Constant Evolution
After 100+ Years, Emandal Farm Continues to Thrive by Adapting
by Anna Levy
The first time I drove from Willits to Emandal farm, I was 23 years old, moving to the West Coast for the first time and filled with an optimism that perhaps is most pronounced around that particular age, an age when possibilities are endless and independence is paramount. I’ve traveled the same road many times in the intervening years, returning to the hospitable farm along the Eel River that has operated as a guest ranch since 1908.
In the years since then, I’ve been privileged to visit the farm countless times, yet I’m always reminded of the way in which that first summer came to represent a beginning for me—a rebirth, if you will. So in this moment, when we’ve been in a pandemic for nearly a year, it feels appropriate to write about this special place, to talk with owner Tam Adams about upcoming changes for such a beloved institution in the midst of uncertain times.
Emandal—named after its first owners, Emma and Albert Byrnes—has survived through such uncertainty already. Though it’s hard to imagine needing an escape from the city in the early 1900s, it has existed as a family camp since then, taking on additional iterations over time: a children’s camp, a retreat for private groups, a source of brick oven pizza for the local farmers market. Its tendency toward reinvention invites visitors to consider something similar.
Tam has lived on the land since 1967, when she moved there from Ukiah to work for a summer. Emandal got under her skin, as did one particular person. She fell in love with Clive, the owners’ son. They married in 1968, under a plum tree not far from the dining hall and in the shadow of the iconic wooden barn.
“Clive wanted to stay here,” she tells me one afternoon as we sit, distanced, in the sun. “He knew he had to marry somebody who wanted to be here, so fortunately, it worked out.” We’ve just spent an hour walking through camp, with its cabins and outdoor showers, and I’m struck by how vivid my memories are of witnessing life unfold in this place, the families and the friends gathering night after night, children playing on the lawn.
Clive’s parents had owned the farm for about 20 years when Tam and Clive married, and it was time for some changes. They were both interested in not only maintaining the family camp, which by that point was already a tradition handed down through generations, but they also wanted to explore new possibilities. To that end, Clive had started a boys’ camp about four years before their marriage, “and then,” Tam says, “we offered a chance for girls to come.”
The children’s camp was a success. As Tam and Clive built their family, eventually welcoming four children of their own, so, too, did the camp grow, eventually attracting kids and counselors from all over the world. There was a particular sweetness in those days—singing in the dining hall after breakfast, whooping with delight in the river, holding hands in a large circle to say goodnight.
Even as they focused on children’s camp and family camp, though, Tam and Clive continued growing the farm. “We added weekends in the spring and fall for families to come,” she says. “And there was a period of time when we started doing our jams and jellies and did the mail order business. We were just trying to make it work.”
They made three meals a day for visitors and staff, as well as snacks in between, and became known for their wholesome, unforgettable fare, sourced from the farm whenever possible. The cuisine became part of the farm experience. Talk to just about any person who visited in the last several decades, and the meals they remember inevitably become part of the conversation: Blackberry Chicken, macaroni and cheese made with breadcrumbs from freshly-baked bread, cinnamon rolls, avocado ice cream.
Though it was hectic, they found their rhythm. “It was wonderful,” Tam says. “And then, in 2003, Clive died, and the farm had to be reborn.” His memorial, held at the farm, was attended by hundreds of people, including locals from the Willits area and folks from much farther away.
“It really changed everything,” she explains. She decided to end children’s camp and instead focus on family camp. Her own kids, adults by that point, had already been involved with running the farm in various ways and continued to influence its growth. “We’ve had ups and downs and ins and outs,” she says, “and so it was just bumbling along.”
The farm continued to evolve. There were cookbooks to write and immersive Art Stays to host. The Willits High School Peer Counselors held their training retreats there for a number of years, and people drove out for short excursions in the form of Cowboy Poetry and occasional Work Weekends. Throughout, Tam and her crew made changes by moving gardens, adding animals, building staff housing, tending to irrigation, and fixing the canvas hoop chairs that guests sometimes spent entire days lounging in.
And then, the pandemic hit. It had been a hard summer in 2019 because of smoke from nearby fires, but 2020 suddenly meant no guests at all. “It was really a stepping back and going—wait, can we weather this?” Tam looked back through the archives of photos and records and realized that it was the first summer that the farm hadn’t welcomed guests. Even the 1918 pandemic hadn’t stopped operations.
As a result, they’ve had to reimagine the farm yet again. In 2021, Emandal will open for groups who make reservations together as a cluster, with the biggest change being that Tam and her daughter Kashaya, who lives at the farm and who has played a significant role in the dining operations for years, will not be cooking for visitors. Instead, the guests themselves will be responsible for that, in their own kitchens near the parts of the farm they rent out.
In making this change, it seems that they’ve decided to, in some ways, take a clue from the past as they move forward. “If you look at older pictures of how it used to be, when people had to cook for themselves, the dining room wasn’t always available. So maybe it’s a circle.”
The pandemic has “. . . caused us to stop and rethink everything,” Tam says. “Were we ever going to do that?” With the world in such a state of flux, they’re not looking beyond the coming summer to know exactly how things will unfold.
Sitting on the back deck of the dining hall with Tam, looking out at the gardens as they wait for the plantings of spring, it’s striking to consider that Emandal is changing once again. It seems fitting, considering how the farm has provided a backdrop for countless people to grow ever more into themselves. “For some,” Tam says, “it’s a marker of where they are in their lives and what they’re doing. To come back year after year helps them realign for where they’re going.”
I think of the way I’ve known the farm through the years, how the seasons influence its pace, the countless times I’ve stood transfixed under the stars, and I know I’m one of the lucky people who has been shaped by this land. So many things here—the smell of pennyroyal or the feel of a fresh summer morning, the sound of the river or the scurry of chickens when I step across the cattle guard—remind me of who I once was, even as I still imagine who I might become. I know the land doesn’t miss me; I am one of thousands who have passed through. But Emandal itself is never far from my heart, no matter the changes that may come.
Emandal Farm | 16500 Hearst Post Office Road, Willits
(707) 459-9252 | Emandal.com
Anna Levy writes, cooks, and plans travel of all sorts whenever she can. She lives on the Mendocino Coast.
