Putting On a Fresh Face Gave Ferndale New Life

“Ferndale Blacksmith and Chamber of Commerce, Joe speaking.” When we called for tourist information about the small Northern California town of Ferndale, the local blacksmith not only answered our questions, he gave us a glimpse of what to expect when we visited his hometown.

A week later, flying into San Francisco and driving north on California 101 through magnificent groves of redwood trees along the Avenue of the Giants, we nearly missed the small sign just south of Eureka: “Ferndale--The Victorian Village: 5 Miles.”

Turning off, we expected more Redwood Country kitsch of the Drive-Thru Tree variety. Instead, to arrive at Ferndale’s Main Street, which is a bit like stumbling into a Victorian Brigadoon, we first passed through tranquil pastureland dotted with Guernseys and Holsteins contentedly munching belly-deep grass.

Dazzling “painted ladies” line Main Street, along with turn-of-the-century shops and homes bejeweled with turrets, gabled roofs, bay windows, elaborate cornices and dripping in gingerbread trim.

With some of the finest Victorians in the country, it is little wonder that the entire one-square-mile town has been designated a State Historic Landmark.

Set in the fertile Eel River Valley, Ferndale was settled in the 1850s by Danish dairy farmers and cattle ranchers. They were followed by Swiss, Italians, Germans and Portuguese, who still put on a Holy Ghost Celebration at Easter. With San Francisco as their market for dairy products, the farmers quickly prospered and built themselves luxurious redwood homes that were soon nicknamed “butterfat palaces.” But by the early 1960s, when the highway bypassed Ferndale, it was on its way to becoming a ghost town.

Viola McBride, the descendant of a Ferndale pioneer, became alarmed at the grumbling among merchants about the old-fashioned buildings on Main Street. Sensing the bulldozers weren’t far off, she bought up dozens of the old Victorians and invited artists to fix them up in exchange for rent.

Then, during one memorable weekend in 1962, 200 Main Street tenants got together and held a “paint-in,” stripping off peeling white facades and using an 1880 Fuller paint color chart to authentically transform shop fronts with ocher, lavender and pistachio. “That showed people what we have here,” said McBride proudly. The arts community that started it all continues to be a big presence in Ferndale, with galleries and studios along Main Street, a year-round repertory theater and a craft fair each May.

Ferndale is a tight-knit farming community, and early morning breakfast conversation in small cafes such as Greeks’ Cafe/Beckers Pool (which has neither Greeks nor a pool table) is dominated by talk of cows and milking. No parking meters or traffic lights sully the Victorian ambience, and with no postal delivery, gossip is picked up at the post office along with the mail. The news desk at the Ferndale Enterprise sits by the window, it is said, because anything worth reporting comes walking down Main Street.

The only way to explore and meet some of Ferndale’s 1,500 residents is on foot. Drop in to Sweetness and Light to watch 83-year-old Louise Goff hand-dip fresh candies in melted chocolate. A couple of hours will drift pleasantly past in Ferndale Books, where the specialty is hard-to-get titles about the West. Elegant hand-tooled saddles are still made at Dave’s Saddlery, and in the Blacksmith Shop and Pottery, watch Joe Koches create ornate fire pokers from iron bars over red-hot coals.

The Golden Gait Mercantile is a dry goods emporium and slice of old-time Americana more authentic than any museum. Top hats and bowlers dangle on hat trees, and shelves are packed with spices, washboards, dress patterns from the 1800s and potions such as Sloan’s Liniment Swamp Root. Almost everything is for sale. Genuine 1950s-made boxer shorts are big sellers at $2 each, and original 1920s fruit labels go for $1 apiece.

For such a small town, Ferndale has an extraordinarily busy festival calendar, with everything from old-fashioned 4-H carolers downtown the evening of Dec. 6 to the Great Arcata-to-Ferndale Cross-Country Kinetic Sculpture Race held every Memorial Day weekend for the past 17 years. During the three-day event, hundreds of strange and wondrous vehicles, made primarily from discarded junk, are pedaled, pushed and floated over sand dunes and across rivers on a 37-mile course.

But the most spectacular celebrations take place at Christmas when a web of lights is strung over the 125-foot Sitka Spruce at the end of Main Street, creating what city officials claim is the country’s tallest living Christmas tree. Boy Scouts begin the Dec. 8 ceremony by lighting candles lining Main Street. Throughout the month there are parades and caroling groups, and Santa arrives in traditional Ferndale style, by fire engine.

Beginning Dec. 14, the Dickens Festival will include a Christmas and Victorian craft fair with everyone dressed in period costume.

Christmas is also a special occasion at one of the best-known of Ferndale’s bed and breakfast inns when owner Wendy Hatfield opens the doors for a candlelight tour of the elaborate Yuletide decorations at the Gingerbread Mansion. A couple of blocks from Main Street and trimmed in frilly woodwork lace, it is the grandest of Ferndale’s Victorians. Painted an eye-catching peach and daffodil yellow, the B&B; is one of California’s most photographed buildings, and appears on calendars, address books and jigsaw puzzles.

Hatfield greets most of her guests in one of the inn’s four parlors, and over cake and coffee she may relate the mansion’s history.

Built in 1899 as a doctor’s residence, it then became a general hospital and finally an American Legion hall. The restored mansion is now a masterpiece of romance. Outside, a formal topiary garden makes the grounds feel much bigger than they are, and features English benches and a reflective silver “gazing ball,” such as was popular in Victorian times. Of nine splendid rooms, the dreamiest is the Fountain Suite, which has a canopied bed and “his and hers” claw-foot bathtubs side-by-side in front of a wood-burning fireplace. Bubbles are provided, of course.

In the morning, awake to the aroma of fresh-baked muffins that accompany breakfast in the dining room. Borrowing a couple of the inn’s fleet of peach-and-yellow bicycles (matching umbrellas and rubber boots are available for rainy days), head off to explore local back roads. Or take the kids cycling to one of the local streams that is restricted to children under 14--the state’s first Junior Fishing Reserve. Finish the day up on Wildcat Hill, with its sunset view of the town below and the pasture-lined ribbon of country road to Highway 101 that keeps Ferndale well isolated from the rest of the world.

While the Gingerbread Mansion is a somewhat decadent place with mirrors on the bathroom ceiling, another bed and breakfast gem we stayed in down the road made us feel as if we were spending the night at Grandma’s.

The Homey Shaw House Inn--the oldest building in Ferndale and the only inn there on the National Register of Historic Places--is a splendid little Carpenter Gothic creation tucked amid trees and modeled, when it was built in 1854, on Hawthorne’s “House of the Seven Gables.” Shaw House has a real Old World feel to it, with a library, two parlors and antiques throughout. We had a perfect room on the top floor, tucked cozily beneath the gables.

There actually is a Grandmother’s House in Ferndale, too. It’s a small Victorian in a residential area where families with children of all ages are welcome and the cookie jar is always full. A professional knitter, innkeeper Jacques Ramirez has three rooms and an “open kitchen” policy in his casual, relaxed bed and breakfast inn.

From Ferndale, there are several day trips that explore the surrounding countryside. Setting out one foggy morning, we followed a scenic but tortuous route on a loop through farmland and forest that brought us to the quiet rural hamlets of Honeydew and Petrolia. We re-emerged back on Highway 101 just south of Ferndale near the spectacular 33-mile scenic drive through the Avenue of the Giants, which tunnels through the dense groves of 50,000-acre Humboldt Redwoods State Park, where there are several picnic spots and nature trails.

In the opposite direction, 18 miles north of Ferndale past Loleta (where you can drop in at the factory to sample the locally made award-winning cheese), is Eureka, the biggest town on the north coast. Eureka also has an impressive selection of Victorian manors, the most spectacular of them a fantasy of gabled roofs and fancy wood trim called Carson House, a private club open only to members, which makes it seem all the more Victorian. Eureka’s Old Town is full of shops restored to their Gold Rush glory (hence the town’s name).

One of the most popular of Eureka’s Victorians is, ironically, less than 20 years old. Carter House Inn is a three-story mansion based on an 1884 design. Elegantly furnished in antiques, it has seven rooms. Across the street is its sister property, the Hotel Carter, a 20-room country inn. The hotel is renowned for its excellent restaurant, with a menu based on what’s fresh and in season.

About a 45-minute drive north of Eureka is Redwood National Park. At the town of Orik, the park information center (707-488-3461) operates a shuttle service 8.5 miles to the trail head of the short walk to Tall Trees Grove, where the planet’s loftiest trees tower--including the giant, a 367.8-foot coast redwood. Within the national park, which is strung along 40 miles of Highway 101, you’re likely to see elk herds and find secluded beaches to wander in the quiet of your mind.

GUIDEBOOK

Ferndale, California

Getting there: Fly into San Francisco and drive about 250 miles north on California 101. Just south of Eureka, turn west at the sign for Ferndale. Also accessible from Sacramento via Interstate 5 north to Highway 36 west.

Gingerbread Mansion: 400 Berding St., Ferndale, (707) 786-4000. Rates: Sunday through Thursday, $85-$155; holidays, Friday and Saturday, $105-$175. Reservations necessary.

Shaw House Inn: 703 Main St., Ferndale, (707) 786-9958; $75-$125 with breakfast.

Grandmother’s House: 861 Howard St., Ferndale, (707) 786-9704; $65 with breakfast, children under 5 free.

Carter House Inn: 133 Third St., Eureka, (707) 445-1390; $95-$185 with breakfast.

Hotel Carter: 301 L St., Eureka, (707) 444-8062; $105-$159.

Where to eat: We recommend these restaurants: Diane’s, 553 Main St., Ferndale, (707) 786-4950, for lunch sandwiches, salads, soups and old-fashioned desserts. For dinner, a good bet is Roman’s, 315 Main St., Ferndale, (707) 725-6358, for Tex-Mex. The Hotel Carter dining room in Ferndale. In Eureka, The Sea Grill, 316 E. St., (707) 443-7187.

For more information: Contact the Ferndale Chamber of Commerce at Box 352, Ferndale, Calif. 95536, (707) 786-4477.