Tracey Barnes-Priestley: Hi, I'm Tracey Barnes-Priestley.

This week on "What's on your Bucket List," we go behind the scenes to see how one of Humboldt's most delicious and award-winning confections is made and then we're off to Southern Humboldt for a tour of a beautiful hidden gem with an impressive history.

Coming up next on "What's on your Bucket List?"

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Tracey: I met my first guest at a very special place in Eureka.

Tracey: I wish you could be here and smell what I am smelling.

This is going to be an exciting segment.

It's a pleasure to introduce my guest Patty Stammers.

Welcome to "What's on your Bucket List?"

Patty Stammers: Thank you.

Tracey: What are we checking off your bucket list today?

Patty: Well, I've always been curious about just this local company, number one, and I don't know anything about chocolate.

Tracey: That's right.

Patty: So this seemed like a good start.

Tracey: And so here we are in the beautiful, new facility Dick Taylor Chocolates, and we're going to have a tour.

We're going to see how this delicious confection is put together.

Patty: And do we get to see how this delicious concoction taste?

Tracey: I hope so.

Patty: I hope so too.

Tracey: There will be a tasting, right, a tasting?

Patty: I'm waiting for that one.

Tracey: I'm always curious about why people apply to be on the show.

What was it for you?

Patty: I read an article about you in the paper and I just liked the idea of, you know, introducing things to people they really want to see but don't have access to or never thought they could ever possibly get in there.

Tracey: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

And we've sure discovered in the course of this program how many amazing things we have right here in Humboldt.

Patty: Boy, no kidding.

Tracey: Yeah, yeah.

Patty: That's why it was so hard to pick.

Tracey: You're the kind of person that when you want to do something you do it.

Was that an accurate?

Patty: Yes.

Tracey: Okay.

Patty: Not everybody is pleased with that, but--and I've done a lot of different things, and it seems like about every 10 years I kind of reinvent myself.

And so I enjoyed my life.

Tracey: You've just always had that natural curiosity, that inquisitive?

Patty: No, not until I left home, and then nobody was watching me every minute.

Tracey: And so it got you here to Dick Taylor Chocolates.

And we're going to have a tour.

Patty: It's starting to smell really good in here too.

Tracey: It is.

All right, so are you ready to go take the tour?

Patty: Yes.

Yes, I am.

Tracey: All right, let's go.

Tracey: Next, I spoke with Dustin Taylor who along with Adam Dick are the creative men behind this thriving enterprise.

These two enthusiastic entrepreneurs first became friends in college.

They eventually became finished carpenters and enjoyed building furniture and boats, but in 2010 they happen to watch a video on chocolate making and the two were instantly intrigued.

Their interest would eventually evolve into what is now an internationally successful business.

Dustin Taylor: So all just kind of started as this hobby, not thinking grand plans of business or anything like that.

It was just how do you--you know, you have bees in your backyard to have honey and you have chickens to lay eggs and you make chocolate in your kitchen.

And so that was just kind of how it started.

And just happened to be at that time in this industry where there was very few chocolate makers in US, definitely not in Humboldt County.

So to have a chocolate bar that was made of two ingredients, just cacao and cane sugar, just kind of blew our mind and it's this new thing, and that's kind of-- Tracey: It really exploded.

Dustin: The process of making chocolate is actually very similar to carpentry.

So chocolate making, although is a, you know, viscous material versus a board that's more hard, it's very similar where you're processing, you know, progression.

Exactly.

I'm setting up these steps to run it, all that material through in that process, I'm going through another machine, setting up all the steps just like you'd set up a jig to run a piece of board or something like that.

And then much like building boats and stuff where you really have to have a hands-on approach, there's machines, but you're also using your skill as a craftsman to really be able to fine tune to those ingredients.

Tracey: Thank you so much for the background.

I think we're ready to get Patty on a tour.

You ready for us?

Dustin: I'm ready.

Let's do the round.

Tracey: Thank you.

Dustin: Oh, yeah.

Tracey: Hey, Dustin, hi, this is Patty Stammers.

Patty, this is Dustin.

Dustin: Hi, Patty.

Welcome to Dick Taylor Chocolate.

Patty: Thank you.

Tracey: We began our much-anticipated tour by first donning very attractive hairnet.

Tracey: What I do for KEET.

Patty: And what I do for chocolate.

[laughing] Tracey: What's our first step?

Dustin: Our first step, we got to start with our raw ingredient of cacao beans.

Tracey: There are different smells.

Dustin: Yeah.

Now you're in the bakery side of things instead of the-- come on through.

So this is where we're going to start and show you around.

Tracey: Oh, wow.

Oh, look in there.

Dustin: This is where we're starting, is with our raw ingredient, it's cacao.

And you can kind of see these are from-- Tracey: Look at that.

Dustin: Yeah, look at that.

These are the cocoa beans that we're going to make chocolate out of.

Tracey: Dustin went on to explain how the raw cocoa beans, which are harvested by growers from all over the world, are first taken from a large pod, then separated from a sugary covering, fermented at the right temperature to develop the chocolate flavor, thoroughly dried, and finally shipped to their Eureka processing facility.

Dustin: First step is we hand-sort all of the beans on a sorting table, all the cocoa beans combined, and we're hand-sorting out rocks and sticks and stones, beans all by hand.

Yep.

After sorting, we have Joe the roaster.

Tracey: The beans are roasted using two machines from the early 1900s that Dustin and Adam restored.

This kind of repurposing of machinery is part of their success.

After roasting, Dustin explained the shells are cracked to separate them from the bean.

He had us try one.

Dustin: This we can taste.

This is a fresh, warmly-roasted cocoa bean.

So what you're going to do is you're going to kind of crack that shell that's on the outside of that.

And then the inside is the center part of the bean.

So you take one of those.

And yeah, it's either the sandpaper it's in part that's on there.

You get through that, and then inside is a freshly-roasted cocoa bean that can be eaten.

Yeah, it's a little bean.

You got to crush it.

There you go, you're getting that stuff off there.

And you just toast this shell on the floor.

We make a mess here each time.

There you go.

You got that cocoa bean.

Patty: Wow.

Tracey: At this point, husks and beans are crushed, and then everything is poured into a winnowing machine to further separate the lighter shells from the beans, which are then broken into much smaller pieces of pure chocolate called nibs.

Dustin: In a good day we're ending up with about 400 pounds in yielded nib out of here and--all right, yeah, take in the smells.

Welcome.

There's a lot happening in this room this time.

So the first step you saw we made that--the cocoa nibs and we roasted them.

Now we need to grind them and refine them.

That happens in this first hammer mill.

And then what we're left with... Tracey: Oh my gosh, look at that.

Dustin: ...Is ground liquor.

So the cocoa nib, the cocoa bean is roughly 50% cocoa butter and the rest cocoa solid, is cocoa powder.

And so when you grind that, just like nuts turn into nut oils, really turn to peanut butter, turns into a liquid.

But you can see still in the light it's kind of gritty.

You can see there's a grit in the texture to it.

So it's just been roughly refined.

Now we need to further refine that.

Tracey: The liquor is then put into yet another repurposed machine, the ball mill, where it is refined for 8 hours until it is finally incredibly smooth.

Dustin: We're now going to refine the sugar.

Tracey: Okay.

Dustin: And so to refine the sugar we need to be able to have it flow through there.

So we add part of the liquor.

So all the liquor has been refined.

We take some of the liquor, put it in a big mixer on the side and mix the amount of sugar that's going to be in the batch, and then we do basically a 50-50 blend of sugar to liquor.

Tracey: Next, everything is run through a machine called a roll refiner.

Dustin: And we go through this machine three times, and each time we tighten it up.

So all the material three times.

Takes all day to go through this machine.

So then what we're getting is what's called chocolate flake, and it's this dry texture and it's really warm.

But you can see it's like consistency of playdough.

It's not, like, melted chocolate like you think.

This is going to be really sweet.

It's half sugar, half cocoa liquor.

So that's, like, the sweetest chocolate bar there, huh?

This is our finishing process on chocolates.

So now we've made our chocolate flake, then we separated the sugar and the liquor.

This is what's called the conche.

It's actually hot.

It's about 180°.

You can feel that warmth.

So everything's warm.

It's whirling and twirling.

You can kind of peek over the edge and see how it's twirling around in there.

It's chocolate.

This is 870 pounds of finished chocolate that's inside there twirling around.

Tracey: When the conching process is finally done after 48 hours, everything is transformed into 23-pound blocks of chocolate.

Dustin: Yeah, so it's dry and white gnashing.

It's just like your--it's untempered chocolates.

Now we have to turn that untempered chocolate, like you saw it, into finished chocolate bars that have that nice sheen and snap and everything that's going on.

We just finished a big molding run yesterday.

So everything--you can see what a mess chocolate can be too with the chocolate everywhere.

But to then make the chocolate, we need to temper it.

And so we melt all that chocolate out.

And this is a very, very finicky process of heating up the chocolate to about 108°, slowly cooling it down to about 86°, then heating it up back up to around 90°.

And a half a degree makes a big difference.

It's crazy how, like, little, minor tweaks will either make the chocolate hazy on the back or it'll be too thick and over-tempered.

Tracey: It's that fussy.

Dustin: It's that fussy.

Tracey: After the individual chocolate bars are molded, they are fully chilled.

Dustin: In a good mode we can do about 1,500 bars in 45 minutes.

And so we're just like spat, spat, spat.

Our record is 6,357 bars we've done in here in 5 hours in here just spitting out chocolate.

All right, let's see how we finish this chocolate up and wrap it.

We're going to do that in here.

Tracey: The bars are first wrapped in airtight foil.

They are now ready for the beautiful final packaging.

Dustin: And then we take our chocolate bars, load those inside, we stick it on the back, and then we'll have different labels that are made up for it and we'll put the label on the back all by hands.

Around holiday season I will bring my mom and some other retirees out of the retirement to come help us-- Tracey: We can have a new job.

Dustin: Exactly.

You just sit here and stick the bars and chat.

Exactly.

Tracey: I can do that.

Dustin: Let's head out front and we'll taste some chocolates.

Tracey: All righty, sounds great.

Dustin: Okay.

All right, so we saw all those steps of what it takes to make chocolate.

Here we're going to try some chocolate.

This is that simplest form.

You saw that bean that came from Brazil and the bean from Belize, and we went through all the steps.

Only adding organic cane sugar we were trying to highlight differences in bean flavors and uniqueness.

So these are single origin chocolates.

So, like, try this first, this bean.

Let's go ahead and try this.

This is from Brazil.

It's dark, strong.

Patty: That's delicious.

Dustin: So this is a bean from--let's go with Madagascar.

This bean is going to be totally different in its flavor.

It's going to be more fruity red berry that kind of comes through citrusy flavor.

Tracey: Oh, it really is.

I want to thank you for an amazing tour.

This was an eye-opener.

Dustin: Oh, you're welcome.

It was my pleasure to have you guys.

Thank you so much.

Patty: It was great, remarkable.

Tracey: Oh, there--yeah, I got two.

Patty: Dark chocolate.

Tracey: Well, we've checked it off your bucket list.

What do you think of Dick Taylor Chocolates?

Patty: I am awestruck.

Tracey: Are you?

Patty: Yes, from the beginning to the very end and what they have planned.

And the consciousness behind creating this company was astounding.

I had no idea.

So this was really an eye-opener for me.

Tracey: You're glad you checked it off your bucket list?

Patty: Well, yeah.

Tracey: Yeah, yeah.

Patty: A chocolate factory.

Who wouldn't want to do that?

Tracey: Thank you so much for joining us.

Patty: Thank you.

Thank you for asking me.

It was really fun.

Tracey: For this and other episodes, go to keet.org.

Patty: What's on your bucket list?

Tracey: I met my next guest at a hidden gem down in Southern Humboldt.

Tracey: I cannot believe where we are today.

This place is amazing.

And I can hardly wait to introduce you to my guest Deborah Morton.

Tell our audience where are we and what are we checking off your bucket list?

Deborah Morton: We are at Julia Morgan's Redwood Grove.

And my bucket list is to tour the grounds and the beautiful home that she designed behind me.

Tracey: I had never even heard of this.

This is one of the things about this show I love, when I get to discover something too.

This is an exquisite place.

How did you find out about it?

Deborah: Well, the funny thing is I've lived here for over 40 years and I didn't know it was here either.

And I'd come to Benbow numerous times, used to come to Benbow on the lake and never knew that this was back here.

So recently just found out through one of the other local people.

And when I saw your call out for the bucket list show I decided I'd throw it on there and see what happens.

Tracey: Well, I'm so glad you did because I think we are in for a real treat.

Just if the exterior is this gorgeous, can you imagine what waits for us?

Deborah: I'm so excited.

I can't wait.

Tracey: Tell us please your interest in architecture.

What is that all about for you?

Deborah: You know, I've always just loved old buildings.

I have a chance to tour one, I'm right up there front of the line trying to hear all about it.

I started buying homes when I was quite young, I bought my first property when I was 19, and then just would fix them up and resell them.

And so was able to, you know, make a nice, little business out of it.

Tracey: And you were part of that rehab process?

Deborah: Yes.

Tracey: In the trenches with the hammer.

I mean, you did it.

Deborah: I was mostly design.

Tracey: Okay.

Deborah: Yep.

And then I would hire the hard work, but when I was younger I was definitely all part of it.

I actually built my own home.

Tracey: You did.

Deborah: Yeah.

Tracey: You did.

Deborah: Yes.

Tracey: So you have a deep appreciation for what goes into a building.

Deborah: Yes, ma'am, I do.

Tracey: Yeah.

I am really glad you decided to apply to the show because I think all of us are going to enjoy what we're going to do here in a couple minutes.

So thank you.

And shall we get going?

Deborah: Yes, please.

Tracey: All right.

Tracey: Our guide for the day was Tanya Musgrave who along with her husband Greg own this magnificent property.

Tracey: How is it that you and Greg landed in this amazing place and became stewards?

Tanya Musgrave: That's a great question.

Greg and I were on a romantic weekend as a couple a number of years ago.

And there was a flyer over the Benbow when we were staying at the Benbow Inn and the flyer was for a tour of this house.

And he said, "You want to go check out this house?"

And he'd been here a number of years before working on a property during the restoration period between 2000 and 2004.

And I said, "Sure.

You know, I'll follow you anywhere."

So we came over and we met with the master gardener who was our tour guide at the time.

He was talking about how this property was used for events and for family-type events as well as weddings and corporate events.

And my husband said, "Well, I could see having an event here."

And Derek said, "Well, what kind of event would that be?

Maybe a family reunion?"

And Greg said, "No.

More like a wedding."

And that was when I knew I was going to be married in this room.

So over the years after our wedding here we became familiar with the owners at that time, we rented the property for corporate events.

We have a business that we would celebrate Christmases with our employees and we would rent the property for family events like Mother's Day weekend.

One day Alison, we were speaking on the phone about our next upcoming reservations and she said, "Tanya, I think that you and Greg love the property more than we do."

And I said, "I can't imagine how it could be possible."

And she says, "Well, Jim and I, we think that the two of you should own it."

So that was how we became part of this property.

Tracey: I think we have kept Deborah waiting long enough.

Shall we get going?

Tanya: All right, let's go.

Tracey: Tanya, this is Deborah Morton.

Deborah: Hi, Tanya.

How do you do?

Tanya: Welcome to the Julia Morgan Redwood Grove.

Deborah: Thanks.

Tracey: We are so happy to be here.

Shall we go this way?

Tanya: Deborah, today we're going to be touring the Julia Morgan Redwood Grove property, and I'll be showing you the main house, the cottage, and the carriage house.

Those are the three original buildings on the property.

Deborah: Gosh, how exciting.

Tracey: The house, commissioned by San Francisco Hotel magnate Margaret Stewart, was designed by California's first licensed woman architect Julia Morgan.

Known best for designing Hearst Castle, Morgan pioneered these homes Northern California arts and crafts aesthetic.

Tanya: Well, you ready to see the inside?

Deborah: I am, I'm so excited.

Tanya: Let's go.

Tracey: Look at this.

Deborah: Oh, wow, this is beautiful.

Tracey: The house was built to take advantage of the beautiful Eel River views.

And the timbers were all harvested from a resurrected mill across the river.

Tanya: So this is the front door and the formal foyer.

Originally this was a porch, and the front door was here, and during the renovation process the front door was pushed out.

Tracey: Tanya led us into the refurbished sunroom named after Eva Benbow, one of the nine siblings who developed the area.

Benbow, an artist, became good friends with Margaret Stewart during construction.

Tanya: As the house was being finished, Eva painted these murals that you see on the walls here.

Deborah: Oh, these are all painted?

Tanya: So they're painted to depict the local wildlife that you find on the property.

Tracey: Oh my g--oh, look.

And they're all the way around the room.

Tanya: So now we're coming into the map room.

This room has original floors.

And the curtain rods and curtain rod brackets are also original too, 1926.

Tracey: Really?

Tanya: And if you notice the detail, there's little rosettes on the brackets and on the rods.

Julia Morgan, back in the early 1900s, as an architect wasn't just the designer of the house.

Architects back then were also the contractor and the interior designer.

A lot of the features that you see were hand selected by Julia Morgan.

Tracey: Tanya then shared an interesting story about the map above the beautifully restored fireplace, which was only discovered during renovation.

Tanya: And my husband's family homesteaded in the 1850s in a little town south of here called Layton Ville.

And originally, that town was called Long Valley.

And this is the earliest found map of this area in the state of California that actually shows Long Valley on the map.

And now we're coming into the great room.

This room was originally built as a Christian science reading room.

So Margaret Stewart was very astute in her faith and wanted a room in her home where she could practice her religion.

In this room we have original floors from 1926.

They're white oak.

The beams in the ceiling, those are original growth redwood that was harvested from across the river.

Margaret Stewart was very detail-oriented in some of her design features.

So you'll notice that there are hand-carved rosettes on the beams.

Tracey: Oh, look at that.

Do you see that?

Tanya: And the rosettes are repeated throughout the home in many other little features.

Now we're coming into the lower landing.

And the wallpaper that you see here is a reproduction of the wallpaper that was very popular in the 1920s.

It actually came in five colors.

And Allison during the renovation process chose this red color because it's very rich and luxurious.

And as we're going up the stairs we'll just pause here momentarily.

Alison and Jim did some research in trying to find a lot of historical elements of the property.

They went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and they were able to purchase copies of the sketches that Julia Morgan did for Margaret Stewart when she was designing the home.

So Margaret Stewart was a petite woman, and the rise of the stairs was custom-built to her size.

Tracey: Oh, they really are short, aren't they?

Tanya: So before we head into the primary suite, I want to stop for a moment and show you the guest-room.

So something interesting about this room is that as large as this house is, this is the only guest room.

The reason for that is in the early 1900s it was inappropriate for a single woman, Margaret Stewart was a single woman, she was not married, to entertain guests in her home.

So she had the guest house built or cottage, as we call it, for her guests that would travel up from San Francisco to stay with her.

This room would have only been used for a relative.

Shall we head to the primary room?

Tracey: Sure.

Tanya: And now we're entering the primary suite.

Tracey: Oh my gosh, look at this.

Oh, look at that, Deborah.

The view is exquisite.

Tanya: So originally, this room was not as big as it is now.

The original primary suite was just about to here.

This was the bedroom and on this side was a screen porch or a summer porch.

Tracey: Tanya also showed us a truly unique feature in the primary suite, the most exquisite nightlight we'd ever seen.

Tanya: So next would you like to go check out the cottage?

Deborah: Absolutely.

♪♪♪ Tanya: So this is the cottage that Margaret Stewart's guests would have stayed in when they came to visit from the Bay Area.

Deborah: Look at that.

Tracey: I know.

Tracey: Originally one bedroom during the renovation, the cottage was expanded to include a primary suite.

Next, we were off to the carriage house.

Tanya: So the carriage house is where Margaret Stewart's driver would have been in residence while she was here for the summertime.

Deborah: Oh, that's cute.

Tracey: The carriage house has many original features, including a clawfoot tub and kitchen counters.

Tracey: Oh, look at that.

Oh, that's wonderful.

Isn't it, Deborah?

Deborah: Oh, yeah.

Oh, this is really cute.

♪♪♪ Tracey: We have had the most amazing tour, I think.

But more importantly, what do you think, Deborah?

We've checked it off your bucket list.

Deborah: Yes, you did.

And I feel very grateful.

This place is Southern Humboldt's best kept secret.

Tracey: I agree.

Deborah: I'm hoping that we've let the secret out of the box for you.

You've been so generous.

Thank you.

Tanya: It's been a pleasure having you.

And we really hope that you'll come back and have another tour.

Deborah: I will, absolutely.

Tracey: Did you have a favorite spot of all of the places we've seen?

Deborah: I think the ground room was my favorite spot.

It was just so beautiful in there.

And I love the big window and, you know, with leaded glass and all the intricate work with the chandeliers.

And that was really my favorite part, I think.

Tanya: I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Deborah: I did.

I 100% enjoyed myself today.

Thank you.

Tracey: You glad you checked it off your bucket list?

Deborah: I'm definitely glad I checked it off my bucket list, but I'll be back.

Tanya: Good to hear.

Tracey: Okay.

Tracey: To watch this and other episodes, go to keet.org.

Tracey, Deborah, and Tanya: What's on your bucket list?

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ female: That's a wrap.

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