A life-size bronze bench featuring Robert Louis Stevenson, his wife Fanny, and their dog Chuchu is set to take its place at the historic Calistoga Depot on November 7, inviting visitors to sit beside the literary couple rather than look up at them from below. The $210,000 monument caps seven years of planning and fundraising meant to connect the depot's visitors with the town's literary roots, according to Fine Books & Collections.
The project traces back to Eric Hanson, who formed the nonprofit Robert Louis Stevenson Public Art Project and helped raise the full $210,000 commission, as reported by the Sacramento Bee. Hanson's idea for a bench, rather than a traditional elevated statue, reportedly grew out of a small, almost offhand moment: he once noticed neighborhood boys sitting on his fence and, worried it would collapse, brought them chairs instead. Per the Bee's account, that simple fix evolved into his vision for the Stevenson monument — a seating arrangement meant to draw people in rather than hold them at a distance.
A Sacramento Sculptor's Hands-On Process
Sculptor Garr Ugalde, who has been based in Sacramento since 1993, built the bench figures by hand in clay before using 3D scanning and digital enlargement to produce hollow, foundry-ready forms for bronze casting — a process that streamlined the traditional manual enlargement and mold-making steps, according to the Scottish Banner. Ugalde has said the digital scanning allowed his hand-worked model to serve directly as the basis for the final foundry sculpture, the outlet reports.
Ugalde's portfolio in the Sacramento area includes a bronze cast of a tree slice displayed at Cesar Chavez Plaza, created in collaboration with Kerry Crutcher, who died in 2023, according to the Sacramento Bee. That tree-slice artwork features dates marking tree rings alongside notable world events, and former Sacramento mayor Heather Fargo has said the piece adds playful, interesting qualities to the city and serves as a source of civic pride, per the same account. Ugalde has also built a reputation for interactive, narrative-driven public art beyond Sacramento's core, including the 2022 debut of “Spirit Wings,” a $40,000 seven-piece installation along K Street and the Old Sacramento Waterfront that was co-created with Phil Tretheway, as detailed by CBS News.
How Fanny Stevenson Earned Her Seat
Ugalde initially planned to exclude Fanny Stevenson from the monument altogether, according to the Sacramento Bee. That changed after Ugalde and Hanson attended a reading of Camille Peri's dual biography, A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson, at the Robert Louis Stevenson Silverado Museum in St. Helena, an event that the Bee reports led the pair to revise the plan and include Fanny in the design. Peri's book, published by Viking in August 2024, re-evaluated Fanny's influence as a writer, editor, and creative partner during the couple's travels, according to Penguin Random House, which notes Fanny was a Nevada silver miner's wife ten years Stevenson's senior when they met in France in 1876.
The couple honeymooned near the abandoned Silverado mine in 1880, a stay that inspired Stevenson's 1883 travel memoir The Silverado Squatters and is credited with bringing attention to Calistoga, per the Sacramento Bee. The mine was already a failed operation by the time the Stevensons arrived, and Stevenson reportedly interviewed locals about why it had shut down while exploring the site himself. Dean Enderlin has said Stevenson described one tunnel as resembling a treasure grotto from a pirate's hoard, the Bee reports — a detail tied to the same honeymoon that is said to have set Treasure Island in motion.
A Years-Long Search for the Right Site
Before settling on Calistoga, Ugalde considered installing the monument in St. Helena, with discussions there lasting about a year and ultimately delaying the project by more than a year, Ugalde has said, according to the Bee. The nearby Sharpsteen Museum declined to host the piece because it was too large for a suitable location on its grounds, per the same report. The Stevensons had originally arrived at the Calistoga Depot before continuing on to the Silverado mine, making the depot a historically fitting final home for the sculpture.
Built in 1868 by Napa Valley Railroad founder Sam Brannan, the Calistoga Depot is California's second-oldest remaining train station, designated California Historical Landmark No. 687 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as previously reported by Hoodline. The station served as the Napa Valley Railroad's northern terminus until passenger service ended in 1929. Hanson has said Calistoga likes public art but has nothing quite like this monument, per the Sacramento Bee.
A Complicated Commercial Backdrop
The depot's commercial status has been in flux this year. Owner Michael Madden temporarily paused dining and bar operations across most of the complex in March, roughly two years after a major overhaul by the Boisset Collection had reopened the site with themed bars and restored parlor railcars, though the Wine Collective and Earth & Sky Chocolates have continued operating throughout, Hoodline previously reported. That pause has also factored into broader coverage of Calistoga's downtown commercial shifts this year.
Stevenson's Napa Valley legacy already extends well beyond the depot. The nonprofit Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in nearby St. Helena, founded in 1969 by bibliophiles Norman and Charlotte Strouse, holds more than 9,000 items and represents the largest publicly accessible collection of Stevenson manuscripts, letters, and personal artifacts in the world, according to the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum. The museum's core collection began with an 800-item donation that included first editions of The Silverado Squatters. Stevenson is also commemorated today through the Silverado Trail and Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, which preserves the Mount St. Helena slopes where the couple honeymooned at an abandoned silver mine bunkhouse while Stevenson sought relief from chronic respiratory illness, per Visit Napa Valley. The region's enduring tie to his words lives on in the oft-repeated Napa Valley tagline, “and the wine is bottled poetry,” drawn directly from The Silverado Squatters, according to the Sacramento Bee.
The new bronze bench, formally titled as a depiction of Stevenson, Fanny, and Chuchu seated together, is scheduled for dedication at the Calistoga Depot on November 7.
