Petrified Forest to go up for sale in Wine Country

An ancient fossilized forest in Wine Country is about to hit the market after a century of ownership by the same family.

The Petrified Forest, a 500-acre tract in Sonoma County, home to redwood trees preserved by a volcanic eruption at nearby Mount St. Helena more than 3 million years ago, will be listed for $12 million this week, said Eric Drew of Healdsburg Sotheby’s International Realty.

The forest, which has been open to tourists since 1870 and now draws 30,000 visitors each year, comes with a barn, a gift shop and a cafe, Drew said. The parcels for sale also include living redwoods and a mile of Porter Creek.

“It is a unique piece of property that hasn’t been touched for 100 years,” co-owner Janet Angell, who manages the property with her two sisters, said when reached by phone Monday.

Angell said she and her sisters are nearing retirement and can no longer perform the intense manual labor required to maintain the forest trails. The three, descendants of Ollie Bockee, who bought the land in 1914, would like to see the forest remain undeveloped and open to the public, but said the younger members of their family are not interested in running it.

The forest is believed to contain the largest petrified trees in the world, remnants of a now-extinct sequoia species that were already more than 2,000 years old when they were buried in volcanic ash, according to the property’s website.

The petrified trees at the site remained buried for 3.4 million years until Swedish homesteader Charles Evans, who was later known as “Petrified Charley,” found a hollow log that was “hard as stone” while raking in his pasture in 1870, according to Sotheby’s. Evans enlisted paleontologists from leading universities to study the site, establishing its age and significance.

Visitors to the forest, where admission is $12, can examine the excavated trees close up and view ash fall from Mount St. Helena. The property will remain open to visitors until a buyer is found, Angell said.

Angell said she hoped potential buyers would seek to preserve the site, noting that the “pristine” forest has been a destination for generations of families.

“I just hope it’s grabbed by the right people,” she said.