Lanita Witt, Suzanne Willow and their daughter Brooke were looking for 40 acres of rural property on a sparkling day on December 31, 1984. They had selected the Ashland school district as their new home-to-be, and had a realtor's map in hand as they drove up a snowy Shale City Rd. Driving toward the mapped parcel, they looked down into a beautiful valley with a big barn and little house under 4 feet of snow, and thought about the family that lives there summers. They visited the mapped parcel, and three others, and went back to the view of the valley at sunset. They went back again twice the next day ... and noticed a small 'For Sale' sign at the base of Shale City Rd. Tuesday, January 2, 1985, they were in the realtor's office before returning to Napa, California, and found that the parcel for sale was the valley they had all fallen in love with, and that it was 440 acres! Magic was definitely afoot. Two weeks later an offer to buy had come in on the property; they returned to Ashland, skied into the valley with the big barn and the little house, and put in their own offer. The rest, as they say, is history.
