and the larger Navarro River Watershed, the land supports fir forests and towering old oaks. Each of the oak trees, in both savannah and forest settings, host over two thousand species of more than human life.
Animals on the land include the more commonly recognized deer and turkey, bobcats, hare and seasonal packs of wild boar. High above the valley, turkey vultures and red-tailed hawks commonly survey the land accompanied by kestrel and the rare bald eagle. At lower elevations, you’ll find families of California quail trotting in packs across the road, scrub Jays and acorn woodpeckers eager to farm acorns in trees and buildings.
The rich plant diversity of Bell Valley, including a number of perennial native grasses, is unparalleled for the area, giving visitors a robust sense of aliveness and beauty leading visitors to describe Whispertree’s land as “magical.”
Prior to colonial settlement, Bell Valley was inhabited for thousands of years by the Tabahtea people, classified by ethnographers as part of the Pomo tribe. The Tabahtea actively managed ecosystems and engaged in abundant wild food propagation. They engaged in year-round cultural practices that supported sustainability and were largely responsible for Northern California's legacy of biodiversity. European colonization in the early 1800s brought a dramatic and violent shift away from the long-established balance of the Tabahtea’s life-enhancing management of the valley’s ecosystems.
Acknowledgement/Credits: Pomolandback.com
Director: Emariepetit.com
In the early 1800s, wealth-generating eco-system destruction took place in the valley including logging, grazing, and mining, significantly changing the hydrologic patterns on the land. A toll road, (Hwy 253), was built between Boonville and Ukiah to support logging operations between the two towns. The original Toll House served as a stop-over for stagecoach travelers and was replaced in 1912 by the current house. Owned for several generations by the Wallach family, the land was developed for sheep grazing and hops farming and gained historic relevance as the farmland where the unusual dialect of ‘Boontling’ was first ‘born.’ By the mid-1900s the Toll House changed hands, serving a succession of B&B and restaurant owners.
In 2003, shortly after they met, Karin invited Jon to her ‘happy place’ in Anderson Valley. In 2005 they were married at The Apple Farm in Philo, and 3 years later, they purchased the Toll House. While pregnant with their twins, Ben and Charlie, the couple collaborated with Johnny Schmitt (Boonville Hotel) on the renovation of The Toll House, transforming a walk-in fridge to the current-day breezeway, restoring wooden floors and preserving layers of earlier ownership, like an old phone booth and a sunny patch of 1950s wallpaper. Bell Valley Retreat at the Toll House opened its doors in 2015 with the mission to offer the valley to groups doing transformational work in the world.
For 8 years, Jon and Karin developed and operated Bell Valley Retreat while living in Berkeley. With the help of their dedicated Boonville staff, they slowly expanded the retreat center drawing on permaculture principles.
In 2020, the family moved to Bell Valley during the pandemic, grateful to be spending more time learning from the land and its many inhabitants. Jon could also finally begin implementing the regenerative land practices that had been in the planning stages for years. In this time, while the world unraveled and climate change’s encroaching shadow grew larger, the vision for Whispertree was born.
Built on a foundation of values inspired by Karin and Jon’s passion for social justice and informed by their 20 years of psycho-spiritual practice and their love of the land, Whispertree is their response to our pivotal historical moment. Moving on from Bell Valley Retreat—the name given to this land by colonial settlers—addresses our desire to transition from the practices contributing to the degradation of the land. Whispertree honors the indigenous practices that nourished this land for over 5,000 years before colonial settlement. It represents our re-doubled commitment to serve the regeneration of people and land needed in these contemporary times and gives a voice to the land and beckon us as humans to slow down, gather with intention, and listen.
Our greatest hope is that guests at Whispertree find their inspiration to give back to a planet that asks for so little, yet gives us so much. Whispertree is our gratitude. It is our invitation for you to listen to what you can hear beyond what you know, to reconnect with your true home, and to find your voice in courageously crafting a new story, one that honors the Earth and re-envisions what it is to be human on it.
For 8 years, Jon and Karin developed and operated Bell Valley Retreat while living in Berkeley. With the help of their dedicated Boonville staff, they slowly expanded the retreat center drawing on permaculture principles.
In 2020, the family moved to Bell Valley during the pandemic, grateful to be spending more time learning from the land and its many inhabitants. Jon could also finally begin implementing the regenerative land practices that had been in the planning stages for years. In this time, while the world unraveled and climate change’s encroaching shadow grew larger, the vision for Whispertree was born.
Built on a foundation of values inspired by Karin and Jon’s passion for social justice, and informed by their 20 years of psycho-spiritual practice and their love of the land, Whispertree is their response to our pivotal historical moment — a retreat center with a re-doubled commitment to serve the regeneration of people and land, one that gives voice to the land and beckons to us as humans to slow down, gather with intention, and listen.
Our greatest hope is that guests at Whispertree find their inspiration to give back to a planet that asks for so little, yet gives us so much. Whispertree is our gratitude. It is our invitation for you to listen to what you can hear beyond what you know, to reconnect with your true home, and to find your voice in courageously crafting a new story, one that honors the Earth and re-envisions what it is to be human on it.
Regeneration () \ ri-ˌje-nə-ˈrā-shən
The spirit of regenerative land management recognizes that humans have a significant role to play in supporting healthy ecosystems and healing land. Continuing our current relationship with land will only perpetuate a pattern of disconnection and extraction. Instead, we seek to renew human participation in the stewardship of thriving ecological communities at Whispertree.
Unabated fir encroachment chokes out and kills oaks by cutting off their access to sunlight and root space. Oaks support more biodiversity–more than 2,000 species–than any other life form on the land. Thinning stands of fir trees is a well known regenerative land management practice employed to protect the oak populations. At Whispertree we have thinned approximately 20 acres of firs as a first step toward protecting our oaks.
The density of firs on the land and grazing pressure from deer who lack historic predator pressure have led to a diminished number of young thriving oaks at Whispertree. We are caging vigorous oak seedlings in an effort to regenerate a new generation of oak trees on the land. To date, we have caged more than 150 oak seedlings and will continue doing so for years to come.
Each year, we partner with a local shepherdess whose 100 sheep and lambs rotationally graze the land for 45-60 days. Conventional grazing often degrades the land of its healthy soils and native grasses. In contrast, regenerative grazing does the opposite, supporting four critical regenerative goals: building healthier soils, promoting native and perennial grasses, reducing wildfire prone fuel loads and educating our retreat guests about the positive, regenerative impact that grazing animals can have when managed properly on the land.
The survival of the Earth’s ecosystems will depend on the preservation and survival of honeybees. When we support honeybees and provide the right conditions for their health, we protect and safeguard our food supply for future generations. Wild honeybees today are threatened by inadequate natural resting habitats. Most people don’t realize that conventional hives designed to extract honey for humans are unfamiliar to bees and cause stress, plight and maladaptive behaviors in bees. We’ve partnered with Michael Thiele from Apis Arborea who installs nature-inspired log hives across Northern California. We currently have 3 hives on the land; two of them are fully occupied with wild honeybees.
Overgrazing over the past century has led invasive grasses to outcompete native perennial grasses across the grasslands at Whispertree. Perennial grasses lengthen the grazing season by increasing green forage availability, stabilizing surface and subsoils, and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. For these reasons, we collect native perennial seeds in the late spring and sow them in the late fall.
Regeneration () \ ri-ˌje-nə-ˈrā-shən
The spirit of regenerative land management recognizes that humans have a significant role to play in supporting healthy ecosystems and healing land. Continuing our current relationship with land will only perpetuate a pattern of disconnection and extraction. Instead, we seek to renew human participation in the stewardship of thriving ecological communities at Whispertree.
Unabated fir encroachment chokes out and kills oaks by cutting off their access to sunlight and root space. Oaks support more biodiversity–more than 2,000 species–than any other life form on the land. Thinning stands of fir trees is a well known regenerative land management practice employed to protect the oak populations. At Whispertree we have thinned approximately 20 acres of firs as a first step toward protecting our oaks.
The density of firs on the land and grazing pressure from deer who lack historic predator pressure have led to a diminished number of young thriving oaks at Whispertree. We are caging vigorous oak seedlings in an effort to regenerate a new generation of oak trees on the land. To date, we have caged more than 150 oak seedlings and will continue doing so for years to come.
Each year, we partner with a local shepherdess whose 100 sheep and lambs rotationally graze the land for 45-60 days. Conventional grazing often degrades the land of its healthy soils and native grasses. In contrast, regenerative grazing does the opposite, supporting four critical regenerative goals: building healthier soils, promoting native and perennial grasses, reducing wildfire prone fuel loads and educating our retreat guests about the positive, regenerative impact that grazing animals can have when managed properly on the land.
The survival of the Earth’s ecosystems will depend on the preservation and survival of honeybees. When we support honeybees and provide the right conditions for their health, we protect and safeguard our food supply for future generations. Wild honeybees today are threatened by inadequate natural resting habitats. Most people don’t realize that conventional hives designed to extract honey for humans are unfamiliar to bees and cause stress, plight and maladaptive behaviors in bees. We’ve partnered with Michael Thiele from Apis Arborea who installs nature-inspired log hives across Northern California. We currently have 3 hives on the land; two of them are fully occupied with wild honeybees.
Overgrazing over the past century has led invasive grasses to outcompete native perennial grasses across the grasslands at Whispertree. Perennial grasses lengthen the grazing season by increasing green forage availability, stabilizing surface and subsoils, and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. For these reasons, we collect native perennial seeds in the late spring and sow them in the late fall.
Whispertree is a mission-driven destination retreat center. Offsetting your carbon footprint while traveling to Whispertree can help support climate restoration, but some groups do this more consciously and effectively than others. The following organizations promote climate justice, address income inequality, and employ carbon sequestration practices in their local communities. Changing your own consumption patterns and contributing to organizations like these can be a powerful alternative to more traditional carbon offsetting:
Women's Earth Alliance
Tribal Ecosystem Restoration Alliance
Fibershed Carbon Farm Seed Fund
For a more traditional "carbon offset”:
The Ocean Foundation's Seagrass Grow
Trees, Water & People Carbon Offset Program
Whispertree
12378 Boonville Rd, Boonville,
CA 95415, United States
[email protected]
+1 707-895-2572
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