MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 2023 North Bay Business Journal 19

FOREST
continued from page 18

than a decade. The subsequent generation

is where the family tree gets interesting.
Hawthorne had two daughters, who in
turn had seven children between them.
(Six of them are alive, and now share
ownership of the Petrified Forest.) Those
descendants are a mix of siblings, half-sib-
lings and cousins. And some of them have
drifted apart over the years.
One of them, Janet Angell — who leased
the commercial part of the property along
with her sister Barbara from 2010-22 and
still handles day-to-day operations there
— has felt increasingly weighed down
with managing the business. Her relatives,
Chris Conway and Lewise Salvadori, while
taking pains not to belittle anyone, made
it clear they have sometimes felt ignored
in media accounts of the Petrified Forest.
“The best of families, there’s always
problems getting along,” Conway said.
“And the more members in the family,
the more you’re going to have conflict.”
Conway, 72, lived on the property as a
child; his mother, Davida Conway, ran the
operation from 1963-89.
Chris recalled searching the deeper
pools of Porter Creek for steelhead when
he was young, and the taxidermy shop
that used to be at the Sonoma-Napa county
JOHN BURGESS / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
line, and his daily bus ride down the hill Pablo and Celina Olivar, of San Francisco, look down on one of the rock-hard trees in the Petrified Forest on Petrified Forest Road between Santa Rosa and
to Calistoga Elementary School. Conway Calistoga, on July 25. The 500 acre property has been put up for sale for $12 million.
was giving tours of the petrified trees by
the age of 9. He later moved back to the and end at 7 or 8 p.m. Her duties include is based in Healdsburg, to serve as the real
Petrified Forest in the 1980s and served landscaping and managing the on-site estate agent. They don’t agree on all the
as caretaker. vacation rental. details. “I don’t know what possessed them
He is close to his cousin Salvadori, a real “It’s really a 24-hour-a-day concern,” to say ‘party barn,’” said Conway, referring
estate broker who lives in Glen Ellen. The Angell said. to of one of the site’s amenities, as it has
Petrified Forest was her first home — her The lease she and Barbara had signed been described.
side of the family lived on 12 acres across expired a year ago, setting the stage for “Sometimes I cringe when I read these
the road — though the family moved when this endgame. things,” Salvadori added as the two sat in
she was a baby. Salvadori celebrated her The business is thriving, according to her office conference room.
graduation from Calistoga High School Janet Angell. A lot of people who have grown to love
at the forest, and later was married there. Much of the property burned in the the hokey charm and scientific wonder of
Now 60, she rarely visits the property but Tubbs Fire in 2017, but all the major build- the Petrified Forest would like it to be a state
says it is imprinted upon her. ings remained intact. It didn’t hurt that fire park. There is actually some history there.
“I can’t live in a city,” Salvadori said. “I crews used the Petrified Forest’s parking lot According to Conway, California State
need to wake up and see nature.” as a staging area. And unlike most enter- Parks has eyed the site for decades, and on
She and Conway often feel like the for- tainment venues, she said, the forest didn’t occasion has pressured the family to sell it.
gotten heirs of Ollie Bockee. Indeed, Janet take a big hit during the COVID shutdown. No one is talking about some sort of cov-
Angell is usually the person profiled in The long-distance visitors dwindled, but enant that would guarantee public access
newspaper accounts and TV spots. There’s locals desperate for a diversion picked up in the future, though.
SONOMA COUNTY LIBRARY
an obvious reason for that: She has man- Ollie Bockee purchased the Petrified Forest
the slack. “I don’t think we have the power to do
aged reservations, stocked the gift shop and property in 1914 and turned it into a attraction. Now the business’ numbers are “on the that,” Angell said. “And we all have differ-
handled the cash register for years. uptick,” Angell said. ent slants.”
Janet’s father, Max Angell, was a Sonoma her sister Barbara then leased 146 acres In other words, perhaps it’s a good time Angell has yet to put anything about the
County Sheriff’s deputy who died of a brain from the rest of the family and ran the to sell. impending sale on the Petrified Forest web-
tumor at 36. Before that loss, he spent a lot Petrified Forest concessions. They hired “All the family members are within 10 site. That, she said, will be a sad moment.
of time leading Janet around the hillsides, a property manager early on, but he quit years of me, so we’re all aging,” Angell Overall, though, she seems relieved at the
showing her how to identify bay leaves and after a couple of years. said. “We always planned to sell it, even prospect of cutting formal ties to this re-
oak trees. Janet Angell remembers her “There were too many cooks in the kitch- way back 20 years ago. The plan was to sell vered place. On that, the Angells, Conways
grandmother Jeanette’s elaborate Sunday en,” Conway said. it, the question was when.” and Salvadoris agree.
dinners in the dining room, complete with Janet has an apartment in Healdsburg. According to her half-sister Salvadori, “We’re open to all offers, with conditions
crystal and silver. Barbara lives in Piedmont. But both fre- the lack of consensus within the family and terms, and we’ll take it from there and
When her mother, Fay Angell, died in quently sleep at the property. Janet Angell made that decision a lot easier. move on with our lives,” Lewise Salvadori
2010, it dissolved a family trust. Janet and said her workdays often start at 7 a.m. The relatives agreed on Eric Drew, who said.