Clemente Inn: Will it be demolished or revived?

Marty Edwards, owner of the Clemente Inn, has moved one step closer to making real her vision of people dining, music playing, the old charm of the 1920’s alive and kicking in what is now just the shell of a grand old hotel.
The building, located at 17367 Sonoma Highway in Fetters Hot Springs, has been vacant for 30 years, and is now condemned.  Edwards has been trying to get it renovated for eight years, working, through a maze of economic difficulties, permit conundrums, and governmental entanglements which has brought her time and again to stalemate.
Two recent developments give her new options for moving forward. In November, the Sonoma County Permits and Resource Management Department (PRMD) determined that any use within the current C2 Retail Commercial Zoning designation will be acceptable. Previously, Edwards had been limited to restoring the place to a hotel, a business plan that would be unsustainable. “It just wouldn’t pencil out,” she said. Now, should she succeed in restoring the building, she will be allowed to turn it into a restaurant or café, which is what she wants to do.
The second, crucial, decision was made just last week by the Sonoma County Landmarks Commission, which has issued a go-ahead for her to apply for either partial or complete demolition, offering her a choice in the way forward. To get permission, said Lisa Posternak, Landmarks Commission staff planner, she had to submit three things. First, an historic resources evaluation report, photographs and architectural drawings, all approved by the landmarks commission. Posternak said the Landmarks Commission has approved both issuance of a permit “to completely demolish the building and issuance of a permit to demolish the wood portion (i.e., partial demolition) and stabilize the unreinforced masonry portion of the building.” She said Edwards has not yet applied for either permit, and that PRMD Code Enforcement will be establishing both a deadline for applying for a permit and for completing the work.
Edwards is pleased. “I’m going to start 2009 in a big way here.” She is now preparing to file for her permits, and there are decisions to be made. “There’s a fine line between applying for a demolishing permit or applying for a rehab permit,” she said. To keep the façade, which she’d like to do, is tricky. “You have to temporarily brace it and then go in and do permanent bracing. You have to do it twice.” She will be working on plans for this next step.
The dream is for the place to be a little restaurant. “I can see it! I think the neighborhood would love it. Music and food at the corner of Heaton and Highway 12 – as opposed to a falling down brick building. That would be nice. I get all excited about that.”
The Clemente Inn, once a popular restaurant and inn in Fetters Hot Springs, in the 1910s and 1920s, was built and run by Charles Clemente, who had moved to the area from France. In 1979, the Sonoma League for Historic Preservation described the place as something out of Masterpiece Theatre. “The dining room was large, with papered walls, a large wooden bar, potted ferns, tables, a player piano, a victrola and a small dance floor. The entry vestibule contained comfortable benches along the alcove with embroidered pillows, large scenic photographs on the walls, and a rocking chair. The family lived in rooms on the ground floor of the original house. A basement room in the northwest corner which has its own exterior door was once an ice cream parlor, exactly when, it is not known, but probably between 1912 and 1919.”
The Clemente family ran the place as a country restaurant and inn until 1928 when the property was sold.  Then, a series of owners used it as a grocery, an inn and finally an apartment building.
The building has passed through numerous hands over the years, but no one has successfully resuscitated it. The roof has collapsed and the walls of the original frame building are collapsing. The interior has been gutted and all that remains is the framing.