Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:11] Alan Montecillo, our senior editor.
Alan Montecillo [00:02:13] Hi.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra. [00:02:14] We’re here in Santa Rosa in front of Snoopy’s home ice. And I’m standing here with –
Tamara Stanley [00:02:18] Tamara Stanley, general manager.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:22] Tamara, tell me about this place and what goes on here.
Tamara Stanley [00:02:26] Well, Snoopy’s home ice, originally redwood Empire Ice Arena, was actually built here in 1969 by the Schulz family. And it was built not only as an ice arena, but a gathering place for the community. And it continues to be it’s definitely a special, special spot here in Santa Rosa and also the Bay Area. It is an ice arena. We have a cafe, the Warm Puppy Cafe, with the best cocoa around. And we have the Snoopy’s gallery and gift shop, which is fantastic. And then our neighbor is the Charles Schulz Museum.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:56] And you’re open year round, right? But I feel like this is a particularly special time to come. Is that right?
Tamara Stanley [00:03:02] We are. We’re open year round and we get you know, I think we have three closed days of the year and then we take it up a notch during the holidays. It’s fantastic. Our maintenance team puts all these beautiful decorations up. And when you walk into the building, it’s one of my favorite things to see is families that come on a regular tradition and they walk in and they see the Christmas tree on the ice and they see Snoopy and his Santa outfit in the lobby. And it’s just it’s just magical for sure.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:03:33] And is is it been a tradition for you? Are you from Santa Rosa as well? Have you been going here all your life?
Tamara Stanley [00:03:39] Yes, I grew up in Santa Rosa. And I was I was born one year before the ice arena. And it’s been part of my life for my whole life. I remember coming here as we still do have school groups come here on a school bus, learn how to skate birthday parties. I remember coming for those. And then also, obviously the shows and that kind of thing, the hockey games, the senior hockey game in the middle of the summer. It’s the coolest place to be in town for sure.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:04:13] We’re really. I’m excited to go in. I don’t know about you guys. Let’s do it.
Tamara Stanley [00:04:19] It’s a ruckus in there. Let’s do it.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:04:26] So I’m inside Snoopy’s home Ice with Gabe Meline, senior editor, arts and culture at KQED. Gave This is a very special place to you. This is my first time in here. But you’ve been here many, many times. I am already a maid. This is not how I imagined it to look. Can you just describe this space for me? All right.
Gabe Meline [00:04:48] Well, this is a building. The ice arena was built in 1969, and it really has not changed at all since. It’s exactly like it was when I learned how to skate here when I was five. It has a Swiss Alps theme when it was built, Charles Schulz, his wife, sent a local photographer, Don Meacham, to Switzerland to photograph like villages and nature and mountains and everything. And they replicated that inside here, which you’ll see, you know, just about everyone who grew up in Santa Rosa has been here, learned to skate here, has been to events here, has been a holiday shows here. It’s a really special place. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that having a daughter certainly helped. So it’s part of our tradition every Christmas Eve to come here and just sign up for public skate and skate around the ice.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:05:44] Should I wonder if we should go up and talk a little bit more about the history? So it’s a little quieter.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:05:58] Okay, so we’re in the DJ booth where I’m assuming is where they cue all the vince Guaraldi music. Gabe.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:07] Dino.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:08] So I know Vince Guaraldi, who, you know, made the Christmas album for the Charlie Brown Christmas. He’s from San Francisco, right?
Gabe Meline [00:06:17] Yeah.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:18] How did that these two minds come together?
Gabe Meline [00:06:23] I think it was the producers of that show that put them in touch. One of them was a big jazz fan. But Vince Guaraldi, he would play just small little clubs around San Francisco, the jazz workshop. He did a secret concert at Grace Cathedral. He was just like a local San Francisco jazz pianist. And, boy, that that soundtrack is very, very good. And it’s got legs. It’s still very popular.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:58] Yeah. And we’re up here because it’s pretty, it’s pretty loud and busy today. It’s a Saturday, so we’re going to find some quiet place to talk with Gabe.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:07:14] This place. I mean, obviously, it’s very Charlie Brown themed. And maybe for folks who aren’t familiar with the connection between Peanuts and the creator of Peanuts, Charles Schulz, but for people who don’t know, can you tell us a little bit about his connection to the city?
Gabe Meline [00:07:35] Charles Schulz grew up in Minnesota, and he was an avid ice hockey enthusiast. He moved around a little bit, but he settled here first in Sebastopol and then in Santa Rosa in Santa Rosa. At that time, there was only one ice arena on the east side of town on Summerfield Road, and that closed in the late 60s. But he always dreamed of a bigger, better facility. You know, he was a serious ice hockey person from Minnesota. So he and his wife, Joyce at the time decided to build this ice arena. And he went to the owners of the former ice rink and said, hey, we’re going to build a new ice arena. Will you run it? And they did not hesitate. They said yes, absolutely, for sure. One of those people was Skippy Baxter and Skippy Baxter’s name, like, looms very large here. And just in Santa Rosa at large. Skippy Baxter was an incredible ice skater. In fact, Ripley’s Believe It or Not reported that Skippy was the first person to land a triple salchow, which is when you’re skating, you leap into the air, you spin around three times, and you land on one skate. Skippy Baxter. I lived in a house across the parking lot here that the Schultz’s built for him to live at, and he taught me how to ice skate here on the ice. He taught generations of Santa Rosa how to skate Skippy Baxter really was sort of the heart and soul of this place. He was in his 90s when he died. This was like the concert venue for Santa Rosa. For a long time. There wasn’t really a performing arts center here until 1981. So people like, as you can see on the wall here, like Anne Marie played here. Buck Owens played here, Liberace played here. We have a friend of the family who saw Helen Reddy here. And there was a little known comedian who opened up for her named David Letterman. They were just they would cover up the ice. And there’s people sitting in the bleachers. And it was just like the place where you would see whatever touring act there was.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:09:54] It seems like this place is so much a part of your life if you grew up in Santa Rosa. But for me, who did not grow up here but who still grew up in the Bay Area, I literally have never heard of this place until I think you mentioned it. I mean, like, why do you think that is? I mean, I come here and it seems like such a special and amazing place, but also sort of a hidden gem.
Gabe Meline [00:10:20] I don’t exactly know why people haven’t heard of it, but I’m kind of glad that they haven’t. You know, like you say, like I think if they marketed it heavily or, you know, really pushed it, especially around Christmas time, you’d think they could, you know, tie in to the Charlie Brown Christmas special or something, but it might mess up what’s special about it. I don’t want it to change. And it really hasn’t in the last 50 years.
Jesse Silva [00:10:59] I had my birthday party here when I was a kid for like at least 12 years straight. So I’m now 30. I’ve been coming here for a year. So now we’re here just having fun doing public skate.
Andrew Oldfield [00:11:12] Yeah. My first and last is Andrew Oldfield. I actually recently just came back with my daughter last year and today is her fourth birthday. So it’s it’s very nostalgic and fun for us to come. I’ve always loved the holiday decor and looking at the little villages on the sides of the walls.
Jona Marchbanks [00:11:34] Hello, I’m Jona Marchbanks. I mean, the staff is really nice. I just like the vibe here, honestly. Yeah.
Gabe Meline [00:11:51] I can point out some of the features to you as we’re putting on our skates. So you’ll see these facades of Swiss houses all around. Those are the houses that that photographer Don Meacham took photos of in Switzerland and came back. And so they recreated them all around the perimeter of the ice arena. Then there’s these large murals that the photographer’s wife worked on, and those are also photos from Switzerland in the 60s.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:12:21] Gabe, is this your first time on ice? This this December?
Gabe Meline [00:12:25] Yeah. Yeah. And I will say, these. These old knees are a little rusty. We’ll see how long I stay vertical.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:12:33] I’m scared.
Gabe Meline [00:12:38] On this side of the colored dots is for kids with the buckets to learn how to skate. So stay on this side.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:12:46] Okay, but what if I need the wall?
Gabe Meline [00:12:49] The. You will have the wall around the entire other perimeter.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:12:53] Okay. All right. We’re going. We’re going on ice.
Gabe Meline [00:12:56] Do you need a hand?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:12:56] I do.
Gabe Meline [00:12:56] Okay. Here we go!
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:03] I’m sweating.
Gabe Meline [00:13:04] How are we doing, Ericka?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:06] I’m. I’m. They’re playing new jeans. They’re playing K-Pop. It’s very scary. But I was getting the hang of it over time. I was getting the hang of it. How are you doing, Alan?
Alan Montecillo [00:13:19] Good. I fell down. It happened slowly enough that I. You know, I think just back bruises only.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:28] It was cartoon. A little cartoonish. I saw the. The wobbly arms that.
Alan Montecillo [00:13:32] Much like Charlie Brown slipping and falling while trying to kick the football. Right. A 33 year old Filipino man fell in his spot in the ice.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:44] All right. And now we’re going to get some hot chocolate at the Warm Puppy Cafe. So now we’re standing in line here at the Warm Puppy Cafe at Snoopy’s home ice. Lots of people here drinking hot chocolate, seeking a pretzel. It’s pretty crowded in here. Almost every seat is taken except for one, Right. Can you tell me about that seat in the corner over there?
Gabe Meline [00:14:16] Over in the corner, right next to the fireplace. There’s a reserved sign on that table. Nobody ever sits there. And that was Charles Schultz’s table. Every day he would come here and sit at that table. And so after he died in 2000, right after his final strip ran, they’ve kept it empty as a tribute to him. Wow. Charles Schulz. He worked right across the street here. That’s where his studio was. And he would finish his daily strip. And then he’d come over here and he’d, like, have lunch. It was expensive to build this place. It cost a little under $2 million, which is about $16 million in today’s money. And Charles Schulz and his first wife, Joyce, really put a lot into it. I mean, not just money, but time and effort and sort of arguing with the city. And they argued about money when they were building this place. And within three years, they divorced. Months later, his first wife, Joyce, married their contractor for the ice arena. Well, yeah. But Charles Schulz was also having an affair with a much younger woman. And I just think, like, man, like going to this temple of a really rough time in your life. When I learned about the struggles and the time in Charles Schulz’s life when they built this place. I was like, yeah, that’s Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa is a good example of that thing where like, the suburbs look really nice and happy and joyful, but then there’s like this sort of menace beneath the surface little bit. A lot of movies that have been made here have that theme. Alfred Hitchcock film, Shadow of a Doubt Here in the 40s, even in the 90s, Scream was filmed here. And the inverse of that is like this, like overly joyful, like everything is wonderful. When I think about Christmas, like, what is Christmas? But a lot of forced merriment, this sort of like fake it till you make it like, okay, we’re all going to be happy for this month, you know? And I like that tension with the holiday season. I like that. I, you know, like Judy Garland singing. You know what? Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow, like our Merle Haggard singing. Like, if we make it through December and like, you’re acknowledging the coldness and the darkness and the, you know, sort of inherent sadness of it all. So you have to convince yourself to believe that things are good. It’s an interesting framework to think about your hometown that way.
Gabe Meline [00:17:08] I don’t know what the second chord of this is. I was trying to look it up f major seven. E-flat seven. Now, that can’t be right. Yeah.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:17:40] Thank you so much for bringing us to this amazing place.
Gabe Meline [00:17:45] I’m so glad you came. This is my favorite thing to do is show people around my hometown.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:17:49] And you’ll be back here before Christmas, right? As part of your tradition with your daughter.
Gabe Meline [00:17:53] Every December 24th, we’re out there on the ice.
Gabe Meline [00:17:56] All right. Well, if you want to see Gabe on ice yourself, you know where to find him. Gabe Flynn, senior editor of arts and culture for KQED, thank you so much.
