Sonoma Land Trust: Rooted in Glen Ellen 

By Tracy Salcedo
Kenwood Press, June 2026

Will Bucklin stood with his back to the Mayacamas range between rows of the ancient vines his family has curated for decades. He faced Sonoma Mountain and a circle of folks from throughout Sonoma County who’d gathered on Old Hill Ranch to hear stories about the origins of the Sonoma Land Trust (SLT), which turns 50 this year.

The land trust started here, in the northern Sonoma Valley, in response to proposed urbanization that included turning the Sonoma Highway into a four-lane freeway. That proposed urbanization threatened not only the ancient vines belonging to Bucklin’s stepfather, Otto Teller, but also the wildlands and agricultural lands surrounding his vines. Otto was one of the land trust’s founders, along with his wife, Anne, who started Oak Hill Farm just across the road.

Otto Teller settled near Glen Ellen, Bucklin said, because he wanted to fish. Even though he became a winemaker, Otto lamented the vineyards because they soaked up the groundwater that enabled valley streams to flow year-round and support runs of salmon and steelhead. Bucklin used one of Otto’s “isms” to explain the remarkable balance the farmer/conservationist struck in this “sweet spot between development and wildland.” Responding to a complaint about critters taking bites out of the grape harvest (and profits), Otto observed, “Well, the deer gotta eat too.”

From the Secret Pasture to the Sonoma Coast

The visit to Bucklin’s Glen Ellen vineyard was the first stop on an outing hosted by the SLT to celebrate its fifth decade. That’s because the Tellers were also the first landowners to set aside a portion of their property as open space in perpetuity using a conservation easement. This tool was, at the time, relatively new, but has since become an essential part of the conservation armamentarium worldwide.

That first property, the Secret Pasture, 80 acres of sun-washed scrub high in the Mayacamas that the two-year-old land trust secured in 1978, has since blossomed to more than 300 acres, and is a critical link in a chain of open spaces spanning the range from Hood Mountain to the headwaters of Calabazas Creek, the Bouverie Preserve, and the Tellers’ Oak Hill Farm.

Glen Ellen’s Arthur Dawson, a historical ecologist who has researched the SLT’s evolution, noted in a webinar on the nonprofit’s history that, to date, the land trust has enabled the protection of more than 63,000 acres county-wide. The trust uses a “landscape-scale approach,” identifying both big pieces of property for conservation and the linkages that connect them, “putting thousands of acres together in a protected landscape.”

In Glen Ellen, hallmark SLT acquisitions include the 236-acre Glen Oaks Ranch, the village green behind Glen Ellen Village Market, and 3.5-acre Stuart Creek Run Preserve, a pocket park that packs a punch for the salmon species that have only recently returned to spawning grounds in natal watersheds. Otto Teller would be delighted.

In addition to its work in and around the Sonoma Valley, the SLT has preserved and restored more than a thousand acres in the Baylands, where the skirts of the Sonoma Mountain Range dip into San Pablo Bay, and on the Sonoma Coast, where the Pole Mountain Preserve links Little Black Mountain to the Jenner Headlands.

The trust’s revamped website is a rabbit hole of information on all of these properties, including their natural and cultural histories, and is well-worth a deep dive. Visit sonomalandtrust.org to learn more, and to sign up for webinars and other outings that have been planned as part of the 50th birthday celebration.