Winemaker nearly finished building Fountaingrove Round Barn replica in Santa Rosa

By Kenny Choi

Plank by pine plank, the framing of a round barn emerges. It’s a project Ken Moholt-Siebert has been working on for more than eight years.

“I mentioned it to a few people, and they thought I was crazy, of course,” said Moholt-Siebert. 

He’s an architect and winemaker, keeping costs to a minimum. He said he isn’t using forklifts or hired help.

“It wasn’t easy. I had to do it by hand. I would bring these trusses in here, and then I would crank them up with a cable puller. It was quite an operation,” said Moholt-Siebert. 

Moholt-Siebert is building a replica of the Fountaingrove Round Barn.  

He remembers seeing it from the freeway when visiting his grandfather in Santa Rosa.

“It was really quite a landmark, especially when the grass was all green, and the red stood against that, you just couldn’t miss it,” said Moholt-Siebert. 

That is, until 2017, when the Tubbs Fire raged and roared through parts of Santa Rosa, destroying thousands of structures. 

“This is where the fire explosively jumped across the freeway.  Embers came over this way.  It was like artillery fire,” said Moholt-Siebert.

It consumed his family’s home, and also the original barn, which was about a mile away on a different property. 

“It was all burning as we were driving down the highway, and we could see the barn burning,” said Moholt-Siebert.

The barn was built in 1899, commissioned by Kanaye Nagasawa, a pioneering Japanese immigrant, winemaker, and leader of a utopian community who became known as the “Baron of Fountaingrove.”

Eric Stanley is a curator at the Museum of Sonoma County 

“He was called the Grape King of California in Japan and there was George Shima, who was the potato king of California. They were big, successful agriculturalists who supported immigrants and their work.  Those are the important stories that you don’t want to be lost as things get wiped away from the landscape,” said Stanley. 

“Here was this marker of their family’s relationship to this property here in Fountaingrove and it was gone,” said Moholt-Siebert. 

But from the ashes, Moholt-Siebert’s dream of building a replica was born, in part to honor the past. 

The Nagasawa family eventually lost its property because of California’s Alien Land Laws, and was forced into World War II internment. 

Moholt-Siebert recently invited Nagasawa’s descendants to see the reconstruction, including Karen Ijichi Perkins. 

“It’s my family’s history, so it’s important. The fact that he called us and wanted us to see it and make sure that we were okay with it, it was a very nice visit,” said Ijichi-Perkins. 

“There’s something about landmarks like that, that speak to the heart of a community and say that this is ours and this is who we are,” said Moholt-Siebert. 

It’s a part of Santa Rosa’s history, in a way preserved, through the resurrection of the Round Barn.  Moholt-Siebert said the barn could be finished sometime next year. 

He said the decision to build was easier when the original site of the barn became housing. He said people driving by on Old Redwood Highway will be able to see it on the hill.