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When Phil and Cindie White, owners of Jelich Ranch, were recently honored by the Portola Valley Town Council for their restoration of the property, it was quite the moment for them.
“I literally burst into tears,” said Cindie, who grew up in Portola Valley. “I’d put my heart and soul into it for 24 years, and to know that somebody else saw that was deeply touching.”
When the Whites purchased the 14-acre property in 2000, they became owners of more than just a ranch that affords a stunning backyard view of the Santa Cruz Mountains; they inherited its Croatian ancestry, transgenerational memories and the responsibility to uphold the legacy of the very land the Jelich family first started farming in the 1890s.
The restoration process was about “wanting to make a nod to history and the Jelich family,” a sentiment they came into only after they bought it. It was a second home for the then-Atherton-based family.
The front of the Jelich Ranch home. Courtesy Cindie White. 
Inside the Jelich Ranch home. Courtesy Cindie White. 
Inside the Jelich Ranch home. Courtesy Cindie White. Credit: Cherie Cordellos Photography 
Inside the Jelich Ranch home. Courtesy Cindie White. Credit: Cherie Cordellos Photography 
Inside the Jelich Ranch home. Courtesy Cindie White. 
Inside the Jelich Ranch home. Courtesy Cindie White.
“We didn’t buy it to restore it. We bought it because it was a beautiful piece of nature in my hometown. It’s not like we had this big vision and big plan to restore it,” Cindie said. “But looking back, we think, ‘Holy smokes, what did we do? That’s incredible!’”
For the Whites, the process of restoring the place was intuitive. “There were no deadlines, there was no pressure. It was fun! It was like an artist’s palette. We co-created it methodically, piece by piece,” Cindie said.
‘There were no deadlines, there was no pressure. It was fun! It was like an artist’s palette. We co-created it methodically, piece by piece.’
Cindie White, owner of Jelich Ranch
They began by clearing out items from the past, like abandoned cars, cans of paint, tires, mounds where the previous inhabitants used to drive motorcycles, weeds and overgrown trees.
Though architecturally possible, they decided not to build a brand new house in the middle of the orchard, home to about 1,000 to 1,500 fruit trees, because that would’ve ruined it. Instead, they decided to revive the orchard, a process that involved hiring all manner of consultants — bug experts, fruit experts, tree experts, gardening experts and farm managers.
“We brought in experts who were working with Steve Jobs at the time. It was before or at the very beginning of organic and local farming,” Cindie said. They certified the place as organic in 2003. “We talked and we dreamed and we visualized. We learned from them.”
They began harvesting, donating and subsequently, selling fruit to local grocers like Bianchini’s and Roberts. Today, fruits grown there include apples, pears, peaches, plums, nectarines, figs and persimmons.
The Whites also applied for designation under the state’s Williamson Act, which enables farmland conservation and protects owners from hefty property taxes.
“We were happy because the property could have been subdivided, but we retained it as a whole. The town was really happy,” Cindie said, reminiscing about working closely with town officials, including “old-timers like (Bill) Lane (one of the town’s founders and the publisher of Sunset Magazine), Leslie Lambert (former planning manager for the town), Tom Vlasic (former town planner)… it was a very creative relationship, where we’re aligning with the town values, they’re excited that we’re the new stewards of the land.”
Firms they partnered with for the restoration work include Walker Warner (architecture), Douglas Durkin Design (interiors) and Forde Mazzola Associates (construction).
Around 2002, Cindie began conducting education camps with children to teach them how to connect with nature and wildlife, “the old fashioned, throwback way,” which involved camping out in the orchards in tents during the summer and negotiating conflicting concepts like farming and wilderness. Over the years, she also collected a lot of oddities from nature and created a natural history museum on the ranch. She even wrote a book about wildness in a civilized world called “Confessions of a Bone Woman.”
Animals and birds that visit the place today include bobcats, deer, raccoons, possums, foxes, mountain lions, coyotes, ducks, blue herons, red-tail hawks, egrets, owls, frogs, skunk, gopher snakes, wild turkey vultures, bluebirds and songbirds.
Camping, however, brought with it a great deal of “schlepping,” which is what prompted the decision to re-do the farmhouse. The idea was to make changes while retaining the architectural integrity of the house. “When people drive by they would never know it’s a different house,” she said. “But we made a few tweaks.” The front door, for instance, used to face Portola Road; it now faces north.
The decor comprises a mix of antique and functional things — thick doors, push-button lighting, wood siding panels, alabaster light fixtures, transoms, cord-and-weight-pull double-hung windows, and a whole lot of intricate, hand-crafted items. “I was geeking out on the woodwork,” she said, about the sheer artistry involved in doing up the house. “Every single shelf was custom-sawed.”
Even the paints were picked keeping the original look-and-feel in mind. “There’s something like a 100 different colors inside the house,” she said, adding that the goal was to preserve the soul of the house while making sure it didn’t look worn down. “When you walk in, you should feel like it’s the Jelich family house from a 100 years ago.”
History hangs in the hallway by the entrance in the form of vintage photographs of the ranch — including one by the legendary Ansel Adams — and framed articles from older editions of The Almanac.
The garage is where the Jelichs used to keep their fruit stand. Though the Whites repaired it, they tried to make it look like the original; they re-stenciled the name “Jelich Ranch” in black against white and used the old antlers to adorn it as before.
Renovations of the barn and the lattice-covered tank ensued. “We added sliding doors to the agriculture barn,” Cindie said. After 2015, when the Whites moved from their Atherton home to this one, they added an extension to the original farmhouse as well as a deck that overlooks the orchard, changes that aren’t visible from the outside. They worked in collaboration with the town for these additions. “It was so easy to work with them,” she said.
There were events that made things difficult, though. At the very beginning of the restoration process, they got a letter about an endangered salamander on the property, asking them to halt all construction. “We were freaking out,” she said. It was only after they’d wasted months speaking with lawyers and experts that they realized it was a prank. “We were new and naive,” she said. “If only we’d looked more closely at the letterhead!”
Cindie has a deep connection with the ranch and talks about its personality like it’s a close friend: “It’s authentic. … It’s not trying to show off.”
She speaks about the restoration process in an almost spiritual way. “Everything that happened to that ranch happened to me, and vice versa,” said Cindie.
It’s this passion for Jelich Ranch that makes it hard for her to come to terms with its imminent sale.
“For personal reasons, we’re going to pass the baton,” she said.
