Turn-key Permaculture Property at the Foot of the Redwoods outside Crescent City, CA

It will be hard to part with this place, but we would love for it to go to a fellow Permie. We have an offer forthcoming already so act fast!


Asking Price: $219,000
- For Sale By Owner

- 1248 sq. ft house on half acre lot
     - 2-bed, 2-bath
     - 12 hugelkulture (raised) beds

     - wood stove and electric wall heat, new roof (2013), floors (2015), plumbing (2015), siding (2017)
    - on-grid, with average electric bill under $100/month thru Pacific Power (no PG&E related power outages and the cheapest rates in California)
    - Water bills ($22/month, even with full garden) are much lower than neighbors. Our rates are also the cheapest in California here in Del Norte County, and we happily
      drink from the tap.

10 minutes from coast, old-growth redwoods, Wild & Scenic Smith River, Lake Earl Wildlife Refuge
-10 minutes to fishing, surfing, rafting, kayaking, canoeing, hiking, cliff-diving, and at least 6 different distinct ecologic zones
- 5mi to Crescent City, CA and 20mi to Brookings, OR
- 1.5hr to skiing in winter

- water retention landscaping
- passive soil & fertility building design
- 1500-gal duck pond, overflow into wood-filled trenches between hugel beds
- 240 sq. ft deep bedding bird enclosure, 1/8-acre run
- 3000(+) sq. ft of established 3-5ft tall hugel (raised) beds
- pinot noir, gewurztraminer, and mars (table) grapes, strawberries, blueberries, tree-collards, tree kale, raspberries, Jerusalem artichoke, scarlet runner and Tuscan white perennial beans, Cascade hops, fuzzy kiwi
- established trees (plum, apple, pear, linden, maple, alder, spruce and shore pine)
- 4yr-old mulberries, cherries, peaches
- dozens of herbal tea and medicinal plant species and varietals
- 4 redwood stumps over 9ft thick, on 15ft+, another is a 50ft snag with kiwi vining up
- all organic or better practices on landscape and in house for over six years of our ownership, & it appeared the prior owner did so as well when we bought it
- Feels much larger than a 1/2 acre with abundant edge and privacy

The community and economy in this area is moving in a very positive direction in my view. We helped found the fledgling and rapidly growing Wild Rivers Permaculture Guild serving Del Norte and Curry Counties last spring. This coincided with many great people coming into the area seemingly every day for its natural beauty and unparalleled abundance. The tallest trees, highest biomass and most soil biodiverse place on Earth is less than ten miles away. So is the largest un-dammed river in the lower 48 (the Smith). Ten minutes the other way is the Pacific, with the some of the best birding in California on the way on Lake Earl & Tolowa. We have a 270-day growing season, enough chill hours for virtually any common fruit yet very rare frosts, and the ability to dry farm.

I work as the Food Forest Site Developer for Del Norte County and Adjacent Tribal Lands, with two sites under my management at College of the Redwoods' Crescent City Campus and Au-Minot/Margaret Keating Elementary. We are not leaving the area, just moving up to a larger off-grid place because I guess we just always need something to work on, and this place feels pretty well set. Every time we show it and describe all we've done, I get cold feet about selling. Yet we hope this can give someone an opportunity to enjoy the abundance and diversity we helped steward to this point, and think it would be perfect for someone wanting a six-year head start. The only downside is the fences have gotten shorter, as we have built over a foot of beautiful soil throughout the property. We would love to provide a home for a fellow permie to help make this beautiful place even better!

Zillow Post: https://www.zillow.com/homes/2440-Elk-Valley-Cross-Rd-Crescent-City,-CA,-95531_rb/18562831_zpid/

A few more pictures of the backyard:

We are now in escrow!

If this falls through for any reason, this post will be updated. If things go as planned, this will be a nice example of profitable permie-flipping (if you can call living and working on a property for six yrs with long term ecosystem care at the top of our priorities "flipping").

I also got my job largely based on the work I did on this place (a good reason to garden in your front yard, even if its a rental).

What an amazing property!

If only there were such things even in existence here in the UK..

Can i ask, is your job a state department job or are you acting as an independent consultant?

I'm interested to see how the whole area of Food Forestry grows in the future and how people actually get into it

Thanks!