From the old-style font on the entrance sign to the cowboy and pine needle wallpaper in the house above the gift shop, the Petrified Forest Estate near Calistoga, California, feels like a step back in time.
That’s not to mention the age-old petrified wood that is why this business exists. Trails behind the main 1915 Craftsman-style house lead visitors past fallen trees frozen in time since a volcanic eruption encased them in ash millennia ago.
“It really hits you that it’s prehistoric, like a West Coast Jurassic Park. That’s the kind of thing I would have been thinking about if I had been a kid running around there,” Tim Hayden, who co-listed the property for just under $10 million with fellow Compass agents Avram Goldman and John Gray, told Homes.com.
Scientists had studied the trees in the area beginning in 1871, according to the business’s website, the year after a homesteader nicknamed “Petrified Charlie” discovered a hollow log as hard as a stone. Ollie Bockee launched the family business in 1914, allowing tourists to experience the site’s wonders and the 503 acres have stayed in the family since then.
The owners built two houses over time, in addition to the original three-bedroom structure, though no one has lived on the property for some time. The 1915 house has long served as a gift shop and office for the business, though there are three bedrooms upstairs. A three-bedroom ranch house nearby dates from the mid-20th century, as does a rustic home with two bedrooms that doubled in the past as a coffee shop for visitors.
According to the listing, the actual developed area is no more than 146 acres. Much of the property is covered in Sequoia and other large trees, and a creek runs through it. The town of Calistoga, in the wine country of Napa Valley, is 5 miles away.
Hayden said he believes the petrified wood exhibit and the gift shop’s t-shirts and artisan offerings bring in a reasonable amount of revenue. But a buyer might be tempted to turn the property into a private sanctuary. Some possibilities are to develop more homes or turn it into some kind of health retreat, he said, adding that an old barn near the main house would make an excellent space for parties and events.
A possible drawback to the mountainous and wooded location, as is true for many places in California, is the fire risk, Hayden said, if only because it can be difficult these days to obtain insurance on a place like this. But this con is outweighed, he added, by the allure of what a sign at the property entrance boastfully calls the "world's largest petrified trees."
“I do love, when I talk to local people about it, it’s amazing how many say, ‘Oh my God, my parents took me there when I was a little kid and I haven’t been back. I should take my grandkids there.’ "