Neighbors, owner react to fire that destroyed historic Petaluma home

The cause of the raging fire that brought down one of Petaluma’s oldest homes this week is still under investigation, but neighbors and even the property owner say it was only a matter of time.

Built in 1870 but reduced to ashes before 6 a.m. Monday morning, the historic Tunstall House had in recent years become a haven for homeless residents, dozens of whom have taken up residence in the surrounding Cedar Grove property through the years.

The land backs up to homes along Rocca Drive in north-central Petaluma, and has been the source of considerable ire from neighbors, who have called police nearly 150 times in the past three years to report trespassing, theft, fires and more in the long-abandoned and geographically isolated parcel.

“My thoughts were, with the homeless being out there, it was surely going to happen,” said former North Bay Construction Co. owner John Barella, who along with his wife, Andrea Barella, has owned the Cedar Grove property for the past decade. “They’ve had four or five fires out there. One in the house prior. I’ve been concerned about the Rocca neighborhood – everybody getting burned out.”

By the time the Petaluma Fire Department responded to the 4:54 a.m. Monday call, the historic home was engulfed in flames, and portions of the building had already collapsed, according to a news release from the Petaluma Fire Department.

Trouble with site access, exacerbated by planned maintenance work on a defunct train track crossing for Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, forced firefighters to deploy hoses through a neighbor’s yard along Rocca Drive, delaying the response, according to the release.

In the aftermath, fire investigators got to work, teaming with the Petaluma Police Department to probe for clues, police Lt. Tim Lyons said. Citing the ongoing investigation, Fire Marshal Jessica Power was not ready Tuesday to reveal any findings, including whether investigators suspected the fire was human caused.

Lyons said his first priority was to ensure nobody was killed in the fire.

“As of right now, I’ve not heard that they’ve found anything,” Lyons said.

Reduced to a smoldering pile of embers, the Tunstall House was recorded as a total loss. Damage to the already crumbling home was estimated at $100,000, and Petaluma historians this week lamented the disappearance of one of the city’s oldest homes.

“This is very sad, but not unexpected news,” said historian Katherine Rinehart. “I pass the Cedar Grove site weekly as I take SMART up to SSU I can’t help but wonder, ‘What if someone had thought to fix up the house way back as plans to develop the property played out rather than walking away and leaving the property fall to wrack and ruin?’ This situation highlights Petaluma’s need for a demolition by neglect ordinance along with incentives that support historic preservation.”

Neighbors have also singled out Barella for blame, with some even contemplating a lawsuit after years of harassment from residents at the abandoned property.

“Our neighbors four doors down moved because nobody was doing anything about it,” said Chad Greenlief, who lives with his wife and children on Rocca Drive. “They couldn’t handle it any more.”

Barella bristled at the notion that he was to blame for the loss, saying he has spent roughly $200,000 maintaining the property since he bought it in 2011. He said he annually signs a trespass letter with Petaluma Police, giving them permission to check and clear the property.

“I go out there and check the property periodically, and every time I catch people out there, I call the police,” Barella said.

The city ordered Barella to clean up the property in 2013, and followed up with permits to demolish several aging buildings after determining they were not of historic significance.

Through the years, Barella said the city has asked him to install a fence around the home. But he has constantly had to repair the fence after break-ins. After multiple calls, and despite his annual renewal of a no-trespass letter with the Petaluma Police Department, Barella said the city lost its appetite to police the area.

“I think something should be done, but the city’s going to have to decide that,” Barella said.

A longtime construction magnate and philanthropist, Barella agreed to sell North Bay Construction to Ghilotti Construction Co., in 2010, saying he wanted to focus on real estate development full time. Not long after, he bought the Cedar Grove property out of bankruptcy, but so far has failed to get any project off the ground at the site.

It’s a characterization Barella disputed in a phone interview Tuesday morning. Although he acknowledges plans have fallen through, including a partnership with a developer that planned to build a subdivision on the property, Barella said he has never formally applied for a permit to build anything at the property.

The site has been eyed on and off for development for years, and is zoned for a medium-density residential neighborhood. Yet with the CPUC requirement that the Cedar Grove Park crossing - the only road to the site - be closed due to activity along the SMART line, such plans would face a significant hurdle in the need to create new access.

Ideas floated over the years have included the purchase and demolition of an existing home on Rocca Drive, which runs along the north end of the property, in order to make room for a new street into Cedar Grove, a former city manager said.

A second access point into the site would also need to be created, potentially in the form of a bridge over the Petaluma River, the city manager said.

The 20-plus acres of the now-abandoned Cedar Grove property, including the Tunstall House, has changed hands a variety of times during its century-plus of its existence, Petaluma historian Skip Sommers has reported.

And it’s had as many uses - and potential uses – as owners. At one time, it was a resort hosting up to 3,000 people per day on property one owner deemed “one of the prettiest and most attractive parks in the county.”

It’s possible the area’s past could inform its future. Barella said has recently had conversations with the city of Petaluma, the Sonoma Land Trust and the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria about a joint purchase of the property that would have converted it into a park.

Much of the trouble with the property has come after SMART was established, and the regional transit agency opted to pay Barella $225,000 in exchange for shuttering the Cedar Grove Park railroad crossing off of Lakeville Street. That, coupled with Petaluma’s decision to dissolve its two-officer HOST team, meant fewer patrols into the secluded plot of land adjacent to Clover Sonoma.

“We had the area pretty clean,” Lyons said. “And then, yeah, it just goes in ebbs and flows.”

Calls for service to the area from neighbors have spiked amid the coronavirus pandemic, too, as more people spend more time at their houses, and others have been driven from their homes.

Police received 78 calls for service in 2021, and 42 in 2020, but just 19 in 2019, the year before the pandemic’s arrival.

Three years ago, when the Greenlief’s moved to the neighborhood, the area behind their Rocca Drive home was simply an open field.

“They weren’t there when we moved in,” Elizabeth Greenlief said. “If they were there, we wouldn’t have moved in.”

Tyler Silvy is editor of the Petaluma Argus-Courier. Reach him at tyler.silvy@arguscourier.com, 707-776-8458, or @tylersilvy on Twitter.