The Vine

I recently had lunch with Vinester Randy Sater, who brought me a really cool gift accompanied by an equally cool story.

Randy is president of StoneBridge Properties, the residential development arm of Teichert, a 125-year-old, family owned and operated construction materials producer here in my hometown of Sacramento. (To most Sacramentans, Teichert is synonymous with rocks. But that may soon change.)

With Teichert’s land nearly depleted of mining resources, Randy and his team are repurposing a 3,800-acre infill site as a new masterplanned community designed around urban farming, a tribute to the area’s early agrarian heritage. “It’s time to knit this land back into the community,” he says. “But in starting this process, we wanted to look to the past before planning for the future.”

To do so, StoneBridge commissioned local historical environmental author Paula Peper to research the history and culture of the region. Her work has now been published as a beautifully crafted, limited print, commemorative book, “Sacramento’s Brighton Township: Stories of the Land.” (I got copy #162 of 300.)

Two more books are in the works, which will chronicle the influence (environmentally, aesthetically and culturally) of Sacramento’s trees and surrounding park neighborhoods. All three can be viewed here on StoneBridge’s website. A more detailed account of this project is nicely captured here by the Sacramento Bee.

At lunch Randy lamented of the development industry, “We’re good at building houses, but not building experiences people will remember.”

I beg to differ. Some of you are doing it exceptionally well. Keep up the good work.