Villa Grande Soy Wax Candle | Limited Edition

Villa Grande sits two and a half miles downriver from Guerneville, on a flat of land the loggers cleared in the 1870s and called Big Flat. The redwoods came back. The town stayed small.

The post office opened as Grandville in 1907, was renamed Villa Grande in 1921 to keep from being confused with another California town, and has been Villa Grande ever since. The 4th of July parade is older than the name — held every year since 1905. The community holds Patterson Point Preserve. The houses divide themselves between the flats and the terraces. Most things here are kept rather than built.

The forest reads differently in winter. The redwoods hold their color, the fir on the slopes goes a deeper green, and the river slows. Woodsmoke comes through the cabins. There is no holiday in it — only the quiet a forest keeps when it isn’t growing.

Current Pour
Fraser Fir
Cypress and lemon peel at the top — sharp, green, a clean opening that doesn’t turn sweet. Evergreen and cedar through the middle, the scent of a forest in cool weather and bark that has been holding rain. Fir, amber, and moss at the base — warm, low, settled.

It is the smell of a forest in its dormant season. Of a small town that grew older without growing larger. Of winter as a place, not a date on the calendar.

Current scent: Fraser Fir · This pour rotates. Future editions of Villa Grande may carry a different fragrance.