Elisa Stancil Levine is guided by nature

Ever since she was a little girl growing up beside the South Fork of the American River in Placerville, Elisa Stancil Levine’s strong resonance with nature has powered her creativity and curiosity.

In her new book, “This or Something Better: A Memoir of Resilience,” published by She Writes Press, Glen Ellen resident Stancil Levine eloquently describes how this attunement with nature has been a guiding force in her life and helped her to deal with a multitude of struggles and challenges while achieving success as a writer, artist, entrepreneur and park activist. The book will be celebrated during an event, featuring Stancil Levine, at 6 p.m. June 9 at Readers’ Books in Sonoma.

“I consider the book the memoir of a maker,” Stancil Levine said. “I learned early in childhood I would have to forge my own way. I endeavored to make my own life, as a person who happened to be a girl, not a girl first. Durability and creative problem solving gave me resilience.”

Remarkably candid and lyrical, Stancil Levine describes how she has navigated through her struggles. Her story of resilience is framed by the 2017 Nuns Fire, which was quickly spreading to her home in Glen Ellen late one night. She fled the firestorm without alerting any neighbors, later causing her to question how a loving wife, mother and grandmother could do such a thing. This causes her to reflect on how she was affected by the many difficulties in her life, beginning with her childhood.

Between the ages of 18 months and 5 years, she was sexually abused by her step-grandfather as well as emotionally and physically abused by her grandmother, who without warning would scrub her down with a harsh brush in a washtub while calling her a murderer under her breath.

“This is why I lacked trust in humans and bonded very strongly with nature,” Stancil Levine said. “I have a vivid visual memory and it was clear to me that adults did not realize the extent of a child’s awareness, and when informed, they discounted it. I vowed to write about it and have championed nature, parks and children all my life.”

Throughout the book it’s clear Stancil Levine is not only intimately connected with nature, but also inseparable from it.

“I became attuned to this shared energy of life, this essence, when I was about a year and a half old,” she writes in her book. “My first memory? I watched my brown shoes move over red dirt and sugar pine needles, and in that moment I realized I moved my shoes along the path, under a big blue bowl of sky.

“With each step my joy increased. I raised my arms high and called out a greeting to the sun, to the treetops, to all I saw. But I had no words. I was too young for words. When the tree boughs waved and handfuls of birds flew high, trusting the wind, I felt seen. That day my deep kinship with nature began. Some wonder how I could remember, being so young, but really, who would forget? Since that day, nature has been my saving grace.”

Establishing trust with people and making herself vulnerable to them have been ongoing processes throughout her life.

“Today I feel empathy for any child deeply imprinted by a grievous abuse of trust,” she wrote. “By the age of three, I was already on the lookout for whom or what I could trust. Sunflowers and raspberries felt safe and reliable, and Debby [her cousin], too. But other people? Not so much.”

Decorative art entrepreneur

Stancil Levine’s career began in 1974, when she collaborated with partners to buy, restore and sell 16 Bungalow-style homes in Sacramento.

“... Business reversal and a tragic death led me to move to Sonoma in 1979-80, when my son was 12,” she said. “The community was very accepting and supportive, and I was able to recover from grief and carry on.”

Stancil Levine received an associate degree from American River College in Sacramento and studied communications at University of California, Davis. After she moved to Sonoma, she briefly took communications classes at Sonoma State University.

Ned Forrest, renowned owner of Ned Forrest Architects in Sonoma, introduced Stancil Levine to the joy of decorative painting when they met in 1985.

“Residential architecture and historic design have always intrigued me and my Gold Country childhood was steeped in early 20th century style,” Stancil Levine said. “Ned opened my world when I worked with him and Mark Hampton on Tudor and Italian-style estates.”

Hampton soon invited Stancil Levine to New York City to decorate a 39-room Park Avenue apartment, then to Boston for a major restoration of a grand brick residence. She trained apprentices and hired fine artists, and they worked with her all over the U.S.

This marked the birth of Elisa Stancil and Associates, later renamed Stancil Studios, owned and operated by her son, James Stancil. It specializes in decorative painting, color and finish development and pattern design for private clients in Paris, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Hawaii, California, Idaho, Arizona, Oregon, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Nevada and Utah.

“My decorative art and colorist career is entirely self-taught, guided by nature and lessons from the river,” Stancil Levine said. “I relied — and still do rely on — my intuitive understanding of warm and cool, texture and pattern, and how they influence one’s experience of a room or building. Travel and challenging commissions throughout the U.S. and abroad have widened by view and informed my palette and style.”

Stancil Studios won the 2020 Julia Morgan Award for Historic Restoration of a Spanish Revival Residence and will be honored along with 2022 winners at a June 7 gathering at the Green Room at the War Memorial Building in San Francisco.

Saving Jack London State Historic Park

Stancil Levine’s experience with publications includes a stint as home and garden editor for Sacramento Magazine, having magazine articles and essays published in several literary magazines and the book, “Jack London State Historic Park,” from Arcadia Publishing.

She and her husband, Chuck Levine, purchased 14 acres adjacent to the state park in 2002 and later became board members of the Valley of the Moon Natural History Association, a nonprofit, all-volunteer association. At that time, the association’s mission was to provide information and stewardship about the history of the park. The signage and many programs were developed in tandem with California State Parks, but funding and outreach were not the focus.

“When CSP (California State Parks) slated three state parks (Jack London, Annadel and Sugarloaf) in our county to close, we joined with other park enthusiasts and stakeholders to form an action group, The Parks Alliance, with one staff member funded through Sonoma Land Trust, with the express purpose of determining and crafting the best solutions for each park,” Stancil Levine said.

Under Chuck’s direction, the board of Jack London Park Partners (JLPP), a management group, wrote and negotiated the first successful agreement to allow a nonprofit organization to operate a state park. Meanwhile, Elisa led the effort to raise funds for the park, and as vice president of the board was the site coordinator of the operations transition from the state to JLPP.

“When we took over, the park had been closed more days than it was open, and the restored cottage was not open to visitors, despite the multimillion-dollar restoration, simply because the state had no funds for staff,” Stancil Levine said.

The park now raises more than $1 million annually, with all funds designated for park operations, outreach and the deferred maintenance that threatens key natural resources.

Reach the reporter, Dan Johnson, at daniel.johnson@sonomanews.com.