From the Wikipedia entry: “A locavore is a person interested in eating food that is locally produced, not moved long distances to market.”
I’ve been hinting without going into too many gory details that my new little community vegetable garden plot is languishing for uncertain reasons. While I’ve been mildly obsessing over soil and vegetable gardens, photographer MB Maher and friends were vacationing for a few days last week at the idyllic Mar Vista Cottages and Edible Gardens in Mendocino, California, a former fishing camp turned into a locavore’s paradise.
All of which happened on the weekend of the eclipse. (Wes Anderson could’ve directed this vacation.)
I’d never heard of Mar Vista Cottages before, nor any hotel like it for that matter, but for over ten years owners Renata and Tom have offered guests literally a taste of country life, centered around the 4,000 square foot organic vegetable garden they maintain from which guests select and then cook their own meals. The garden anchors and is the heart of the compound which holds 12 cottages. Whatever tools necessary to gather your dinner can be found hanging on pegs at the entrance to the screened-in garden. Screens keep the gardens secure from marauding raids by local wildlife.
Dine indoors
or outdoors in the grass-bottomed conservatory, kept warm by the adjacent greenhouses.
Ceramic heaters also warm the Northern Californian nights.
No TV. No rules — add your own ingredients too.
Cut fresh flowers from the gardens.
Or bring your own.
A kaleidoscope of eggs delivered every morning to your door.
Participate as much or as little as you like. Help feed the chickens if you’re so inclined.
Or just generally goof off, summer camp style.
And make new friends, summer camp style.
Friends who can’t bear to part, like Lola (the goat). Gives a whole new meaning to the cliche of blurring the line between indoors and outdoors.
And there’s always the beach at Anchor Bay beckoning.
Sleep on line-dried sheets.
A big part of Renata and Tom’s vision was saving this land from development, electing to retain and rehab the circa 1920 fishing cottages.
But what incidental magic they’ve created as Mar Vista’s caretakers.
(Pygmy goat “Pygmalion”)
For more on Mendocino, California, here’s my post on a vacation there last August.
Looks like a good time. I actually almost applied for a gardener job there once but I remembered how isolated and at the edge of the earth I felt when I was an intern at MCBG and decided not to. Seems like a beautiful place though.
Superb, I am just lost into the pictures.
Mendocino–when we visited it seemed to be the place where the 1960’s never ended. Not that that is a bad thing.
Kaveh, this idea is so appealing, but you’re right, the remoteness would grate on me too.
LP, so glad you enjoyed the photos.
Hoov, the West Coast has quite a few of these spots, Humboldt being another — last time I was there, anyway.
This is such a dreamy place, on many levels. What a perfect place to test run the farm fantasy. I’m trying to think of some special something to celebrate as an excuse to head up there asap. Thanks so much for sharing this place.
Denise, Sunset(I think it was Sunset) did a write up on this pace several years ago..not sure the year, but I know my BILS were still living in Ft Bragg at the the time-I had my own personal B&B, free of charge,so no need to investigate the lodgings. I remember that I actually tore out the article because the rates were so reasonable. Kaveh is spot on about the isolation, that is why my BILs only stuck it out for 5 years.Beauty has it’s price.
What an interesting alternative to traditional hotel lodgings. Mendocino was my favorite part of IU7. The beauty was almost overwhelming. I’m a bit surprised that the general consensus seems to be along the lines of it’s a great place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. Thanks for placing this spot on my radar.
Kathy & Sue, I was looking at a map, and Mar Vista is in southern Mendocino and is considered in the “banana belt” with less fog. (About an hour from Digging Dog and Mendo Botanic Garden!)
Sue the Mendocino and Fort Bragg area is just super isolated. The total population is probably about about 8000 people. I think Ukiah was the next biggest town and that is over an hour away through windy, hilly, roads. When I first arrived in Fort Bragg in April the late rains produced a mud slide that cut us off from the roads leading to San Francisco and I almost had a panic attack at the thought. You really do feel quite isolated. I used to tell people I felt like I was on the edge of the earth.
A wonderful place to live for 6 months but the winters are cold and wet and the summers can actually be cold and wet with very heavy fog. When I moved back to NYC after living there for half a year I did go through some sensory overload. It was a bizarre experience.