Telling the story of Mendocino County’s largest natural lake took a bit of magic

MENDOCINO CO., 12/10/25 — As author Dot Brovarney says, many people who’ve lived their entire lives in Ukiah have never heard of Lake Leonard, an 18-acre natural lake located on the 4,000-acre privately owned Leonard Lake Reserve. To get to the reserve, which once shared a border with Willits’ Ridgewood Ranch of Seabiscuit fame, one needs to travel 45 minutes through rugged Reeves Canyon, west of U.S. Highway 101 and Redwood Valley.

The reserve rents out a refurbished barn, historic house and several other buildings to groups but that was not Brovarney’s interest: in researching the archives of the Grace Hudson Museum, she found a photograph that kick-started a cascade of serendipitous events, culminating in Brovarney’s 2022 book, “Mendocino Refuge: Lake Leonard & Reeves Canyon.”