In Calistoga a bicoastal couple built their dream home — Bauhausian and light-filled, it also plays home to the local donkeys
Words by CATHERINE BIGELOW
Photography by FRANCOIS DISCHINGER
Perched atop the rolling, oak-studded hills of Knights Valley in Sonoma County, a modernist farmhouse-style residence announces itself as two glass-and-steel hydraulic airplane-hangar windows slowly glide upward like butterfly wings over a sun-dappled horizon. This Pavlovian signal beckons Sugi and Jinx, two resident miniature donkeys that gambol inside to greet visitors.
“Our cheeky little mini donkeys live near the main house,” says Kristina O’Neal, who designed it with Adam Gordon, her creative partner and husband. But as he notes, “If left to her own devices, Kristina would have the [donkeys] living with us in the actual house. But we have boundaries.”
Such is the bucolic lifestyle at Gordon and O’Neal’s Ghost Donkey Ranch, a 227-acre property that has remained a working cattle ranch for more than 100 years — a rarity among the hectares of vineyards that define this famed wine-growing region.
“Adam has a fascinating ‘dowsing’ ability when it comes to ideal, totally off-market property,” says O’Neal. “He discovered our Knights Valley acreage with the help of Sonoma locals. The first time I saw the land, it seemed impossibly beautiful. I feel that way every time we arrive. It’s easy to get awestruck here.”
Those lush vistas, says O’Neal, also christened the name of their ranch. “After living on the land for a few weeks, we saw six mysterious white animals on one of our distant knolls. We wondered if some neighbors’ cows had gotten loose. After a few sightings, [we realized] wild donkeys were grazing on the property. I began calling them ‘ghost donkeys’ because they would appear and then disappear into the forest.”
“The first time I saw the land, it seemed impossibly beautiful.”
kristina o’neal
O’Neal grew up in Pleasanton, California, whereas Gordon is a native New Yorker, raised in the Midwest, who “sprinted back to New York City after college.” Now a bicoastal couple, they’re primarily based in a Chelsea penthouse, where they’ve established several wildly successful business ventures.
Gordon, managing partner of Wildflower, Ltd., is a visionary real estate developer who created the first modern e-commerce warehouse, which he leased to then-fledgling online retailer Amazon. He is known for transforming unique properties with luxury design. In 2007, Gordon purchased the historic Bouwerie Lane Theatre in NoHo, transforming the six-story, French Second Empire–style cast-iron structure into two full-floor condos and a triplex penthouse (where the couple formerly resided), adorned with mahogany staircases and a wine-tasting room. In August, tech titan Elon Musk paid $18 million to Wildflower for a 40,037-square-foot surface parking lot in Queens to, presumably, develop a Tesla Supercharger station. In July, Gordon unveiled Wildflower Studios — a 765,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art TV and film production campus in Astoria — the $1 billion brainchild of Gordon and his pal, award-winning actor Robert De Niro.
O’Neal is a cofounder of the vaunted AvroKO design studio. With offices in San Francisco, London, New York, Bangkok, and Miami, she and her fellow founders are industry leaders in creating haute, high-touch environments for properties like the three-Michelin star Single Thread restaurant in Healdsburg and The Inn at Mattei’s Tavern (an Auberge Resorts Collection property) in Los Olivos. A decade ago, seeking to balance city sidewalks with rustic sanctuary, Gordon and O’Neal purchased the ranch. For the first year, they camped out in their emerging structure to better imagine its interior finishes and decor.
“We spent more than a year wandering the land to find exactly the right site, daydreaming about how we wanted to live there and what our days and evenings would look like,” Gordon says. “After that, the shape of the house seemed inevitable.”
Built in 2016 and clad in local tufa stone, the fire-resistant home — a geometric reduction of an agrarian structure — was designed as a “private pleasure” that affords the landscape a starring role. A pool pavilion is framed by a riot of native flora, as well as second-growth redwoods, olive trees, Douglas firs, and native grass.
At just 28 feet wide, the 4,200-square-foot main house is a minimalist dream comprising three bedrooms, a living room, a gym, and an herbarium, plus two guest casitas. The open kitchen was designed by their friend Tom Kundig, an architect with AD100 firm Olson Kundig.
“We spent a year wandering the land, daydreaming about how we wanted to live there.”
adam gordon
Interior artwork emerged from a mood board of sketches composed by O’Neal, a hobby she has dubbed “Modifieds” that reimagines the artistry of deconstructed objects: A diptych in the herbarium is derived from a 19th-century embroidered Viennese runner. A netted wall hanging in the primary bedroom originated as an Oaxacan hammock.
The decor is equally eclectic. Vintage Pierre Jeanneret chairs adorn the living room. A Knoll base sourced from eBay supports a custom Rosewood top dining table. Woolly wooden sheep forms, found in a Sonoma shop, flock in the entry hall.
For at least five months of the year, the couple’s urbanity is tempered by restorative sojourns in sun-kissed Sonoma. “We flow between the city and the ranch for a basket of reasons,” Gordon says. “Silkie chicken hatchings, friends celebrating seasonal harvests, professional opportunities, classic car rallies, donkey petting, and often just a longing to be in nature.”
This untamed landscape — defined by mountains, meadows, and abundant wildlife (coyotes, raptors, and bobcats) — also serves as an environmental lab that has inspired new endeavors for the couple.
Authored by the Sun, developed by O’Neal and winemaker Tessa Perliss, is a line of roots-to-fruits skin serums and teas tested in O’Neal’s herbarium in collaboration with local female herbalists and growers. With Sonoma native Will Densberger, Gordon established Knights Valley Wagyu, a “virtuous” agricultural project that raises stress-free animals bearing champion Japanese genetics in open, pesticide-free pastures that respect the land upon which the cattle graze.
This bounty of meltingly tender, buttery beef is accessible to local chefs, including Kyle Connaughton, owner of Single Thread, or those working within biking distance of the ranch. “They are all connected to us, to the land and to each other,” says Gordon. “Knights Valley Wagyu is our gift to the local food community and to visitors who will enjoy Wagyu that cannot be found anywhere else.”
And in a nod to just being a devoted gearhead dude, Gordon corrals his collection of vintage all-terrain Ford Broncos and Land Rovers in their barn. The couple also enjoy entertaining at their ranch, sharing a Wagyu wood-fire cookout and meals using ingredients foraged from their land with fellow valley residents, including culinary entrepreneur Charter Oak chef-owner Christopher Kostow and storied père et fils vintners Bill and Will Harlan.
“The spirit of hospitality, generosity, and warmth is everywhere,” Gordon says. “[Discovering] Knights Valley was like arriving in Eden. You can see the stars at night and live with nature. It’s the wild preserve Kristina and I dreamed of as kids. It is our sanctuary and creative space.”
Hair and makeup by CHRISTINA FLACH at Brandi Moore Agency.
MICHELLE MONAGHAN wears LORO PIANA jacket and skirt, CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN shoes, and VRAI x PETRA & MEEHAN FLANNERY jewelry.
Feature image: The couple’s miniature donkeys, Sugi (brown) and Jinx (white).
This story originally appeared in the Fashionable Living 2024 issue of C Magazine.
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