Sonoma Stove Collector Reheats Classic Leftovers

Restored ranges adding charm to new kitchens

The sign on Highway 12 near Sonoma is straightforward: "Johnny's Appliances and Classic Ranges." 

In the window is a 1950s O'Keefe and Merritt in just the shade of red that makes people pull U-turns for a better look.  On the wall are door panels from the ones that got away: Union, Quickmeal, Reliable, Spark.  They're names that faded in the shadows of such big names as Wedgewood and O'Keefe & Merritt.

But inside the showroom, surrounded by a whole crowd of old stoves, it hits you that Johnny isn't just selling ranges.  He's selling nostalgia, as pure as the memory of grandma's pancakes.

Maybe it's the griddles down the middles of these older stoves that do it, gleaming anachronisms in a Pop Tart world.  Or maybe it's the cozy rounded chrome and porcelain corners, almost matronly in contrast to the sharp-angled stoves that fill contemporary kitchens.

The plainspoken Johnny says it's a throwback to the days when the fireplace was the center of the home.

"That's where all the social stuff happened," says Johnny, showse very suspenders speak to his old-fashioned values.  "People cooked, they visited, they did everything right there.  And these ranges just took over from there."

Johnny developed an appreciation for these classic models as a teenager growing up in San Francisco.  That was back in the late '50s, when these stoves weren't yet classic, but rather last year's model.

During his senior year in high school, Johnny began repairing appliances after school.  He bought his first stove for $2.50, cleaned it, and turned it around for a handsome $5.50 ("Of course those dollars were backed by real metal back then," he points out).

A Wave of Ranges

After a few years at city college, a stint in the military and six months in Mexico, Johnny returned to ranges and other appliances and opened the Sonoma store.  It was around that time that he started seeing the first in the wave of neglected classic ranges.

When their upwardly mobile owners went for newer gas or electric models in the late '50s and '60s, many of the older gas ranges were consigned to vacation or rental properties.  In the hands of indifferent or ignorant tenants, even the sturdiest of stove tops will fall into decay.  Indeed, Johnny often is asked to rehabilitate truly pathetic pieces.

"I've had people bring me things they couldn't get five bucks for.  It was grandma's stove and they wanted it."  He laughs.  "Unfortunately, Grandma hasn't cleaned it for the last 40 years."

While regular maintenance may be the key to making a stove last forever, housekeepers aren't the ones responsible for the increasing number of newer ranges that end up in landfill, Johnny says.  The quality started nose-dividng in the mid to late '50s, when Korean War inflation hit and manufacturing costs started to rise, he says, and things just haven't been the same since.

"The metal got thinner, the quality of the porcelain went down.  They started painting the sides - some today even have pain on the front doors.  The valves are made out of aluminum; they used to be made out of brass."

Johnny leans over and lifts the substantial burner grate on a 1920s shoulder-high Roper stove, then gestures to a blank-faced newer stove across the aisle.

"There's more metal in one burner on this thing than there is in that whole stove."

Pricey Parts

Replacement parts often are hard to come by: One plastic knob for an O'Keefe and Merritt recently cost Johnny $250, which he paid because there just weren't any others on the market.  So, in the end, the prices, which can run from $600 for an apartment-size unit to $18,000 for a 1920s gas-wood model, make sense.

Are they worth it?  Well, not everyone's heart pounds in the presence of greatness.  But even the most logical of shoppers can take a quick look through Johnny's and recognize that these ranges are still relevant to today's gourmet cooks.

Top-lifting broilers, six burners with two valves each for more even heat distribution, specially lined ovens and top- loading wells that preheated and then cooked the food all day.  This last feature, that Johnny pointed out in the top-of-the-line Chambers from the early '40s, emerged in response to the flood of women in the workplace during World War II.

The jobs may have changed, but busy cooks can still relate.

San Francisco Chronicle
July 14, 2000