Valerie / Mendo Made

Some Mendocino buildings still look like they were built for practical village work first, then slowly talked into becoming something more creative.

Overview

Valerie and Mendo Made occupy adjoining parts of an unusually interesting historic property on Lansing Street.

Valerie is currently identified at 10546 Lansing Street. It has become part boutique, part gathering place and part event space, combining curated clothing, vintage pieces, vinyl records and other goods with pop-ups, live music, movement classes, film screenings and community events. Recent listings describe it as a boutique and community space rather than simply a conventional retail store.

Mendo Made is closely associated with the property but is now listed at 10550 Lansing Street, immediately next door. It has been described as a seasonal market or collective featuring goods made by local artists and craftspeople, including clothing, ceramics, food products and other Mendocino-area creations.

What looks today like a collection of creative shops and gathering spaces sits on ground with a much older commercial story.

Location

The property is on Lansing Street near Little Lake and Calpella streets.

County records identify the larger historic parcel as APN 119-160-31. That parcel is more complicated than a single storefront: historical records identify several buildings and former uses within it, including the Mendosa Warehouse, Pete Anderson House, Village Spirits and a smaller warehouse-related building.

That also helps explain a community recollection that this location should be associated with Calpella Street as well as Lansing Street. The rear and north side of the property reach toward Calpella Street, and the county's updated historic inventory specifically identifies a smaller north addition to the Mendosa Warehouse as being on the Calpella Street side.

History

The strongest historical discovery is that the plain warehouse appearance is not accidental.

Mendocino County's updated inventory of historic structures identifies the main building at 10546 Lansing Street as the Mendosa Warehouse and gives its earliest documented year as 1901.

Even more interesting, the inventory says it was originally built as a billiard hall and saloon for “Tivoli Pete.” The citation used by the county is the Mendocino Beacon of July 13, 1901.

So this was not originally a quiet warehouse at all. It began life connected to Mendocino's saloon and entertainment trade at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The same historic property also includes the Pete Anderson House, identified by the county as a Category I historic structure. Its earliest documented year is 1900, and county records note that its site had previously been associated with the Mansion House Hotel.

The warehouse evolved over time.

A smaller addition facing the Calpella Street side appears in aerial documentation by 1957. Another small building associated with the property was built as an office for McDonnell's lumber yard and was later home to Melody's Cookies during the 1970s.

That mix of uses — saloon, warehouse, lumber-related activity, food production and retail — helps explain why the property has the slightly improvised collection-of-buildings character it still carries.

More recent county records preserve another familiar name: Village Spirits.

A 2023 Mendocino Historical Review Board report lists Village Spirits as one of the structures on the 10546 Lansing Street property. That fits especially well with one community memory describing this location simply and affectionately as “the beer store,” while another remembered how much of a treat it was to go inside back in the day.

The property has hosted many other small Mendocino businesses over the years. Historical Review Board records document signs or improvements associated with Voodoo Ink, Bloom Skin Care, Anderson Alternatives, Mears, Southern Exposure, Mendo Insider Tours and This n That, among others.

Another substantial change began in 2023.

Plans submitted to the Mendocino Historical Review Board proposed removing old barn doors, adding windows and a new entrance, replacing portions of siding and changing the corrugated roof to composite roofing. The Review Board approved the work in December 2023, finding that the alterations were compatible with the historic district and the existing structures.

By 2025 and 2026, Valerie had emerged as much more than a shop.

It has hosted concerts, fundraisers, community gatherings and film programs. In May 2026, for example, Valerie collaborated with the Mendocino Art Center on a participatory screening of Brokeback Mountain. Other recent events have included live music and community fundraising dinners.

Mendo Made adds another layer to that continuing story. Recent descriptions place the local-makers collective at 10550 Lansing Street beside Valerie, with locally produced clothing, ceramics, crafts and food products.

So the building's modern creative life is not really a break with its past.

For more than a century, this little corner has adapted to whatever Mendocino needed at the time — billiard hall and saloon, warehouse, lumber-related space, cookie operation, liquor store, small shops, market, event venue and gathering place.

The names have changed considerably.

The usefulness of the place has not.