Profiles in Preservation

Panfiglio

Lanatti Ranch, Chileno Valley

The son of an immigrant dairyman, Alvin Lanatti never shied away from hard work. When he was just a teenager, his father sold the dairy he owned in Petaluma, but Alvin stayed on as a milker, then hired himself out at dairies all over Marin County. As was the practice then, he milked cows by hand, including the herd at the old Reed Ranch, today the site of the Kaiser facility in Terra Linda. He would purchase a dairy operation of his own in 1956, but until recently, he never fully owned the land on which he ran his business.

The Lanatti Ranch easement is a landmark preservation effort because it is the 50th ranch to be protected by MALT, and it is a landmark event for the Lanatti family, residents on the land as tenants and then as partial owners for almost 50 years. One of only three dairies remaining in Chileno Valley, the 585-acre ranch becomes part of eleven contiguous properties—a total of some 7000 acres—permanently protected for agriculture. MALT paid the appraised value of $943,000 for the easement with funds raised entirely from MALT members and contributors.

Alvin and June married in 1954, and for three years they leased a dairy in Palo Alto on the Stanford campus. Two years later, he borrowed money from his father and from the bank to buy their Chileno Valley dairy business, but the rolling hills where they would build their home and the deep valley where the dairy is located weren't part of the deal. The couple began to raise a family of three daughters and two sons. In 1970, they were able to buy part of the property, but an heir in Switzerland held on to one quarter of the ownership. His reluctance to sell meant the

Lanattis couldn't completely own the property or even put it in the Williamson Act, a 10-year contract which reduces taxes and restricts the use of the land to agriculture.Meanwhile, their children grew up and had children of their own.  When they finally reached an agreement with the absentee owner to sell his share of the property, the family voted unanimously to sell an easement to MALT in order to complete the purchase. Now the ranch, part of their lives for so long, is theirs.

Back in 1936, it would have been hard for the young milker to imagine a day more than half a century in the future when, surrounded by June, their five children, and their eight grandchildren, he would pose for a photo to celebrate selling a conservation easement on his ranch to MALT. Sadly, after a memorable life as a dairyman, Alvin Lanatti passed away in October 2009. 

 

To see a timeline of MALT easements, download MALT's Land Preservation Report.