Startup Aims to Build “Italian Hill Town” in Sonoma County

A village topped by terracotta roofs would rise like a dream above rows of Tuscan-like

vineyards. Except the “Italian hill town” would materialize in Cloverdale, in Sonoma County.

Esmeralda Land, a startup developer based in Florida, is “conducting due diligence” to buy a 266-acre site of an old lumber mill to build a future tech utopia with the look of a rustic Italian village, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The price of the land largely between the Redwood Highway and Kelly Road was undisclosed. The property is owned by Spight Properties II, a limited liability company based in Concord.

In a series of posts on X, founder Devon Zuegel presented videos and renderings for “Esmeralda,” a master-planned neighborhood of buildings capped by terracotta, flagstone alleys lined with flower pots and vineyards along the Russian River.

“If you dream of living in a small town while being surrounded by creative, high-agency people, we’re building this for you,” Zuegel declared on X. “Our ‘software’ — an Italian hill town. Our hardware — a culture of learning and building.”

She called Esmeralda an “exclusive option on a beautiful piece of land 90 (minutes) north of” San Francisco.

The Esmeralda group wants to create an upscale neighborhood anchored by a high-end hotel, in stark contrast with the middle-class city of less than 10,000 in northern Sonoma County.

City manager David Kelley said Esmeralda Land is “conducting due diligence” to buy the parcel.

The proposed community resembles California Forever, a grandiose plan — now stalled — from Silicon Valley billionaires to build a utopian city across farms and ranches in East Solano County, according to the Chronicle.

It’s not clear where Esmeralda Land, based in St. Petersburg, will get the money to buy and develop the Wine Country village. Zuegel, its CEO, lives in Miami Beach, according to a regulatory filing last month.

The software engineer and tech entrepreneur is a graduate of Stanford University, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Stanford Review, an independent newspaper started by venture capitalist Peter Thiel.

In an interview with the Chronicle, she refuted the notion that Esmeralda is comparable to California Forever, or that a village teeming with “creative, high-agency people” would be unaffordable to middle-class residents of Cloverdale.

She said Esmeralda would include “affordable-by-design” one-bedroom cottages to larger, four-bedroom, multi-generational homes that include attached ADUs, plus a prime site for “deeply affordable” family housing.

“Our vision actively invites the Cloverdale community in through thoughtful urban design and programming,” Zuegel told the Chronicle. “Picture an Italian hill town with a public piazza with kids running around, not an isolated gated ‘luxury’ community.”

— Dana Bartholomew