CHAPTER 2: THE 38 HOMES IN THE BARN LOFT

Mary Lou Stoll did not. In the first 9 days, no anything had changed. She had filed her lawsuit Friday morning. She had spent the weekend hosting a dinner party at her home in which she had, by one attendee's later account, delivered a small speech about how, "by Christmas the Carrington Ranch will be subdivided and ready for our community expansion".

By Monday morning at 9:00 a.m., Ophelia Ardmore had filed three documents with the Sonoma County Superior Court. The first was a notice of anti-slap motion under California Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16. The second was a verified cross-complaint alleging malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, abuse of process, and violation of California's right to farm statute. The cross-complaint named the Vintner's Crest HOA, Mary Lou Stoll as an individual, and the four other current board members each individually.

The third was a verified petition for declaratory relief requesting the court to formally adjudicate the chain of title to the 38 Vintner's Crest lots. The petition attached as exhibit A the 38 original 1996 reservations from my uncle's box. Ophelia also, the same morning, filed certified copies of the petition with each of the 38 individual homeowners by mail. By Tuesday morning, every homeowner in Vintner's Crest had a registered letter in their mailbox.

By Tuesday afternoon, Ophelia's office had received 41 phone calls. Some were from homeowners. Some were from homeowners' personal attorneys. Some were from a Wall Street Journal reporter who had heard about the case from a Sonoma County title officer.



By Tuesday evening, Mary Lou Stoll had been to three separate emergency meetings with her personal attorney, her HOA's attorney, and her husband Cornelius. She called Ophelia personally at 9:14 a.m. Wednesday. Ophelia let her leave a voicemail. The voicemail began with apology and ended with the offer of a ""mutual full settlement and confidentiality agreement."End quote.

By Wednesday at 2:00 p.m., 19 of the 38 homeowners had contacted Ophelia's office directly to ask whether the chain of title issue was real. Three of the 19 homeowners asked whether they could meet me personally to discuss the proposed resolution. I said yes. The first of those meetings on Thursday morning at 10:00 a.m. was with a man named Captain Peter Halverson.

He was a retired commercial maritime pilot, 72 years old, who had bought lot 14 in 2001 for $1.8 million and who currently lived in the home with his wife Greta. He arrived at my ranch in a dark blue Subaru. He brought a small bottle of California olive oil from his trees. He sat on my porch with Deborah's coffee.

He said, "Ellis, I'd like you to know that some of us, including me, have for several years now been quietly opposed to Mary Lou Stoll's approach to community governance. I have been one vote on a five-member board for two of those years. I would, if asked at the special election Ms. Ardmore has proposed, be willing to serve as interim president. I would also like to thank you in person for the proposed resolution structure.

I have read it twice. It is more than fair."Captain Halverson, thank you for coming out to the ranch. The resolution is the right thing to do. He shook my hand.

He drove away. The second meeting was that same Thursday at 1:00 p.m. with a woman named Greta Lindquist of lot 27, who was not Peter's Greta, but a different one, a retired pediatric oncologist from UCSF, who had moved into Vintner's Crest in 2009. She told me on the porch that she had been Mary Lou Stoll's quiet adversary on the architectural review committee for 4 years, and that she would be willing to serve on the new board if the community asked. I thanked her.

She drank one cup of Deborah's coffee. She drove home. The third meeting was that same Thursday at 4:00 p.m. with a couple named Cyrus and Marisol Whittle of lot 7. They were in their late 40s.

Cyrus ran a small Sonoma County architectural firm. Marisol was a public defender attorney out of the Santa Rosa office, where she had by happy coincidence worked across the hall from Linnea for 2 years. They sat on the porch for 45 minutes. They asked precise, thoughtful questions about the quitclaim structure.

They thanked Deborah for the eggs they had been receiving for 2 years from Quill's Saturday rounds without knowing where they came from. They drove home. By the time the sun set Thursday evening, I had met seven Vintner's Crest homeowners on my porch. Every one of them, in their own way, had quietly conveyed the same essential message.

They had been waiting for someone, anyone, to do exactly what I was doing. By Friday at noon, Ophelia had received written assent from 26 of the 38 homeowners to the proposed resolution. By Friday evening, Mary Lou Stoll's personal attorney had submitted the formal settlement offer Ophelia had drafted. The HOA agreed to drop its lawsuit with prejudice.

Mary Lou Stoll agreed to resign as president by Monday. The five board members agreed to a special election Tuesday. The HOA agreed to pay Ophelia's fees and my fees in full. Each homeowner agreed to pay the $1 nominal fee.

The agreement was signed at 9:00 p.m. Friday evening at Ophelia's office. By Monday morning, Mary Lou Stoll was no longer the president of the Vintner's Crest Homeowners Association. By Tuesday evening, Peter Halverson was. The Wednesday after the settlement was the day my daughter Linnea brought me her concerns.

She came out to the ranch after work at 6:30 p.m. Still in her DA's office clothes. She sat at my kitchen island with a glass of wine. She did not for the first 3 minutes say anything. Then she said, "Daddy, I've been thinking about Mary Lou Stoll.

She filed a knowingly frivolous lawsuit that sought to seize a 140-acre easement over your ranch under cover of property values that were not by any actual appraisal devalued by your chickens. She signed that complaint personally. She made statements at her dinner party Saturday night that by every account I have heard from three separate neighbors indicated she knew the lawsuit was a pretext for expansion of her community. She has signed in addition four years of HOA annual reports attesting to the HOA's clean chain of title to the common areas.

When by what we now know she had multiple internal communications indicating that the developer reservations were unresolved. Linnea, where are you going with this? Daddy, Mary Lou Stoll is a candidate for prosecution. She has committed perjury in her HOA filings, abuse of process in her lawsuit, and intentional infliction of emotional distress on you personally.

She also holds a California real estate broker's license that she has not in five years properly maintained. She paused. Daddy, I will not, because of the conflict of interest, prosecute her. But I am going to ask the senior DA at my office to pull her file.

And I am going to ask the FBI San Francisco field office to look at the four years of HOA annual reports. Linnea, there's something else. In going through her filings this afternoon, I noticed that the Vintner's Crest HOA has been collecting since 2019 a quote master insurance premium "of $4,800 per home per year from each of the 38 homeowners. Total annual collection, $182,000.

I cross-checked against the California Department of Insurance public records. There is no master insurance policy on file for Vintner's Crest. There never has been. Mary Lou Stoll has been pocketing the premium for 5 years.

I sat very still. Daddy, that is approximately $910,000 of homeowner money collected under a sworn representation that the funds were going to a master insurance policy that appears to have gone instead into Mary Lou Stoll's personal accounts. Deborah, beside me at the kitchen island, said, "Linnea, sweetheart, how sure are you?""Mama, I am as sure as I have been about any case I have brought in 7 years. I will have the file confirmed by Monday morning."Linnea, pull the file and call the FBI.

The lawsuit was gone and Mary Lou had lost control of the HOA, but the title records had exposed something far larger than a dispute over chickens. The next investigation would follow the missing money.

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