380 miles and a world away from Seattle is Bull Hill Guest Ranch. This is my second trip here. Seattle to Bull Hill took 7 hours driving time including a stop along the Columbia River for lunch. Establish is 1903 when the paternal and maternal sides of the current owners homesteaded adjoining land, it is currently 11,000 acres of cattle grazing land. Until 1995 it was run as a cattle ranch and the “dude ranch” started as a small operation with 2 cabins . The transition to dude ranch seems effortless for brothers Pete, Tom and Don. Pete and Tom along with their nephew, Brett, look and act like the genuine cowboys they are. They handle guests and horses with skill. But first, we decided to stop by China Bend winery about a mile down a gravel road from the entrance to Bull Hill. After turning off the gravel road, it’s a mile or so on a dirt road to the winery. Along the way, there is a circus tent with a garage sale going on. The ranch sign says “Israel”. As we stopped to see what was for sale, a middle aged man in a long, gray ponytail and jeans introduced himself as Consolation. I asked if they were part of the Love Israel family that had lived on Queen Anne hill. Yes, they are. I proceeded to tell them that I was spending the summer at the old commune housesitting for my girlfriend. His mate Shem, a biblical name since she hasn’t gotten her virtue name yet in spite of being part of the family since 1980, explained that Love Israel and his wife were in Bothell visiting their grandchildren. What a small world.
On to China Bend winery, one of only two wineries in WA not to put any sulfites in their wines. All of their grapes are grown on the 6 acres surrounding the winery. The grapes have names like Leon Millot, Marechal foch, Luci Kuhlman and are cold weather grapes from Switzerland and other mountain regions of Europe. Bart and his wife, Victory, are the owner/winemaker/salesmen/shipping manager/etc. They were formerly Loyal (guess not so much in the end) and Victory Israel, members of the Love Israel family. Someone told me that the people who had less money to contribute to the “family” were sent to the eastern Washington commune here in China Bend, land donated by another family member. If you had lots of assets to contribute, you got to live on Queen Anne Hill or at the farm in Arlington. Apparently, when one joined the family, you are required to give everything you own to Love-that caused him lots of problems and caused the loss of the Queen Anne property in the mid 1980s. As the lesser-asset group of 50 or so were banished to E. Washington, they needed to make a living and in the long run became the more successful of the group. Bart/Loyal and Victory started the winery about 30 years ago with no experience making wine or else, according to him, he wouldn’t have known that you could make wine without sulfites. Lots of trial and error and drinking bad wine has produced some very fine wines with every wine entered in any competition earning a medal! They are all displayed on the shelves in the tasting room. Have to admit that the wines were very good and Linda wound up buying a ½ case to take home. She also gave us “virtue names”—didn’t come to her in a dream like the virtue names come to Love—she named herself “Happy” and gave me the name “Foolish”—sounds more like the dwarves!! We’ll see if those names stick .
Over cocktails at the ranch last night, I heard lots about the “Family”. We wondered where the name Love Israel came from and read that his name was Paul Erdman decided Love is real and changed his name to Love Israel. Quite a charismatic guy who has the ability to talk every new member into giving him all of their worldly goods! Apparently one of those people was a DuPont heir-- renamed Richness by Love-- who gave Love about 1.3 million dollars and in 1984, sued to regain his wealth. In an out of court settlement reached the night before a trial was scheduled to start, Richness took back his name and got possession of the Queen Anne property. Another high profile member was comedian Steve Allen’s son who was Loyal Israel when he lived at the commune on Queen Anne. Interesting stuff.
