California Lavender Living™
The Estate
Twenty years in one place, and a shorter list of things done well.
The pivot
For fifteen years this was a large estate, and then it chose to become a smaller and more deliberate one.
We once grew dozens of varietals as one of California's largest organic lavender farms, supplying growers and shops across the country. The quiet of 2020 gave us focus, and the focus narrowed to two things: a sustainable footprint, and a craft honed on each variety in turn, the English and the French. Fewer things, tended greatly.
Room I
The Gardens
Where it begins. Two lavenders grow a month out of step, the soft English and the brighter French, each kept true to type from mother stock carried by hand, generation to generation.
They are cut at first light while the field is still cool, because the oil is fullest before the day warms it.
Room II
The Copper Terrace
Where the flower becomes oil. The harvest is steam distilled in a copper alembic pot still, slowly, over a low fire, the method largely unchanged in centuries.
One bottle from every distillation is kept back and opened again over time, until the aroma has settled and become fully itself. Only then is the lot released.
Room III
The Lab
Where the oil becomes a daily ritual. Small batches are composed by hand, a few considered formulations rather than a great many, with nothing synthetic and nothing rushed.
The English lavender is the beginning of nearly everything made here, the signature behind each jar, mist, and balm.
Room IV
The Studio
Where each piece is finished. Filled, labelled, wrapped, and made ready to travel, by the same hands that grew and distilled it.
Little is made, and what is made is meant to be kept and reached for.
Room V
The Library
Where the reading lives. Twenty years of field notes kept beside the books that came before them, and where the estate writes down what the plant has taught it.
Read the Almanac →Let us share the journey with you, through our lavender estate and the California lavender living we are grateful to know.
Read our founder's story →Since 2006 · USLGA Founding Member · California's First Woman-Owned Organic Lavender Farm
As featured in: The New York Times · CBS · AgriTourism World · Paso Robles Press · The Tribune
California Lavender Living™