Coleman Valley Road (House by the Sea)

Gail Ann Packer

An image of Sonoma County's historic Carrington Ranch House, also known as the Genazzi Dairy Ranch, located at 4300 Coleman Valley Road, Salmon Creek, just before Highway 1. Packer deftly captured the atmosphere of the Sonoma Coast in spring, with white Calla lilies in the foreground and the distant rolling hills a vibrant green with new growth. Old cypress trees surround the house like sentinels, creatin a wind break for the farmhouse.

The two-story house was built around 1877 by the Genazzi family on their dairy farm and includes several original outbuildings, including a watertower (seen in this intaglio). The property has since been obtained by Sonoma County Regional Parks and is slated to become an open space preserve.

Though the ranch was purchased by the Carrington ranching family in 1944, it was still sometimes referred to as the Genazzi Ranch House in photos taken in 1983, found in the Sonoma County Library's Special Collection digital archives (misspelled by the photographer as "Cenazzi").