By Mansfield Frazier
Victor Hugo wrote, “Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come,” and indeed the surprisingly large turnout at Château Hough’s first ever “Friendraiser” in weather that — in typical Cleveland-style — went from very nice to very nasty in a matter of hours, is a testament to the truth of that quote. It was a balmy 78 degrees on Thursday, and plunged to the 50s by the time the event got underway at 4pm on Friday.
Nonetheless, over a hundred hearty souls braved the season’s first cold and misting rain to come visit our vineyard, help us celebrate what’s been accomplished so far, and learn about what our plans are for the future … which will include the construction of the world’s first biocellar on the site. While a vineyard certainly is nothing new, biocellars certainly are … but more on them later. Bear with me please; this is going to be long-form journalism. This has been a labor of love and I’ve got a lot to say about it.
But stupid me, I had a list of folks I wanted to thank during my brief remarks, but the paper — which was in an outer pocket — got soaking wet and unreadable, so, rather than attempt to go from memory (a sure way to leave someone’s name off that is truly deserving of being recognized), I omitted the “thank you” comments … something I’ll now attempt to rectify in a manner that isn’t as ephemeral.
The Vineyards of Château Hough truly would not exist if not for the forceful efforts of Tim Tramble, the executive director of Burten, Bell, Carr Development Inc. The usually soft-spoken but very effective community leader — the organization he heads up is working wonders in Ward 5 — advocated strongly for our project when the decisions were being made in regards as to which ideas to fund.
Although to this day Tim — diplomat that he is — continues to deny it, I know a couple of the other people who were in the meeting when the grants for the federally-funded Re-Imagining Cleveland project were being weighed and evaluated. There was enough funding for 58 projects in all, but twice as many applications had been turned in … which meant some very worthwhile ideas were not going to get funded … and initially Château Hough was one that was not going to make the cut.
My understanding of what transpired in the meeting is there was a degree of concern in regards to my expertise in establishing a vineyard … a criticism that I take exception to even today. After all, when it comes to wine, I’m an expert — at least at taking the cork out of the bottle — to be totally honest, that’s about all I knew of wines or vineyards.
So, there was validity to their misgivings. And I can imagine the committee members didn’t want to open themselves up to criticism they were not being good stewards of the federal funds. The last thing they wanted was a huge flop on their hands. However, I certainly felt the same way.
But Tim had faith in my abilities and work ethic so he courageously championed my vineyard proposal. And it certainly didn’t hurt that I lived in the neighborhood I was attempting to improve; indeed, right across the street from the lot I had in mind to use. In the end that counted for something, I think.
True, I’ve experienced just about as many failures — indeed, perhaps even more — as successes in my life, and with each one of them I died a little bit inside, only to pick myself up, dust myself off, and move on to the next challenge … confident in what Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “What does not destroy me, makes me strong.” But the committee probably wasn’t all that interested in my resiliency, or the words of a dusty old German philosopher … what they needed, in order to obtain addition funding from Washington in future years, was to show some successes, not valiant — but in the end, failed — attempts.
So, after Tim was persuasive enough to get the vineyard included, from day one failure was not an option. He had gone to the mat for me by virtually demanding my project be green-lighted, so there was just no way was I going to let him — or myself — down.
When the timing for an idea or project is wrong, every little thing can become a seemingly insurmountable obstacle; but when the timing is right, the stars align, and everything tends to fall into place. The West African term of my ancestors for this is called “good Juju” … something Château Hough has proven to have a surfeit of.
“Good Juju” comes in many forms … it can be as mundane as putting on a pair of pants you haven’t worn in a while and finding $20 in the pocket, or it can take human form … like in the person of Ken Haddon, who was raised on a farm near Columbus and formerly owned the Heights Garden Center on Cedar Road.
But allow me to step back a moment. After Tim convinced the committee to fund our project, the terrific folks at Neighborhood Progress Inc. who oversaw Re-Imagining Cleveland (Lilah Zautner and Bobbie Reichtell) assigned me a vineyard expert who, while he seemingly knew his stuff, didn’t seem all that enthused about the idea of a vineyard in Hough. When I asked the guy if I could call him if I had a question or two, he somewhat curtly informed me I should go through the project manager instead. He made it abundantly clear he was not willing to spend one second more with me than he was being compensated for.
But Ken, who was the contractor hired to help me with site preparation, more than made up for this dude’s taciturn demeanor with unbridled enthusiasm. By way of example, when it came to clearing the weeds from the lot there were a number of ways to do it … the most labor-intensive being to burn them off with blowtorches, which kills the roots and seeds and assures they won’t come back. The vineyard expert had advised me to simply take the shortcut of plowing them under with a roto-tiller, but Ken wouldn’t hear of it and together we blowtorched the entire three-quarter acre of land. Ken also queried me about some trees on the site that seemed problematic.
My assigned expert had overlooked the fact the row of 30 to 40 foot high scrub trees along the west property line would cast shadows on the vineyard during the evening hours, which would prevent the grapes from fully developing. Vines must have full, all-day sun. But due to his (and yes, my) oversight no funds had been allotted to cut down the trees and I couldn’t get additional funding from Re-Imagining Cleveland since the budgets for all of the projects had already been set.
When I got estimates from tree services, the lowest bid was $3,800 (the highest was over $7000) … funds our small, fledgling non-profit simply didn’t have available. The project was indeed in long-term jeopardy due, in part, to my lack of experience, coupled with a lack of good advice from my “expert.” A third of the lot would be rendered unusable for a vineyard due to the shade if the trees were not removed.
Ken had already finished up the work he’d been paid to do, but when I told him about my dilemma he towed his Hyster to the site, got into the bucket, and while raising it up to working height said to me, “Just don’t let anybody below me get in the way of the falling branches.”
Now, on and off for most of my adult life I’ve been around craftsmen who love — and are very good at — what they do, but Ken Haddon is on another plane, another level entirely. The man is a controlled maniac with a chain saw. Within 45 minutes — I’m not kidding, 45 minutes! — he had taken down the seven fairly large trees… a project I thought would take most of the day at the very least. When he finally got out of the bucket he knocked the sawdust out of his hair, smiled, and said, “that’s called white-boy therapy.” And he wouldn’t even allow me to pay for the gas for his truck or chain saw.
My work crew (men from Oriana House, a halfway house located about a half-mile away) pulled the heavy cut down branches over to the wood chipper where Ken turned them into mulch. While I had many folks from the community, including some professors from nearby universities, help build the vineyard, it was the dozens of men from Oriana House working with me and my foreman Dwayne Johnson (who just one day magically appeared and kept coming back day after day) who did most of the heavy lifting. And they still continue to come whenever I need them to keep up the vineyard’s pristine appearance. I sometimes joke it’s the best cared for three-quarters of an acre in the entire United States. I have Jim Lawrence, Illya McGhee, Erika Anthony and the very helpful staffers of Oriana House to thank for this.
Digging four-foot holes with a gas-powered auger in virgin soil takes only a few minutes each. But digging some of the 100 holes for the poles that support the trellising (the high-tensile wires that in turn support the vines) on an inner-city lot where debris and slabs of concrete had been allowed to be buried when the apartment building that formerly sat on the site was torn down over a decade ago, proved arduous … and that’s putting it mildly.
Ken once again showed up, this time with a walk-behind auger that he taught the men to use. With it we were able to dig most of the holes with amazing speed, but on about a dozen of them we encountered buried trouble in the form of the huge concrete slabs.
Using a five-foot long chisel-like breaker bar and 12-pound sledgehammer to break apart the concrete, some of the holes took virtually all day of grueling work to dig out … but my dudes just wouldn’t quit. They skinned their knuckles, calloused their hands, and lay on their bellies to reach down into the holes — with other men holding them by their ankles — to pull the 20-pound chiseled off chunks of concrete out of the ground. There simply was no other way of doing the job.
The Vineyards of Château Hough is a special place because it’s infused with the blood and sweat of many men; men coming back from prison — some going home to their families for the first time in decades, others with no home or families to go to — attempting to prove they indeed are of value, are of some worth to society; that they too have abilities and can contribute to the rebuilding of the communities they come from. And no matter what they do for the rest of their lives they can point to the vineyard and say with pride, “I helped build this.” And having a sense of pride is the first step in rebuilding broken lives.
Please excuse me for a moment as I tear up … they — men like me who have made both big and small mistakes in their lives — continually make me so proud I could literally burst.
It wasn’t long before the media got wind of what we were accomplishing. TV cameras began appearing and stories of our efforts began appearing in print. People like Steve Schultz stopped past and dropped off a check so I could hire some neighborhood youth. Judge Ray Pianka facilitated a grant from the Charles and Helen Brown Family Foundation which greatly assisted us in furthering our work. Vineyards are an expensive proposition and it takes a full five years to yield a product … or a profit.
And while the Re-Imagining Cleveland grant of $18,000 got us off to a decent first-year start, without the generosity of PNC Bank (via my friend Michael Taylor) and the folks at Neighborhood Connections we would not have been able to sustain our efforts in years two and three. But we’re now over the hump with only two more years to go.
When far-sighted folks like Derek Schafer of the West Creek Preservation Committee and Terry Swartz of Kent State’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative saw what we were doing they helped us to greatly expand our vision. Derek gave voice to the idea of transforming all of the land and abandoned buildings adjacent to the vineyard to productive use, and Terry, who along with Jean Loria (a biologist and expert on mushrooms), thought the ramshackle Victorian house sitting immediately north of the vineyard would make an ideal biocellar. I, of course, didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.
The house would be torn down and the basement used to cultivate crops. Since the frost line in this part of Ohio is four feet deep (below which the temperature remains a constant 55-57 degrees), a Plexiglas slanted roof could be constructed over the basement to turn it into a passive, solar-powered, underground, greenhouse … or even a sauna. The entire project is designed to be environmentally friendly and totally off-the-grid … the little amount of electricity needed will be generated by a stationary bike hooked to storage batteries. When it’s completed Jean will manage it.
Hint: Anyone can come get their exercise on, while accomplishing some good.
Go here for full details.
With over 8000 homes presently in dire need of demolishing in the county — and with the number growing each year — the biocellar is an idea whose time has certainly come. Instead of being left with just a vacant lot that can become an eyesore, perhaps as many as 25 percent of these abandoned structures could be turned into profit making urban farming environments, run in part by people coming back from periods of incarceration … people who have already proven they are ready, willing and able to do the work.
Once the trellising for the vineyard was in place, more and more people were stopping by to ask questions, but when Taryn Ponsky took a wrong turn that led her past the project it wasn’t long before we entered a new phase. She immediately told her husband Zac about the amazing sight she’d seen right in Hough, and it wasn’t long before he stopped past and offered to help. This guy isn’t just a mensch, he’s “Super-Mensch.” Look his name up on the Internet and see all of the wonderful things he’s been involved with, and he’s still a relatively young man.
It wasn’t as if I had not been blessed with plenty of help along the way, I certainly was. Almost from the very beginning I had famed Cleveland sculptor Giancarlo Calicchia (who was born on a vineyard in Italy), Greg Johns, a viticulture expert with the Ohio State Extension Service out in Ashtabula, and Marie Barni (also with the Extension Service) advising me whenever I needed more knowledge about growing grapes and understanding the intricacies of farming politics. (Yes, everything is political; once virtually all of the farm subsidies in America quit going to giant agribusinesses like Monsanto and Cargill, and some of the funds start coming to small urban farmers, our cottage industries will really take off. We simply have to convince the folks in Washington that bigger really isn’t always better.)
And the small scale experts are in place to maximize the opportunities when they are presented. People like master winemaker Manny Calta, who heard about what we were doing, showed up one day, and gifted me with a bottle of wine he and his brother had made the year before. Quite honestly it was the best bottle of wine I’ve ever has the pleasure of enjoying. I’m very fortunate to be partnering with Manny when we get to the winemaking part next year.
But Zac, on the other hand, had different ideas. He wanted to lend his vast expertise to help raise funds to make the vineyard more successful and to get the biocellar built. Jan Thorpe, who runs an amazing project named InnerVisions, has been bringing people past the vineyard all year (she conducts inner-city tours, in addition to capturing award-wining images with her camera) and she readily agreed to serve on a “Friendraiser” committee.
Zac brought along Jenn Ettore (who seems to know everyone in town), and seemingly out of nowhere the energetic Greg Jackson (who helped to further establish our social media presence) appeared to round out our committee.
After a few meetings we settled on the idea of the “Friendraiser” since so many people were aware of the vineyard but had not seen it. And we wanted to introduce folks to the concept of the biocellar since we knew we’re going to need as many friends as possible when we begin raising the $50-$60,000 necessary to construct and operate the facility long enough for it to become self-sustaining.
My wife, Brenda, took time away from her grant writing and graphic design work to come up with a flier for us and to go over our checklist to assure we hadn’t overlooked anything, and after that we were off to the races. When word of the event went out on Cool Cleveland (publisher Thomas Mulready gave us excellent placement), the RSVPs really began flooding in. We were almost thankful for the inclement weather since, if it had been as balmy as the day before, there’s no telling how large the crowd would have been.
And it certainly didn’t hurt that a nationally-known West Coast writer who focuses on local food issues, Hannah Wallace, somehow managed to get an article about the vineyard placed in the September issue of Oprah’s “O” Magazine. Nor will it hurt when the New York Times Sunday Magazine publishes the article written by David Sax, whose wife is a friend of Taryn’s. It should be out in a few weeks, and yes, we fully intend to maximize the exposure it will provide to help us accomplish our good works.
There are so many people to thank, but the problem with thanking folks in this manner is that virtually without fail some deserving person is going to be overlooked … so please allow me to apologize at this juncture for any unintended slight. The fact is, with all of the new friends I’ve made, both within and from outside my community, I’ve already won; the project is a huge success. But just wait, there’s more to come.
We’re on our way to accomplishing our goal of a “triple net” bottom line: reusing vacant properties; locally growing healthy food; and creating opportunities for inner-city residents to have a financial stake in the sustainability movement. Our ultimate goal is for the residents who help us to build out these projects (including the winery we making long-range plans to build in a decommissioned fire station at 66th and Chester) to take ownership of them. The worker co-ops founded by the Mondragon Corporation in Basque region of Spain is the model we intend to follow. We firmly believe this is one of the best ways to help rebuild America’s rusted out inner-cities.
And we also take very seriously the wise and prophetic words of environmental activist Majora Carter, who said, “I believe you shouldn’t have to move to live in a better neighborhood.”
It’s all about neighborhood and community. As my deceased Councilwoman Fannie Lewis (whose memory still inspires much of what is accomplished in Hough) used to say, “When I leave Hough, I’m going to Heaven.” And all I’m attempting to do is have a big funeral.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.
Cleveland, OH 44103