The Guidiville Band of Pomo American Indians and developer Upstream Point Molate LLC hope to build a major casino resort at the old Point Molate Naval Fuel Depot just north of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. View Full Story.

For more, see the following:

·         Contra Costa Times on Governor's Point Molate Letter, October 14, 2009

·         Governor Opposes Point Molate Gaming, October 13, 2009

·         Point Molate News, October 8, 2009

·         Comment Period for Point Molate EIS/EIR Extended to October 23, October 1, 2009

·         State Water Board Remands Point Molate Cleanup Order Back to Local Board, October 1, 2009

·         Public Comment Time on Richmond's Point Molate Hotel-Casino Resort Extended to Sept. 30, September 21, 2009

·         Save Winehaven Historic District at Point Molate - An Endangered Historic Place in Richmond,September 20, 2009

·         Point Molate in the News, August 25, 2009

·         Newspapers, McLaughlin Weigh in on Point Molate, July 27, 2009

·         Long Awaited Point Molate DEIR/DEIS, July 12, 2009

Under tutelege of the National Park Service, which owns historic Fort Baker, Cavallo Point retained all of the historic buildings, sensitively rehabilitating them for modern uses, placing great value on the historical military theme and preserving the magnificent site for public access with its spacious parade ground and views of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.

I have consistently supported the proposed Point Molate Resort project, but the design is turning me off quickly. Las Vegas Casino Resorts spend billions trying to create images and themes out of nothing but thin desert air to appeal to visitors, such as the Luxor (Egyptian), Treasure Island, Monte Carlo, Excalibur and Mirage. At Point Molate, we don’t need to manufacture an artificial theme. History has already provided it with northern California’s most famous and quintessential theme, winemaking (see story from Contra Costa Times following this email).

Instead of going with what is already there as a gift, including a world class view across San Francisco Bay, the would be developers of Winehaven have cobbled together what looks like the rejected detritus of Las Vegas’ worst and most outdated designs and plopped them adjacent to venerable historic buildings while razing some 100,000 square feet of authentic 100-year old fermentation and barrel cellers in the process and ruining the site relationship among the buildings of this century old company town.

For me, the proposed design of Point Molate Resort/Casino is a show stopper. It has to be approved by the Richmond City Council for this project to go forward. If you think it is a great design, then do nothing. If you think it is an architectural disaster, totally unworthy of its amazing site, then let the Richmond City Council, the Richmond Planning Department and developer Jim Levine know by pressing “reply to all” and giving them the benefit of your opinion.

Proposed Point Molate Resort-Casino Looks Like Las Vegas detritus

Cavallo Point Preserves Historic Fort Baker site and buildings  Intact

Richmond's historic Winehaven building the early center of California wine industry

By Phoebe Fronistas
Correspondent

Posted: 10/16/2009 04:59:58 PM PDT

Updated: 10/16/2009 04:59:58 PM PDT

Between San Pablo Bay and a steep ridge lined with eucalyptus trees sits a lone burgundy fortress. Sharp-eyed commuters on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge can see the structure, with its turrets and crenelated parapets.

At its feet, a long, narrow wharf stretches across the water toward San Quentin. The Vallejo ferry passes by the secluded promontory every day but never makes a stop. A road runs through the crumbling premises, but a fence bars would-be explorers from wandering around Winehaven.

A century ago, Point Molate in Richmond was the site of a busy rail and shipping hub, employing hundreds of people. The red brick fortress at its center was a Gilded Age testament to the successful marriage between 20th century industrial production and California grapes.

Winehaven was born in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. The great fire that followed the temblor incinerated the South of Market headquarters of the California Wine Association, America's most powerful wine distributor.

In just over a decade, the association had taken California's wine industry from impoverishment to international renown, not so much for the quality of the wine as for the Calwa brand; modern Californian wines owe much to the association's marketing tactics. It was the first time American wine carried local place names such as Hillcrest, La Loma, Wahtoke and Glenridge. Napa was yet to emerge; the banner grape county of 1900 was Fresno. California, New York and Ohio, in order, were the biggest wine-producing states in the country.

When seven San Francisco wine merchants joined to form the California Wine Association, local grapes sold for less than it cost to pick them. But under a trademark depicting the state bear standing next to Dionysus on the prow of a ship, the California Wine Association steadily bought and controlled all stages of the industry "on a scale without precedent," wrote historian Thomas Pinney in "A History of Wine in America," "beginning with the grape and ending at the retail shelf."

By the time the 1906 fire consumed the association's cellars and 10 billion gallons of wine stored there, the conglomerate held 85 percent of the state's wine market.

The association's fortunes were so robust that just six months after the earthquake it was able to establish grand new headquarters. Its open letter to stockholders appeared in the October 1906 issue of the Pacific Wine and Spirits Review.

"After mature deliberation," the association announced, "a most favorable site consisting of 47 acres has been acquired near the town of Richmond, in Contra Costa County. This location has been appropriately named Winehaven."

At the time, the only inhabitants at Point Molate were Chinese shrimp fishermen. The original American Indian inhabitants had been pushed northward during California's Gold Rush, and the Chinese fared no better. The few families laboring there were already under pressure from the anti-Chinese legislation passed in the early 20th century; by 1912, hardly any traditional shrimping boats were left.

Construction on the commercial city-state, as Pinney dubs Winehaven, began in 1907. Eventually, more than 400 workers lived on site, said Don Gosney, community co-chairman of the Point Molate Restoration Advisory Board. There were cottages for married couples, a hotel for single workers, a school and a social hall. Each month, 40 ships left for New York alone.

An association billboard from 1910 catalogs its intoxicants: twelve large bottles of Winehaven, a "mature red table claret," $4; 48 quarter bottles of Madrona, a "fine old port type," $10. Out-of-the-way saloons could order 5-gallon casks of any Calwa wine to be dropped at the local rail depot.

Mass wine production came to an abrupt halt with Prohibition in 1919. Winehaven had to be abandoned at the peak of its success; the market for sacrificial wine and grape juice was not big enough to keep it open.

The buildings remained mostly empty for the next 20 years, until the Navy acquired the land during World War II. The Navy extended the property substantially and turned it into a Naval Fuel Depot. The winemaster's cottage housed the chief officer, and the hotel for single workers became a barracks. The cellars were converted into a nuclear bomb shelter. Dusty instruction manuals, sanitation kits and water barrels dating from the 1960s are still there.

The Navy left in 1995, and the city of Richmond now owns 90 percent of the waterfront property. The site has 35 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, but no one can visit them because the structures are too old and dangerous. While the city, residents and developer Upstream LLC deliberate regarding a proposal to build a hotel-casino resort there, the promontory is left the plaything of the gulls, which scatter shards of mussel shells along the disused pier.

Phoebe Fronistas is a correspondent for Richmond Confidential, a community journalism project of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in cooperation with the West County Times. On the Web at www.richmondconfidential.org.