Al and Esther Bojanower met and were married in Portland, Oregon at the beginning of the Great Depression; Esther a teacher and Al an engineer. They lived frugally through the years and were eventually transferred to southern California in the late 1930’s. Al started a successful business after WWII named Machinery Service Company, while Esther raised their two children; Audrey and Paul. Despite their growing success in family and business, both Al and Esther yearned to return to their roots in the Willamette Valley.

     They returned to Washington County during the summers of the late 1950’s. Armed with a compass they went from hill-top to hill-top looking for the perfect site of undeveloped timber land. In 1958 they came upon and purchased what would come to be affectionately called Madrona Hill Farm. Initially Al and Esther would spend their summers in a converted box car known as ”the little house”, which still exists today. Over the years Al built a road, drilled wells, and brought in power and eventually built a small home for friends and family to spend their summers.

     Al passed on in 1987, but Esther continued to return to their farm each summer where she practiced her passion for painting. Each year the extended family still gathers at the farm in early August for a reunion. After Esther’s passing in 2001, their son Paul took over responsibility for their 31-acre timber farm which by now was covered with towering Douglas fir. The timber industry was in decline when Paul harvested the farm so he looked to the thriving Pinot Noir country in Willamette Valley for a new direction for the farm.

     Since 2005, Paul has directed the development of the farm into a Pinot Noir vineyard of over 18-acres. The properties elevation of 420’-470‘and sloping terrain lend itself favorably to the production of grapes. This is a new chapter in the story of Al and Esther’s beloved farm and the beginning of what is now known as Madrona Hill Vineyard.