On the heels of relaxed travel restrictions to Cuba and the recent visit by President Barack Obama, former longtime Mill Valley resident Steve Faber, owner of CruiseOne San Rafael, has added cruises to Cuba.

Faber said one-week round trip cruises to Cuba from Miami will start May 1, via Fathom Impact Travel, aboard the 710-passenger Adonia vessel. 

“I am incredibly excited about being able to provide this opportunity,” Faber says. “There is 50 years’ pent-up demand for Americans to again visit Cuba, and this voyage is a great way to be among the first to make the visit.” 

Faber says Fathom’s onboard cultural immersion includes Cuban music, entertainment, and enrichment. And foodies will be delighted to know that the Adonia’s onboard Dominican and Cuban chefs provide locally inspired, sustainably produced Cuban cuisine. The cruise's itinerary includes visits to Havana, Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba and focuses on Cuba’s history, art and architecture, and impromptu encounters with artists, musicians and Cuban citizens.

“The paperwork and red tape were the downside for many people of arranging travel to Cuba, but Fathom takes care of all that, and acquires the visas for their guests,” says Faber. 

The Adonia features three restaurants, bars, lounges, a spa, gym, pool and whirlpools. Prices for inside cabins start at $1,800 per person, double occupancy, plus taxes, port charges and fees, which are estimated to be from about $208. 

More info on Steve Faber and CruiseOne.

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In front of a packed house, the Mill Valley Lumber Yard project was the subject of a marathon Planning Commission meeting Tuesday night and, after almost six hours of debate, discussion, confusion and straw polls on several aspects of the project, the revitalization of one of Mill Valley’s most iconic properties inched closer to the finish line.

In the end, the Commission took a series of straw polls that appeared to resolve several issues facing the project, with the exception of the largest and most contentious: parking, which will be the primary subject of the Commission’s April 26th hearing on the project. The Commission’s pending decision on whether the proposed project provides sufficient parking will inform its recommendation to the City Council to either approve the project, likely with conditions of approval, or to deny it.

“We’re very excited to be moving closer to the finish line with a project to which we have dedicated nearly four years of our lives,” Jan and Matt Mathews said in a statement. “We’re grateful for the tremendous amount of feedback we’ve received from our neighbors and the larger community, and we’ve incorporated it into this project. We remain dedicated to creating a project that preserves the property’s great history and delivers a fantastic community gathering space that is a complement to the surrounding neighborhood.”

The Mill Valley Lumber Yard is a 42,500-square-foot site at 129 Miller Avenue with 17,616 square feet of existing building space, which includes the existing Guideboat, Ambatalia and Bloomingayles retail shops. The site is between the inbound and outbound lanes of Miller Avenue. The Mathews family bought the property in 2012 from the Cerri family, which had owned and maintained it as a lumber yard and True Value hardware store for the previous 14 years. The property was built by lumber magnate Robert Dollar in 1892 as Dollar Lumber Company.

The Mathews, who have hosted five neighborhood meetings about the project and presented at informal "study sessions" before the Commission in 2013 and 2014, previously renovated some of the buildings and are proposing to upgrade others. Those buildings are primarily at the southeast half of the property and include a proposed 1,500-square-foot cafe/restaurant (around the size of Molina downtown), as well as some retail, offices and an artist-in-residence space, in addition to what's there now.

Because of the size and scope of the project, it requires the City Council to approve its environmental review – in this case, an Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration (IS/MND), as well as a re-zoning from RM, Residential Multi-Family, to NC, Neighborhood Commercial with PD, Planned Development Overlay and HO, Historic Zoning Overlays. The property is designated as part of the downtown commercial area within the MV2040 General Plan, the City’s constitution of sorts that was approved by the Council in late 2013.

At the outset of Tuesday’s hearing, Planning Director Vin Smith suggested that having the Commission deliberate, hear input from the community and then hold a subsequent hearing before making a final recommendation was best, given the amount of information and input the City has received about the project. That included more than 120 letters from residents, of which approximately 80 percent were in support of the project, City staff said.

“We want to make sure we get this right,” Smith said. “This is an iconic property in the community. It is openly regarded as a landmark in this town and we want to make sure that what is done is done with the utmost of care. We do believe in this project. But we want to do this with care.”

The hearing ran the gamut of issues surrounding the project, but parking – namely, how many parking spaces the project needed to accommodate its square footage and proposed uses – dominated much of the discussion. To address that, City staff has proposed that the project include, at the expense of the applicant, the formalizing of public parking spaces along adjacent Presidio Avenue, where there is currently extensive, informal parking frequently used for long-term vehicle storage.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the Commission took a straw poll on a number of subjects, deciding to allow for a cafe/restaurant that could stay open, with limited outdoor seating, until 9:30pm; allow up to 12 special events to occur on the site per year, with no amplification past 7pm and require improvement to the design of the trash/storage area. Following additional straw polls, the Commission requested more detailed information about the parking study's methodology, as well a more detailed parking layout.

“The purpose of our next meeting is to talk about parking,” Smith said at the conclusion of the hearing.

More info on the Mill Valley Lumber Yard project.

Over the years, Edgewood Ave. resident Rhonda Dubin has been a weaver, jewelry-maker, paper-maker, book artist and now a graphic designer. Other than obvious creativity, what's the common thread among all those crafts?

"I am delighted by color, form, texture and the serendipitous juxtaposition of those elements and the visual treats they present," Dubin says.

Despite a discouraging critique from her photography professor "many, many years ago," Dubin is also an avid photographer, and is showcasing her "Colors of Mexico" series at the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center (85 Throckmorton) throughout April with a wine reception on April 5 (6–8pm) as part of the Mill Valley Arts Commission's First Tuesday Artwalk.

Dubin's photos are frequently close-ups of walls, sidewalks, cobblestones and other mundane details of the streets of the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, which Dubin first visited in 1986 and has returned to more than a dozen times since then.

"I feel like an archaeologist gathering treasures...and when I lay them out before me I have a sense of the place I have been," says the UCLA grad. "And although things have certainly changed in (Guanajuato's) social culture – the city remains very much the same in its physical appearance, with its winding alleyways, colorful buildings, mysterious tunnels."

"When viewed from afar, the city to me seems gritty, untamed, unpredictable," she adds. "There is a certain 'buzz' to Guanajuato, a vibrancy, a place in constant motion. Yet, when I stop to see it up close – a wall bursting with color, an intersection of lines and shapes, an unexpected moment of a bright pink fleeting across a clashing red wall - I see nothing but its beauty. I see the exuberance of the Guanajuatenses, the openness, the laughter, the richness of the community, in each color. I see it’s chaotic nature in its irregular angles where nothing seems quite straight. Crumbling walls and grand edifices speak of a history to be learned and remembered. Illuminated by a bright unwavering sunlit sky, Guanajuato is both a place to be taken seriously and yet not seriously. I hope to capture in my photographs that moment that makes me pause and reflect on its nature."

Dubin has shown her work at venues all over town, including The Image Flow, Mill Valley Library and O’Hanlon Center for the Arts.

The 411: Rhonda Dubin exhibits her "Colors of Mexico" photos  at the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center, 85 Throckmorton Avenue, throughout April. The First Tuesday Artwalk receptions are Tuesday, April 5, 6–8pm. First Tuesday Artwalk Guide with venues and a map.

​Grace Kraaijvanger
While the community coffee event marked the arrival of a genuine movement in the 94941, it was also a chance to reflect on Kraaijvanger’s journey.

Born in Minneapolis, Minn., Kraaijvanger is the daughter of a U.S. Air Force pilot, which kept her family on the move every four years or so. Kraaijvanger fell in love with dance as a young girl and attended high school in Phoenix, dancing professionally while still in school and landing a scholarship to the University of Arizona’s School of Dance, primarily focusing on ballet. 

After graduating with a degree in marketing (more on that later), Kraaijvanger moved to San Francisco in 1996 to study with Alonzo King’s Lines Contemporary Ballet Company. “He’s my hero,” she says of King. “He was a huge influence on me as a dance artist and is still an huge influence on me as a creative person.”  

Kraaijvanger immersed herself in the Bay Area dance community, performing in Mary Carbonara Dances and the Printz Dance Project, both in San Francisco. She choreographed and performed in a variety of venues, including a show in Moscow and another at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, and she taught contemporary dance for Alonzo King's Dance Center, the SF School of the Arts and at UC-Davis. By any measure, Kraaijvanger was succeeding as a professional dancer.

Back to that marketing degree. In those early days, “I just wasn’t convinced that I was going to be able to make a living with dance,” Kraaijvanger says, noting that she initially took a full-time job at Oracle, where she stayed for a year before going all-in to be a professional dancer. She began a marketing consulting business on the side to make ends meet and so that she could afford to live in San Francisco and keep dancing. She consulted for the likes of Charles Schwab, PG&E, Intuit, PeopleSoft and Macromedia over the years, and continued to dance professionally through the birth of her daughter. 

But when her second child was born, Kraaijvanger said it was extremely difficult to remain a high caliber dancer, juggle the marketing consulting business and be a mom to two young kids. Having moved with her family to Mill Valley and buying a property “that needed a ton of work” she realized that her life’s chapter as a professional dancer was over.

“I was so passionate about dance, and I didn’t know any other way of existing than to be around a creative community,” she says. “Because I wasn’t as involved in that community, I was sad a bit about not having that creative connection.”

“The Hive”
In 2008, Kraaijvanger took a job that would set the groundwork for the Hivery in a surprising way. In her marketing work, she’d heard of SiriusDecisions, a Wilton, Conn.-based analyst firm that, among other things, produces research reports about great marketing strategies. Kraaijvanger helped the company turn their research into an eLearning curriculum, a distinct new product that they then sold to companies like Cisco and SAP. 

“My passion for the business itself wasn’t as great as my prior life in dance, but it fed my creative juices in that I got to create something new in the world,” she says. “It taught me how to start a business.”

Kraaijvanger stayed at SiriusDecisions for six years. Towards the latter part of those years, she was looking for a place to work outside the house, and found a Craigslist ad for a space at 333 Caledonia Street in Sausalito, where several women were splitting the rent on a loft within an art gallery. She was hooked.

As she spent time in the space those first few weeks, Kraaijvanger had a deja vu moment. In her 20s, she’d dabbled with the idea of opening her own dance studio, and looked at spaces in the Mission and Potrero Hill. But since she was also doing marketing consulting work out of her home at that time, she saw great potential in those spaces as work spaces.

Kraaijvanger opened her old journals from those years and saw that she’d devoted way more mind space to that possibility than she’d remembered. In scattershot lists, it was all over the journal pages: “Teach, share, listen, inspire, create, a women’s collaborative, shared workspace, meeting space, a gathering place for creativity, create paths, make transitions.”

“It’s kind of crazy what I wrote in those journals,” Kraaijvanger says, noting a conversation with a friend around that time in which she told her about a “new idea for a women's co-working space.” 

“You told me about this 10 years ago,” her friend replied. 

During those Sirius years, Kraaijvanger also endured her mother’s years-long battle with cancer, which eventually ended in 2011. “Those kinds of things turn everything upside down in terms of the way you look at your own life and how you prioritize,” she says. “I knew that I wasn’t living my life in a way that I was passionate about. And that wasn’t acceptable to me. I had so much creative energy that was pent up.”

Over time, as Kraaijvanger searched for a place to open her own co-working space, Alexis Cohen, her office mate who’d been running the space – finding and replacing people in their shared office – told her that she just wanted to focus on her own Morning Sky Public Relations business. 

Kraaijvanger had a bold solution: she offered to take over the sublease and use the space to create her bigger vision. “She was so enthusiastic, and said, ‘Go for it!’” Kraaijvanger says. 

The Hivery
In April 2014, Kraaijvanger took over the space, and while on a flight, texted feverishly with her friend Amy Keroes about the name, riffing on the word “hive” that the tenants of 333 Caledonia had affectionately called their space and words like “hub,” “collective” and the now tagline “idea + inspiration lab." Keroes texted, “The Hivery?” 

Kraaijvanger bought the website domain for the name while still on the plane. 

“It all happened very, very quickly, but I just knew that it was right,” she says.

Through those first six months, Kraaijvanger worked to both realize and streamline her vision for the Hivery. “I knew that I wanted to focus on creativity and community,” she says. “I truly believe that if you surround people with creative energy, their own creative energy comes out. On the other hand, when you try to create things on your own, it can be very stifling and you get too much in your own head.”

Kraaijvanger was doing all this while juggling her SiriusDecisions job.

“But the whole momentum was different – now I was jumping out of bed in the morning,” she says. “And women were stopping by, telling me about their ideas for new businesses, yearning for change, wanting to express who they were really are by bringing their wisdom and talents into something meaningful."

Kraaijvanger also fine-tuned the structure: tiered memberships based on the frequency and type of use, and events and workshops, regularly conducted by members themselves, spanning personal and professional development and focused on empowering women at all stages of life.

By early 2015, it became clear to Kraaijvanger that the Hivery needed to move, to have more space and exclusive use of it. She started looking around, but the world of commercial real estate can be daunting. Kraaijvanger looked at “every available commercial space in southern Marin” in the coming weeks, but when she stepped into 38 Miller, Suite 20 – then still occupied by the Performing Arts Academy of Marin (PAAM), which was moving to a bigger space – she was thrown for a loop.

“When you’ve been a dancer your whole life, you LOVE the feeling of a dance studio,” Kraaijvanger says. “And then I looked up in the atrium's ceiling, and it’s shaped like a honeycomb.”

The Hivery moved out of Studio 333 on a Wednesday and was open in downtown Mill Valley by Monday.

“I was really devastated that we were leaving our original space,” she says. “But sometimes you find the best gift in the most unexpected places. I’m so grateful to have found this space. As soon as we moved to Mill Valley, our business completely took off.”

In Sausalito, Kraaijvanger’s tours of the Hivery space drew 1-2 people, sometimes none. Now they average 10 people per tour, which happen twice a week. And the location, overlooking the Depot Plaza?

“To be on the town square – that is hugely important,” she says. “We're making a very bold statement about the potential of ideas and work and saying in front of the entire town that what women are doing up here is hugely valuable.”

Kraaijvanger is hyper-focused on the member experience, regularly spending time with them and focused squarely on the now. But her vision is far from realized.

“My long-term goal is Hiveries everywhere,” she says. “I have big dreams for this concept and I want to fulfill those. But while we have this incredible momentum, we have to always remember that what we’re doing here is helping women create. Our real work is to help women. And for me personally, I am just loving this adventure.”

The 411: The Hivery is at 38 Miller Ave., above the Balboa Cafe. More info.

Strawberry resident Paige Hillegass has launched Bucky Dog, an innovative, Uber-esque take on the dog walking business that seeks to directly connect active dog lovers with dogs looking for some much-needed outdoor jaunts.

In Hillegass’ case, Bucky Dog looks to add a personal, localized touch to a business that she says too often has professional dog walkers packing a slew of pups into each walk to make it work financially.

“I want it to be that experience where you know that your dog is being walked by fellow members of your community,” Hillegass says. “We don’t want dog walkers who are cranking through transactions.”

Hillegass, whose two children attend Strawberry Point Elementary School, says she’s deeply focused on developing her business locally to maintain that neighborly connection. She’s also an avid Kiddo supporter, with a portion of all proceeds going to the local educational foundation that supports arts, physical education and technology programs, among others.

But while there’s plenty more to say about her business, let’s dive into its moniker.

Dog lovers: you might want to grab a tissue.

This is the story of Buck (known by most as Bucky), a black labrador retriever who became Paige Hillegass’ sidekick after her freshmen year at Washington & Lee University in Virginia and was by her side day and night, even going to class with her.

Bucky would swim in the nearby Maury River and play with the bevy of other dogs in the neighborhood where Hillegass lived with three friends “who are still like sisters to me,” she says. “When it was dark, he would come home and push the back door open with his nose and crash until his next day... when he would start the routine all over again.”

Hillegass and Bucky then moved to Nashville so she could get her MBA at Vanderbilt University, and then out to San Francisco in 1998, drawn by the dot-com boom (Hillegass found out the day before she left that she’d gotten a job in the then-fledgling ecommerce division at GTE Wireless (later Verizon).

Bucky lived with Hillegass in a third-story apartment on Russian Hill, and later walked down the aisle just in front of Hillegass at her wedding. Bucky died on June 12, 2006, not long after his Sweet 16 birthday party and almost immediately after Hillegass found out she was pregnant after years of trying to do so.

“In a weird way, I felt like Buck held on until I could get to that point,” she says. “I was going to have a family, and he knew it. He was a really special dog.”

Hillegass continued to work at Verizon Wireless, part of a small team that literally built VerizonWireless.com and the company’s original email marketing program. After 17 years at Verizon, a lifetime in the tech world, Hillegass left the company at the end of 2015.

“I was really excited for a chance to try something new,” she says. “I’ve had this idea for a long time, and this was the moment to give it a shot. Building this business and website has allowed me to combine two of my biggest passions: ecommerce and canines.”

Hillegass says Bucky Dog is all about a high quality experience, with dog lovers who love exploring the natural beauty that surrounds us with a dog in tow. Walks range from $26–$41, depending on the length of the walk, and Hillegass has outlined some suggested hikes, like Blithedale Ridge and the Marin Headlands. Hillegass says she wants to avoid similarly structured, more commercialized services where the walkers are not connected to the communities in which they work.

“I want this to be something where neighbors are taking their neighbor's dog for a hike they’d already be doing up on Tam,” she says.

Bucky Dog also offers doggy daycare, overnights and doggie errands,” where a provider will bring a dog to a vet or groomer appointment, for instance.

After nearly two decades in the corporate world, Hillegass says she’s thrilled to run a business that she can immerse in the community. “It makes everyone feel good to do something positive, and it was really important for me to do something that wasn’t just business – it’s about community,” she says.

And as she’s launching Bucky Dog, Hillegass has a new friend to draw inspiration from: Boomer, a nine-week old yellow labrador puppy.

​The 411: More info on Bucky Dog.

Ronda Priestner has been around the world, helmed her own sailboat, served as a chef on private yachts and been an in-house chef for the rich and famous.

But while she draws directly on those experiences and the knowledge gained from them every day, watching Priestner in the new Mill Valley studio for her Fitwise Pilates practice is to see complete devotion to her craft of the past nine years.

“I truly love what I do,” she says of Fitwise, which is set to open its doors later this week at 38 Miller Ave., suite 19, a 1,600-square-foot space above the Balboa Cafe on the north side of the Mill Creek Plaza building.

Fitwise Pilates in Mill Valley is Priestner’s first foray outside of El Cerrito, where she launched Fitwise in 2007 and built a robust, loyal community – and raves like this: “I can confidently say that I have achieved pain free days. This hasn’t happened in years. I owe it to the amazing knowledge and meticulous work I have been doing with this amazing team.”

Priestner was born in Newport, Rhode Island, where she spent summers and vacations while growing up in Del Mar, Calif., just north of San Diego, a place that she says reminds her of Mill Valley in many ways, with its railroad roots and gorgeous open space and surroundings.

“I feel very at home here already,” she says.

After high school, Priestner went to the College of Culinary Arts at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, a move that laid the groundwork for a thrilling, decade-long adventure all over the world, including the West Indies, the South Pacific and throughout South, Central, and North America. Priestner owned her own sailboat and took people on charter trips, serving as both captain and chef. She also worked on private yachts as a chef, and did so as well in the homes of some of the biggest names in the literary, technology and acting scenes.

“When you get into that certain level of clientele, it’s about keeping up in the Joneses for them to a certain extent – everyone wants you if you’re with someone,” she says with a laugh.

But throughout those years, Priestner always trained in Pilates – she taught her first mat class at the age of 11 – and when she decided to “swallow the anchor” of her nomadic culinary lifestyle, she launched Fitwise in El Cerrito.

In doing so, she drew on her culinary background, particularly her focus over the years on dietary issues like Celiac and Crohn’s disease.

“Wellness is such a circle,” she says. “I can tell if a client’s digestion is off just by the way they move. So much of my work is helping people at every age – from young girls and new moms to male and female athletes and certainly seniors – to keep them moving well and keep them feeling young.”

Fitwise offers a full calendar of classes for all ages and all levels as well as personalized training. Priestner says that what makes Fitwise distinctive is that its instructors have decades of experience and are all experts in their fields.
​
“You are only as successful as your instructor,” Priestner says.

The 411: Fitwise Pilates is at 38 Miller Ave., suite 19, above the Balboa Cafe on the north side of the Mill Creek Plaza building. More info. ​Here's a look at more of the space:

Every since the Sweetwater Music Hall opened in January 2012, Mill Valley resident, Grateful Dead legend and co-owner of the venue Bob Weir often jumps onstage to join all an array of bands for a jam or two.

​So it was certainly no surprise when he did just that in the midst of the Jackie Greene's multi-night run of shows there Monday, joining in on renditions of The Temptations’ “Standing On Shaky Ground,” his own new original “Digging A Hole” and the Grateful Dead classic “Sugaree.”  

The Jackie Greene Band continues its run Tuesday night with a “Grateful Dead Appreciation Concert," and subsequent shows Thursday and Friday nights.footage from fan Adrienna Monique:

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Sycamore Ave. resident Tara Sharp, the director of marketing at Santa Rosa-based internet service provider Sonic, has been named to the North Bay Business Journal's 10th annual Forty Under 40 list. Sharp, whose daughters attend Tam Valley Elementary and Tam Preschool, said she was thrilled to be honored.

Winners were chosen by the Journal editorial staff from more than 125 nominations on the basis of their leadership in companies and organizations as well as their participation within the community across the North Bay.

“We were told when we started this award 10 years ago we would not find 40 outstanding professionals under the age of 40,” said Business Journal Publisher Brad Bollinger. “Well, they were correct we didn’t find 40. We have found 400. It has been our privilege since Day One to recognize these young professionals who will carry our North Bay communities forward successfully in the decades ahead.”

What do the likes of red rocker Sammy Hagar, pioneering comedian Mort Sahl, acclaimed writer Joyce Maynard, Grateful Dead legend Bob Weir and Throckmorton Theatre founder Lucy Mercer all have in common? They've all won Milley Awards for Creative Achievement, the annual honor doled out to locals for their contributions to literary arts, visual arts and performing arts (film, theater and dance), as well as contributions to the artistic community.

The 12-member Milley Awards Board of Directors is now seeking nominations for its 2016 edition. You can pick up a nomination form at City Hall, the Mill Valley Library, the Community Center, the Chamber of Commerce and several Mill Valley arts-related businesses. Nominations remain in force for three years, and can be renewed and improved.

The submission deadline is April 18. Judging by a panel of judges from the community will take place in late May. Awardees will be announced in early summer, and the awards will be given at 22nd Annual Milley Awards gala dinner ceremony on October 23 at the Mill Valley Community Center. The Milley Awards are sponsored by the Mill Valley Art Commission.