The Mill Valley Hat Box, which closed in early February due to serious water damage, isn't re-opening in the space at 118 Throckmorton Avenue, where it's been located for 10 years, according to shop owner Danielle Schubert.

Schubert says she's looking for a new space, "hopefully in Mill Valley," and will let us know when she does. Bob Knez of HL Commercial, which is representing the building owner, says the owners are looking for a new tenant for the space. He says the owners would prefer not to rent to a food-serving business. Contact Knez at bob@hlcre.com.

While Hat Box had a decade-long history in downtown Mill Valley, the building itself is steeped in the town's history. Frank Canepa, who emigrated from Genoa, Italy in 1913 at the age of 17, rented out half of Gosser's Meat Market, a butcher shop located at 118 Throckmorton, to open the original Mill Valley Market in July 1929. Canepa later moved the business in the 1950s to its current location at 12 Corte Madera Avenue, expanding the business over time into the adjoining office, pet shop, restaurant and bar. At 118 Throckmorton, a laundromat occupied the space for more than 20 years prior to the Hat Box opening there.

With La Ginestra in the midst of its 50th Anniversary Celebration this week, the Mill Valley City Council honored the restaurant's owners, the Aversa family, with a proclamation at its September 2nd meeting.

“We’re so glad that we can celebrate this with you,” Mayor Stephanie Moulton-Peters told Maria, Fabio, Tino and Ann Aversa Tuesday night before reading the proclamation.

Salvatore and Maria Aversa moved to Mill Valley as a recently married couple after emigrating from Sorrento, Italy. They opened their restaurant in May 1964 and named it La Ginestra after the Scotch broom vegetation that was prevalent in both the wilderness of Mount Tamalpais and in the hills surrounding their hometown.

The couple raised their three children – Lucia, Fabio and Tino – in Mill Valley. Fabio Aversa recounted to the Council a story about the family closing the restaurant briefly in 1965 so they could return to Italy for one month. At the end of the trip, Salvatore Aversa told his wife that he’d go back to Mill Valley to re-open the restaurant, and “that if nobody shows up, I’ll pack everything back up and come back to Italy,” Fabio Aversa said. Instead, he found flowers and welcome back signs and notes outside the restaurant.

“What a testament that is to this community,” Fabio Aversa said. “It’s a great place and we’re so happy to serve all of you and to continue to do so.”

As part of the 50th Anniversary Celebration, La Ginestra has asked its customers to share their memories and tributes to the restaurant on its Facebook page. Here’s a sampling:

Click here to read more tributes and to share your own. 

We’ve had more than a week to chew and stew on the San Francisco Chronicle’s July 12 piece on our little town, “Are tech-sector newcomers elbowing out Mill Valley’s funky-arty vibe?” And after a deluge of reaction on social media and in the comments section of the article itself (450 comments and counting), we want to hear what you think about it.

Did the story get it right? Is the tech industry specifically changing Mill Valley? It seems "Mill Valley is changing for the worse" has been the theory du jour in town for years, if not decades. Is the Chronicle onto something new and different this time around?

As we see it, there’s no doubt that Mill Valley faces some huge challenges, namely in the way of traffic, housing affordability and school district enrollment. And we’re really glad the writer spoke to the likes of Mayor Stephanie Moulton-Peters and local business owners Will Hutchinson (Prooflab) and Susan Griffin-Black (EO Products) – they all provided some good context and, in Susan’s case, some Seinfeld-inspired levity.

But we were left feeling a bit underwhelmed by the piece, particularly from a “How is this really news?” perspective. Demographic changes have been occurring in the 94941 for decades – “new money” has been coming here for so long that it’s now long since “old money.” The median single-family home price in Mill Valley in April 2014 was $1.83 million, and it was nearly $1.5 million for the same month 10 years ago. And while traffic has indeed spiked in recent months, the connection of the dots between gridlock and the latest tech boom seem tenuous at best.

We would’ve loved to read a single quote from or an anecdote about a “tech-sector newcomer” who recently moved to town, or at least more than a mention of a “former venture capitalist” who was once a contestant on “ABC’s “Wife Swap.” It would’ve been nice if the premise of the article – the tech industry’s boom specifically changing Mill Valley – was supported by some evidence other than somebody who saw someone flying a consumer drone. Right?

A few other minor points of contention:

• Mickey McGowan closed his Unknown Museum in 1989, having been initially been displaced by Smith & Hawken, the gardening store that was born in Mill Valley and which shut down in 2009. You can’t blame Twitter and Facebook money for the loss – 25 years ago – of a quirky cultural institution.
• Charlie Deal, creator of the toilet-seat guitar, passed away in 2007. Not sure that occurrence can be laid at the feet of the tech industry.
• Ditto with the original Sweetwater, which closed in 2007.
• And what does a guy from Kentfield badly beating someone up while riding his bike through town have to do with Mill Valley?
  

Hutchinson perhaps said it best: “I think that the tech boom that's happening in San Francisco sends waves out in every direction, so it's impossible not to be affected by that.”

The impact of the latest tech boom is being felt virtually everywhere in the Bay Area. Mill Valley is not immune to that, better or worse. The only thing that feels unique about its impact on Mill Valley is that the history of the 94941 is more colorful and interesting than many of its counterparts.

What did you think of the Chronicle story? Tell us in the Comments below.

City of Mill Valley's annual Creative Achievement Awards will also highlight the O'Hanlon Center for the Arts, event gurus Murphy Productions, architect and former Mayor Chris Raker and longtime arts supporter Gage Schubert.

From the Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival and the Mill Valley Film Festival to hundreds of events every year in seemingly all artistic media, Mill Valley’s calendar is always chock full of reminders of the vitality of the local arts and entertainment scene.

Perhaps no single event defines that vitality – and the history that continues to inspire it – more than the Milley Awards, the City of Mill Valley’s annual chance to honor creative achievement and distinguished accomplishments in the arts. The 2014 Milley Awards, produced by a volunteer board of directors under the auspices of the Mill Valley Arts Commission, is set for Oct. 19 at the Mill Valley Community Center.

It promises to be another star-studded affair.

The 2014 honorees include legendary comedian Mort Sahl, famed author Joyce Maynard, prolific music producer Scott Mathews, architect and former Mayor Chris Raker and Murphy Productions, the event production and promotion company that has been an engine for the local arts scene for more then a decade. The O’Hanlon Center for the Arts is receiving the Vera Schultz Award for its “lasting contributions to the cultural life of our community.”

In addition, Gage Schubert, longtime local supporter of the arts and the husband of the late, great puppeteer Lettie Schubert, is set to receive the Sali Lieberman Award, a lifetime achievement award for “individuals who embody Marin Theatre Company founder Sali Lieberman's inspiration, courage and determination and who, like him, have contributed significantly to the cultural life of Mill Valley.”

Rita Abrams, best known for recording the song “Mill Valley” with her third grade class at Strawberry Point Elementary School in 1970, along with Milley Awards co-founder Abby Wasserman, will serve as emcees for the event. Abrams garnered a Milley in 1996 while Wasserman won the Sali Lieberman Award in 2009.

The Milley Award itself is a bronze statuette created by John Libberton of Sausalito. Here are brief bios of the 2014 Milley Award recipients:

Scott Mathews - Achievement in the Musical Arts

The list of artists who Mathews has produced at his Tiki Town studio in Mill Valley or elsewhere is staggering: Elvis Costello, Roy Orbison, Roseann Cash, Jerry Garcia, Huey Lewis, John Hiatt, Nick Lowe, Dick Dale and Milley Award winner Sammy Hagar. Mathews has also written songs and/or recorded with Barbra Streisand, John Lee Hooker, Keith Richards, George Harrison, Mick Jagger, The Beach Boys, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, David Bowie, Steve Perry, Johnny Cash, Todd Rungren, Robert Cray, Ry Cooder, The Tubes, Jefferson Starship and Raphael Saadiq. Mathews has tallied sales of more than 35 million records sold as a producer, composer, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist.

Chris Raker - Achievement in the Visual Arts

From the Outdoor Art Club to the Marin Theatre Company, Raker has put his architectural imprint all over the local arts scene for more than 25 years. The former two-term Mill Valley Mayor’s retrofit design “deserves significant recognition as it is under-the-radar kind of preservation work that has fully impacted the community, though not necessarily seen through the naked eye,” according to the Milley Awards committee.

That preservation work is on vivid display in his Raker’s latest project, the restoration of the Mill Valley Lumber Yard in conjunction with Matt and Jan Mathews.

Joyce Maynard - Achievement in the Literary Arts

A household in American literary circles and beyond, Maynard first came to national attention with the publication of her New York Times Magazine cover story “An Eighteen-Year-Old Looks Back on Life” in the April 23, 1972 issue, when she was 19 and a freshman at Yale. In her 1998 memoir, At Home in the World, Maynard revealed the story of the relationship she had with author J. D. Salinger when he was 53 and she was 18. The memoir has since been translated into 15 languages.

Maynard has written nine novels and four non-fiction books, plus a bevy of columns, articles and essays, including a stint as a reporter and columnist for the The New York Times and as a syndicated newspaper columnist whose “Domestic Affairs” column appeared in 65 papers nationwide. 

In 2013, the Times ran Maynard’s paean to the Sleeping Lady in an essay titled, “Echoes of the Savage and Sublime on Mount Tamalpais.” After she moved to Mill Valley in 1996, Maynard frequently led day-long intensive writing workshops at Book Passage. Her novel To Die For was made into a 1995 film directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix, while her novel Labor Day was made into a 2013 film directed by Jason Reitman and starring Josh Brolin and Kate Winslet. Her most recent novel, After Her, is set in Mill Valley. She now lives in the East Bay.

Mort Sahl - Achievement in the Performing Arts

For the past four years, one of the most important comedians of all time has called Mill Valley home. Sahl, widely considered the father of political comedy, was the first comic to appear on the cover of Time magazine. He was the first non-musician to receive a Grammy award and, in fact, he hosted the first-ever Grammy Awards in 1959). He’s poked fun at every president from Eisenhower to Obama, and managed to maintain friendships with quite a few of them, too.

Sahl - a self-described political radical - began as a speechwriter for President Kennedy and later for President Johnson. He began performing at the hungry I music club in San Francisco’s North Beach in the early 1950s, before comedy clubs even existed. Sahl’s 1955 performance with Dave Brubeck, which was recorded and released, without Sahl's permission, and was sold as Mort Sahl At Sunset, was recently recognized by the Library of Congress as the first stand-up comedy record album.  
At the age of 87, Sahl continues to perform regularly, taking the stage at the Throckmorton Theatre every Thursday night during the theater’s year-long 19-year anniversary celebration.

Murphy Productions - Contributions to the Arts Community

Known for their successes at developing unknown venues, Erma Murphy and Daniel Patrick have created a unique and original style of producing musical events that are inclusive of a larger community.
Erma Murphy began as a local impresario in 2000, hosting a monthly musical party called First Friday at her home in Mill Valley. The evenings provided an opportunity for local and aspiring musicians to play together in an ensemble arrangement while sharing potluck, talking and dancing. Daniel Patrick met Erma at First Friday in 2001 and bonded over their love of music and community. Together, they became Murphy Productions in 2002. Over the years, they’ve produced shows all over, including the Larkspur Cafe Theatre, the Falkirk, the Belrose, he Stage Door Dance Studio, the Masonic Hall in downtown Mill Valley and the old Palm Ballroom in San Rafael. 
The company also serves as a publicity firm for the likes of Marin Open Studios, Marin Art Festival, The Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival and The Larkspur Flower and Food Festival.

Sali Leiberman Award – Gage Schubert

The Sali Lieberman Award was created by the Milley Awards Board of Directors to honor lifetime achievements of those individuals who embody Marin Theatre Company founder Sali Lieberman's inspiration, courage and determination and who, like him, have contributed significantly to the cultural life of Mill Valley.

Gage Schubert is receiving this award for his numerous contributions to the community. The list of recipients of Gage's largesse is long: Kiddo, Slide Ranch, Marin Theatre Company, Tamalpais Conservation Club, Mountain Play Association, West Point Inn, The Dipsea Race, Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival, the City of Mill Valley plus numerous other projects as well as the Milley Awards.

Schubert always sought to remain in the background, referring to himself as a "table and chair" man.  He no longer moves the tables, but is still actively involved with the Mountain Play Association. Gage and his late wife Lettie, a puppeteer and early Milley Awardee, started their community volunteering with the Alto School summer fairs and also worked to found the Scott Valley Swim and Tennis Club.  After that the community involvement never stopped.

Vera Schultz Award – O’Hanlon Center for the Arts

In 2002 the Vera Schultz Award was created to honor the achievements of organizations which embody the late Marin County Supervisor’s activism, leadership, courage and vision, and like Vera Schultz, have made lasting contributions to the cultural life of our community.

The O’Hanlon Center for the Arts, located in a sylvan setting in Mill Valley’s Cascade Canyon, offers workshops, performances, classes, discussions and events for people of all ages who desire to express themselves creatively or who simply love the arts. In an accepting and supportive atmosphere, they feel free to discover new ways of seeing and doing.  Continuing the teaching legacy of founders Ann and Richard O’Hanlon, who started the non-profit organization on their property in 1969, facilitators and teachers emphasize process over product, fellowship, and individual growth.  Professional artists and those who want to explore their creativity for the joy of it find O’Hanlon an egalitarian oasis. It is Mill Valley’s art center—where community and creativity meet.

The 411: Tickets for the Milley Awards are $75. They will go on sale in early September. 

Reading and walking at the same time aren't often a good idea – just ask the folks walking and texting in the "No Cellphones" lane on a DC sidewalk – but at the Mill Valley Public Library, the two make for the perfect combination for the Library’s 2014 Adult Reading Challenge: Steps, Lanes, and Paths. Inspired by Mill Valley’s extensive network of over 175 heritage paths dating back to the 1880s, the Library is serving up a literary expedition that encourages readers to explore new literary landscapes while becoming actively acquainted with the city that many call home.

The Adult Reading Challenge centers around a “reading map” featuring the steps, lanes, and paths of Mill Valley. The 133 steps, lanes, and paths featured on the reading map correspond to a particular reading challenge category relating to peoples, places, genres and much, much more. Participants are challenged to read one book for each path by the challenge’s end on December 31, 2014. As participants undertake the literary challenge, they are also encouraged (but not required) to explore Mill Valley and celebrate its perambulatory heritage by walking the corresponding steps, lanes, and paths on the reading map.

“It’s been a personal goal of mine to walk every step, lane, and path in Mill Valley,” said Ali Birnbach, reference librarian and organizer of the reading challenge. “I know how enjoyable and unexpectedly refreshing it can be to explore the city through its back roads, and a reading challenge seemed like the perfect way to share the experience. A good reading challenge gives participants a general guide and lets them decide how they want to approach it. This year’s theme lets you literally choose your own path(s).”
 
The breadth of categories in this year’s challenge is extensive, from “Voyages of Discovery and Adventure” and “International Female Authors” to “How Can I Help You? The Service Industry” and “An Event or Experience Your Parents Lived Through,” among many others. Categories serve as inspirational starting points and are open to readers’ personal interpretation, meaning that readers are sure to find books to spark their interest. If that wasn’t motivation enough, over the duration of the challenge participants will have chances to win fantastic prizes, including an iPad Mini. For each book read, participants will earn one raffle ticket. The more books read, the more raffle tickets earned, and the more chances to win.

The Adult Reading Challenge is open now. Adults ages 18 and older are invited to register online through the Library’s website. Registrants should then stop by the Library Reference Desk to pick up a reading map. If participants are looking for reading suggestions, librarians at the Mill Valley Library can offer book recommendations. The Library’s website also features a wide array of book lists. 

“We announced our reading challenge last Monday and we currently have nearly 100 participants,” said Birnbach. “It’s a great start to what we hope will be one of our best reading challenges yet!”

In addition to the Adult Reading Challenge, the Mill Valley Public Library offers separate summer reading programs for kids, middle schoolers, and young adults. Visit the Library’s website for more information about any of these programs. 

From world famous musicians at the heart of the Bay Area music scene to the workers who serve as the backbone of Mill Valley at businesses like the Mill Valley Market, longtime local resident documented the famous and the overlooked. 

Longtime Mill Valley resident Suki Hill, whose photographic talent and passion spanned from the biggest names in rock 'n' roll to the the oft-overlooked workers who serve as the backbone of Mill Valley, died on June 14. Hill was 72.

"It was really beautiful the way she passed on," said Charles Keppel, her neighbor and caretaker in recent months. "She was surrounded by her son, daughter, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. You couldn't have asked for her to go in a more peaceful way."

Hill, a 2007 recipient of a Milley Award, made a name for herself in the 1960s and 1970s as one of the pre-eminent photographers of the thriving Bay Area music scene, snapping classic shots of the likes of Crosby, Stills & Nash, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan. She was equally prolific later in life, publishing in 2007 "Mill Valley: Then & Now," which contrasted early images throughout Mill Valley with her own modern photos of the same places.

In 2011, she created the "Mill Valley at Work" exhibit that featured workers at places like the Mill Valley Market, whose employees Hill said were "like family to me."

“She’s a sweetheart lady and she takes beautiful photos,” Mill Valley Market co-owner Doug Canepa said when Hill unveiled her exhibit with a series of vinyl banners on the side of the Throckmorton Theatre. “She really knows how to capture the heart and soul of people.”

Here is an obituary submitted by her family:

For 50 years, Suki T. Hill’s photographs documented the world’s musicians and her Mill Valley neighbors. Her book, “Mill Valley, Then and Now,” celebrated the latter (and their forbears). 

Suki spent the night of June 13 at home with her brother Ted, her daughter Abigail, her son Zachary, her daughter-in-law Sara, Abigail’s partner Laura, her grandkids Lyla and Giovani, and the man she described as her “stalwart of stalwarts" Charles Keppel. On Saturday morning, 12 days shy of her 73rd birthday, she died peacefully, surrounded by Abby, Zack, Sara and her beloved grandchildren.
​
Born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Suki moved to Mill Valley in 1965 after earning a Masters Degree in Philosophy from the University of California. Earlier she earned a bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence. She always said it was her fellow members of the Muir Woods Park Improvement Association – ardent hikers all – who re-awakened her muse. Soon her photographs appeared on album covers, posters, magazine and newspaper articles and fashion ads, and, in time, art exhibits. ​
 
Suki was also a portrait photographer who captured her subjects’ character in a way that prompted them to smile and say, “you got me.” Music to her ears and this was a source of many clients in her later years. In fact, she continued to create discerning photographic portraits even after she was diagnosed with the cancers that caused her death.

Her daughter and son plan to host a memorial service in mid-July. Those who think they might like to attend should email Zachary Hill at zackhill@mac.com or Abby Hill at abbyhh@gmail.com for date, time and place.  They ask that those who wish to make a memorial contribution direct it to St. Vincent’s in San Rafael.

A lifelong friend sums up what a lot of people's experience may have been with Suki, "You have been an angel in my life, a driving spirit. Made me stronger, made me believe in magic, bliss and encouraged a constant sense of wonderment in the world, arts, creating and being surrounded by beauty and beautiful kind people.
 
"We love you madly Suki!  You will be missed dearly!

Spiritually inspired, with an independent streak.

Those are the prevailing traits among the 190 people and 20 organizations profiled in Legendary Locals of Mill Valley, local author Joyce Kleiner’s tome for Arcadia Publishing, the firm best known for publishing local history books like Claudine Chalmers’ Images of America: Early Mill Valley and Suki Hill’s Then and Now: Mill Valley.

Across its 127 pages, Legendary Locals covers a remarkable amount of ground, with Kleiner, best known locally as a former member of the Mill Valley Parks & Recreation Commission and as the longtime “Civics Lessons” columnist for the Mill Valley Herald. She does so by grouping the book into seven chapters, including "Visionaries and Quiet Champions," ""Bohemia in the Redwoods" and "Foundations and Footraces." 

Kleiner is holding her official book release party on Thursday, May 29 at the Depot Bookstore & Café at 7:30 p.m., followed by a book signing. She has a host of other events in June, including presentation for the Mill Valley Historical Society and the Mill Valley Rotary Club.

Here's our Q&A with Kleiner:

Enjoy Mill Valley: Where are you from originally, and what brought you to Mill Valley? 
Joyce Kleiner: I’m originally from Burlingame, which is south of here, on the Peninsula; I grew up in the house my grandfather built. By the way, that grandfather ran in the first Dipsea Race in 1905. I’ve been married to the same man, Robert, for nearly 25 years. We have one son, Jake, who recently graduated from college and is working in San Francisco as a biochemistry research associate.
We moved to Mill Valley from Potrero Hill in San Francisco when Jake was four (1995). We wanted to live in a greener, more open environment, with a yard and more access to nature. We settled on Mill Valley pretty quickly. Robert and I already knew it very well.

EMV: How about your professional background?
JK: My professional background is a real mixture: I traveled through Spain with a theater company of Hair, I worked as a Pan Am flight attendant for eight years, and I did wine marketing and sales in San Francisco until my son came along. After that I pretty much became a full-time parent volunteer: Co-op preschool, PTA, school site council and so on. Around 2004, I began to give more time to civic causes and committees, including a term on the Mill Valley Parks & Recreation Commission. The City Council appointed me to a second term, but I had to retire early because I went to graduate school for an MFA in creative writing in 2007, as the class schedule conflicted with the commission’s meeting schedule.  In 2007, I began writing a column for the Mill Valley Herald called “Civics Lessons.” I stopped writing the column in 2013, not long before I began working on the book. I’ve also contributed articles to the Mill Valley Historical Society magazine Review for the past two years.

EMV: What do you love most about Mill Valley?
JK: There are so many things I love about it. Obviously, the access to nature and the spectacular green belt that surrounds the town are wonderful. I love that Mill Valley backs up to a national park, meaning we’ll always have a lot of open space just outside our front door.
But what I have come to really appreciate in researching this book is the strong sense of community and roots that Mill Valley has. There are so many multi-generational families living here, and they keep the “narrative” and the traditions of the town alive.

EMV: Mill Valley has changed, for both good and bad, over the years. What do you miss, and what don't you miss, about the way things used to be here?
JK: Change is inevitable, and even though I’ve done a great deal of writing about Mill Valley’s past, I’m not really one for nostalgia. I think that there are many people committed to protecting what makes Mill Valley unique, and I trust them to ensure that the things that are most valuable about Mill Valley endure.
When we moved here, Mill Valley was already an expensive place to buy a home, but there was still some economic diversity. I haven’t lived here long enough to experience the biggest changes, but I am very sad to see our affordable housing options shrink.  So I guess you could say I miss that. It’s harder and harder for Mill Valley’s artists and musicians to remain here, and that’s a real loss.
I wasn’t living here before 1982, but if I had been, I wouldn’t miss the big Greyhound parking lot that used to take up the entire area that is now our Depot Plaza.

EMV: What is the origin of this book? How did you conceive of it? How long ago did you begin thinking about it?
JK: I was very, very lucky. Arcadia Publishing approached me to write this book; they sought me out because of my column. So I didn’t really think about it in advance at all. I had been carrying around lots of thoughts about Mill Valley’s story since I had begun writing the column, though, and ironically I had been wondering if I could write a book about the town. 
Legendary Locals of Mill Valley is a sort of “sampler” of the people who have made Mill Valley what it is. The stories go all the way back to the beginning, and come up to the present day.

EMV: How long did it take to complete the book? What was that process like in terms of how you went about researching interviewing subjects?
JK: From the day I turned in the signed contract to the deadline for turning in the completed manuscript was exactly 8 months. Also, on the day I signed the contract I broke my foot, so I did the first two months of interviews with a cast on my foot and leg. There are a lot of people that live up steep hills or at the bottom of long stairways in Mill Valley!
Arcadia had a very specific number of pages they allotted for the book, with a minimum and maximum number of subjects I could include. So I had parameters that I had to keep in mind all the time. That may have been a blessing in disguise, because I ran across so many fascinating stories that I would never have finished the book if I tried to include them all.
There were certain people I knew, right from the start, that I would include: Some of the town founders and earliest residents, of course, and from more recent times I wanted to include Rita Abrams, Charlie Deal, John Goddard, the Canepa family, and others who we’ve all heard of. I set up interviews with those people, or people who knew them, right away. I also spent a lot of time in all of Marin’s history rooms, tracking down older information. 
Then I went about interviewing people who knew Mill Valley’s story, or an important part of Mill Valley’s story, to get an idea of who else should be included. I spent a lot of time in people’s homes, interviewing them and going through photo albums. I think I figured out that I interviewed at least 100 people. This book also has a photo for every subject, so I had to find, or take, a picture for every person I wrote about.

EMV: What were the criteria for choosing your subjects?
JK: The publisher wanted this book to focus on individual people who had an interesting or touching story, and so I looked for those kind of unique tales. But I also wanted the book to show Mill Valley over the generations, and to try to tell a longer, fuller narrative. So I also looked for people who represented what I considered important moments or elements from Mill Valley’s chronicle. There is one story, for example, about a couple that most people probably have never heard of, Frank and Fran Dittle. They were married before World War II, and lived all their lives in the same house, which Frank had help build when he was a boy. Their story represents a noteworthy change that happened in Mill Valley after World War II.
I also was looking for people who had made a considerable impact either on Mill Valley (people like Dick Jessup and Lucy Mercer) or on the greater world from their Mill Valley base (like Phyllis Faber and Peter Behr).
I wasn’t as interested in including all the famous people who live here, just because they are famous. There had to be more to it. That’s why I included Sammy Hagar and Peter Coyote, for example. They have had a significant influence on Mill Valley, and have both given back a lot to the town.

EMV: In looking at the final group of subjects, what do they – the fact that these people in particular have had such an impact on this town – collectively say about Mill Valley as a place?
JK: After about two months into the interview process I began to see a recurring theme: The people who I wrote about considered Mill Valley exceptional and beautiful and inspiring; some would say spiritually inspiring. There is a kind of old-fashioned “New England-like” community identity here, too. And yet, individually, I kept seeing an independent streak.  There is a theme of non-conformity to Mill Valley’s story; even going back as far as Laura White and the Outdoor Art Club. She really was before her time in many ways.  
And every neighborhood has its own specific personality. Longtime Mill Valleyans feel a real connection with their neighborhoods and their neighbors. I was very surprised to find out just how much of Mill Valley I had never seen before.  There are so many absolutely wonderful little cul-de-sacs of 100-year-old cottages up in the hills that feel like summer camps, and little pocket parks all over the place that add so much to the charm of the town. This is “Greater Mill Valley” I’m talking about, the whole 94941 area code.
I would say I learned that Mill Valley, as a place, inspires with its beauty, and encourages both community and non-conformity, in equal measures.

The 411: For more info and to buy Joyce Kleiner's Legendary Locals of Mill Valley, visit the book's website or Facebook page. Click here to see the list of events to promote the book, and go here to see those events in the Enjoy Mill Valley calendar.

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 At 114 years old, Scout Hall could use a bit of a makeover.

And if the Rotary Club of Mill Valley is successful in its latest attempt to raise enough money to pay for the work – a “Raise the Roof” fundraiser at the Outdoor Art Club is set for June 13  – one of Mill Valley’s landmark buildings will get the love it needs.

“If all goes well, we hope to have a shovel in the ground in August or September,” said Sue Moxon, who has overseen the 8-year-old effort to raise the money needed to overhaul the building at 177 E. Blithedale Ave. Moxon sits on the board of nonprofit Mill Valley Scout Hall Inc., which owns Scout Hall.

The hall, which served as a saloon, a livery stable and a laundry drying shack in the early 1900s, is heavily used by a host of local groups beyond the scouts (and isn’t affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America), serving as the lone dedicated youth center in Southern Marin since 1919, Moxon said. It also housed the offices of the Mountain Play Association for many years before the organization that puts on the outdoor theater production on Mount Tam each year moved to San Rafael in late 2013.

The Raise the Roof event features dinner from Insalata’s in San Anselmo and a live auction with vacation rentals from Lake Tahoe to Ireland, a bevy of great wines and restaurant gift certificates.

The project initially had a $1.2 million target but has been scaled back a bit, Moxon said. The organization has scrapped a plan to open up the ceiling and install a skylight due to prohibitive costs and the structural work that would have resulted.

But the new iteration of the project still includes a massive amount of work, including a new roof, a remodel of the bathrooms to make them larger and ADA compliant, a remodel of the kitchen, new front and rear doors, new hardwood floors, ADA-compliant front and rear entrances, the installation of a wheelchair lift, new plumbing and electrical systems, new paint throughout and an alarm system.

The campaign has raised around $570,000 to date, mostly through more than 400 individual donations. It got a major boost when an anonymous donor awarded Scout Hall a $240,000 matching-funds grant and the fundraising effort was able to match it. In addition to the cash donations, they've received approximately $120,000 in in-kind donations, including a new roof cover from McLeran Roofing. 

For Moxon, the Scout Hall renovations can’t come soon enough. While the remains a hub of local activities, Scout Hall plays a vital role for local youth groups. And the American Red Cross has designated Scout Hall as an emergency shelter once the renovations are finished, a role it played during the disastrous fire on Mount Tam in July 1929.

“This place is a Mill Valley landmark, and we’re making a community-wide appeal to help us restore it,” Moxon said.

The 411: Click here for more info and to buy tickets to the Rotary Club of Mill Valley's “Raise the Roof” fundraiser at the Outdoor Art Club on June 13.

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