Jack London, Wolf House, and the Valley of the Moon
Near Sonoma Sebastopol, California
In the hills above Glen Ellen, one of the most famous American writers of his age poured his fortune into the land. Jack London, author of The Call of the Wild and White Fang, bought his first parcel here in nineteen oh five and kept buying, eventually assembling a spread he called Beauty Ranch in the valley he loved to call the Valley of the Moon. London saw himself as much a farmer as a novelist, experimenting with scientific agriculture, terracing, and livestock.
At the center of it all he built his dream house, a massive stone and redwood mansion of some twenty six rooms that he named Wolf House. On August twenty second, nineteen thirteen, just weeks before he and his wife Charmian were to move in, the nearly finished house caught fire and burned to the ground. A forensic study completed in nineteen ninety five concluded the most likely cause was spontaneous combustion in oil soaked rags left over from finishing the woodwork.
London was crushed. He died three years later, in nineteen sixteen, at only forty years old, and his ashes were placed on a small knoll overlooking the valley. His widow later built a home nearby.
The ruins of Wolf House still stand, roofless stone walls in the trees, at the heart of Jack London State Historic Park.
