SHIFTING INTO LOW GEAR

One big-city family found a muchneeded change of pace in a Wi-Fi-deprived Glen Ellen farmhouse.

When city folk dream of a house in the country, their vision is a kind of Rorschach test. Do they see their busy lives simply transplanted to a more bucolic setting? Or do they picture a corrective — a quieter, slower-paced yin to the clamorous yang of everyday life?

Rachel Muscatine and Aranth Madhavan fall firmly into the latter camp, although it took 10 years of looking — and two more of construction — to bring their fantasy to fruition. A former social worker who’s been cooking since she was three (and more recently attended culinary school), Muscatine wanted an informal place where friends could drop in for meals, put their feet on the furniture, find room to crash after one too many glasses of wine, and, of course, where the kids (Sophia, 18, and Daniel, 13) could invite friends to swim and hang out. For Madhavan, who works in the index division of the financial powerhouse BlackRock, there had to be easy access to serious, head-clearing hikes off the manicured grid.

“It was worth the wait,” says Muscatine, referring to the 13-acre Glen Ellen plot they purchased a few years ago. “It’s only an hour or so from our house in San Francisco, but it feels like another world.” Although the family can easily stroll or bike into town, the surrounding Sonoma Valley landscape is also studded with state parks such as Sugarloaf Ridge, where bears and bobcats have been spotted from the hiking trails.