Camp Meeker trails enter public domain

The property transfer is expected to be recorded this month, legally opening the public land to non-motorized access.
photo credit: Jacob Resneck/KRCB
The site of Camp Meeker's Living Tower was set aside as a public park in the 1930s.
But the surrounding forest land was locked up in private hands making access difficult.
A $2.2 million land transfer approved Aug. 20, 2024 by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors
places the surrounding 350-odd acres into public domain and will be owned by the locally-elected
Camp Meeker Recreation & Park District.

Another 350-plus acres of forest trails and logging roads in western Sonoma County are entering the public domain.

A complex agreement involving a church camp, county leaders and elected officials in the tiny hamlet of Camp Meeker puts a large expanse of forest---that for decades has been a source of controversy---squarely into the community’s hands.

Tower Road meanders up through a narrow neighborhood shaded in the redwood canopy. The pavement ends but the road doesn’t. And that’s where Camp Meeker Recreation & Park District director John Mc Daniel is waiting by some soon-to-be obsolete 'No Trespassing' signs.

But even the access to this property is a steep climb through Camp Meeker’s narrow streets. There’s no public parking around here. The closest option is at the very bottom of the hill by the creekside volunteer fire station and post office.

“This is not for those that want to drive up,” Mc Daniel said. "There's no trailhead.”

The gravel portion of Tower Road leads up to the site of the former Living Tower, an early 20th century attraction built from four tall redwoods with ladders and platforms that commanded views of much of Sonoma County.

That was the early 1900s when Camp Meeker was remaking itself from logging camp to vacation getaway for San Francisco’s urbanites to cool themselves in shingled summer cottages.

For decades most everything but the living tower site itself was locked up in private hands. The Meekers sold to the Chenoweth family which controversially logged much of the land up into the late 1970s for its sawmill in Bodega.

The Chenoweths also operated Camp Meeker’s water system which suffered chronic supply problems that many residents charged stemmed from wilfull neglect.

And there were public debates over a plan to subdivide this forestland into five-acre residential lots.

That never happened and the large tract slid into bankruptcy. In 2012, it was quietly purchased for about $2 million dollars by its neighbor, St. Dorothy’s Rest,  a century-old camp for critically ill children.

“It was a concern it would be developed,” said St. Dorothy’s board member Dewey Watson, who helped engineer the sale.

“There was just this sense that we had this opportunity, there was nobody else out there bidding … We didn't know exactly what we were going to do.”

Watson was on hand at a recent Camp Meeker meeting where local elected officials had just hours before received word that Sonoma County supervisors had approved the land transfer.

Camp Meeker district chair Gary Helfrich conceded hundreds of acres of undeveloped parkland will be a lot of responsibility for the tiny district that serves just a few hundred residents.

“We'll find out whether or not that was foolish or not in the future,” Helfrich told residents at the meeting. “But for now I'm just overjoyed.”

The deal was closed with about $2.2 million dollars in public money from the Ag/Open Space District.

Camp Meeker’s park district will soon own the property but Open Space has an easement that requires public access for recreation no matter who holds the deed.

But there’s work to be done. It’s been decades since the property was commercially logged and there is deadfall from tan oak, Douglas fir and madrone — fire fuel — that has long been a concern for surrounding residents and property owners.

That was a headache St. Dorothy’s Rest was eager to divest from, Watson said.

Forest management was beyond the capacity of a small church camp. There are also small lots interspersed within Camp Meeker’s established neighborhoods that are all wrapped up together on the deed.

“It was just a never ending staff drain and cost,” Watson said.

Ag & Open Space acquisition manager Curtis Kendall said the agency is interested both in the recreational potential and how it’s cared for.

“It really is an exciting project,” he said. “From what I've seen it’s a win-win all around from St. Dorothy’s Rest to the park district to all of Sonoma County.”

That optimism is shared by some private landowners working to apply for grant funding to manage the forest and improve safety on the surrounding ridges.

Occidental landowner Amy Beilharz helps coordinate the Bohemian Collaborative. That’s a loose network of large-scale property owners in the area working to reduce fire danger in Sonoma County’s coastal hills .

“The community is very excited for the transition of this property and to actually have an opportunity to put volunteer effort into it as well as look for grant funding,” she said.

The transfer isn’t without skeptics. Some neighbors have griped about an influx of visitors to Camp Meeker’s narrow roads that offer little on-street parking. Or they worry about fires started by careless hikers in the hills.

But standing on a trailside, Mc Daniel argues keeping it locked up as private property with dead trees littering the landscape wasn’t a good long-term strategy.

“I'm probably better off with people running around here keeping an eye on things — then I am if no one's allowed to be here,” he said. “That’s my take on it.”

The property transfer is expected to be recorded in early September. That will legally open the public land to non-motorized access. Some may not wait that long to hike out and enjoy it during these last days of summer.