Allison Wang: With 91.9 KVCR news I'm Allison Wang. A couple weeks ago I spent a wonderful evening with my boyfriend at the Lavender Festival hosted by Highland Springs Ranch in in located in Cherry Valley, California. Before our night out, I had the opportunity to tour the grounds with the president of the corporation, Tina Kummerle, where we discussed the property, it's products, history, and values. The primary crop is lavender, but the ranch also ventures into producing other goods.
Tina Kummerle: We're growing about 8000 grapes, seven different varieties. So we're making our own wine. That's the idea. We make our own sourdough bread and they're really healthy, they have a lot of nutrition. We make our own olive oil, but we sell out of it really rapidly. We actually purchase olive oil from other California farms and this is- we buy it with this seal California Olive Oil Council certified extra virgin. The lavender, we grow everything we grow here's organic, certified organic.
Allison Wang: The farm also grows other crops like rosemary, sage, mint, persimmons and strawberries. Kummerle and I also discussed the ranch's rich and vibrant history.
Tina Kummerle: Highland Springs Ranch and Inn it is the property itself. It's a historic property. It's been around since the mid 1800s. At first it was kind of a stagecoach stop, then it became a health resort then it was like a Catskills of the West. Then it went to a conference center. And now it is like a festival event center.
Allison Wang: Back in the day, this ranch would regularly host Albert Einstein during his trips out to Southern California.
Tina Kummerle: I love the fact that Albert Einstein was here. We have a reference on our- inside the lobby where it's like an article from like the 1930s something LA Times where Albert Einstein has a quote where he says: "Every time I come to Southern California, I make sure and I stop by Highland Springs Ranch." He really loves it. So I think that's pretty cool.
Allison Wang: In the late 1920s, Highland Springs Ranch and Inn was a health resort, called "The Last Resort" Kummerle explains how that commitment to health and wellness still persists today.
Tina Kummerle: I love the fact that it was a health resort. And I feel like that kind of matches a lot of our philosophy now, where we're trying to bring to people like really healthy things and like all different forms of health. It's healthy to be in nature and an atmosphere that's nice and relaxing and beautiful. And then there's also your health with foods. So it's kind of nice that our history matches both of those things. Yeah, for people to you know, be able to come here and have a very healthy, memorable family experience and then also be educated about like different ways to stay healthy.
Allison Wang: The ranch's focus on health and wellness also includes multiple sustainability initiatives.
Tina Kummerle: We're trying to go from organic to regenerative. So organic is like where you you don't use any chemicals, pesticides, artificial, you know, it's got a pretty good standard to help keep you clean. But regenerative is where you focus more on the land itself and not just taking from the land, but giving back. And that means like you're improving your land all the time. And also you your employees, you're very careful how you treat your employees. We're gonna go for that certification next because it's a little more stringent than the organic. For us, what with what we grow, because I'm really involved in the farm side a lot and is, is more just making sure that whatever we produce is really high quality and that it's done in a way that we can make sure that the product that we're giving is like the best quality, and then also that making sure that we improve the land and that the soil and the environment and the atmosphere and like it all it all is connected. We're trying to use less and less water the the methods that were farming our grapes, we eventually want to move them to more and more close to dry farming, because water is a big problem in our area. Dry farming means you basically don't irrigate or you irrigate very little. So the way we're farming, we're going to slowly wean the plant off of water more and more so the roots go deeper.
Allison Wang: The ranch invigorates the local population with multiple festivals hosted throughout the year. It's clearly a staple in the community and its presence is more than welcomed by the locals
Tina Kummerle: In like 2007, a developer tried to come in and they wanted to give us money to put like a freeway through the property or behind us and then to build something behind it. And we joined with a local community with two different groups that didn't want it. And we had a lawsuit and we won and we purchased the property. And now we're trying to plant grapes and different things so that it keeps the community more like it is because if not it would just go to development. So that was kind of the idea.
Allison Wang: Local vendors also set up shop to sell handcrafted goods during the festivals.
Tina Kummerle: People can come and rent a shop and then if they have something to sell it we have a market of 2000 people coming per day. So then they're able to sell their things.
Allison Wang: The shops owned by the property sell lavender plants, branded merchandise, lavender oils, lotions, sleep mist, dried bouquets and more. My boyfriend and I spent the night enjoying everything the lavender festival had to offer, drinking lavender lemonade, exploring the old historical restort area, taking pictures on the lavender fields, and listening in on a presentation about distilling essential oils. The lavender festival runs from May 5 to July 23, from 5 to 10pm on varying days of the week. When walking through the historic grounds that have existed since the early days of California, you will experience all the wonders that nature has to offer. I hope you have as much fun as we did. From KVCR News I'm Allison Wang.