A new winery is coming to the area, after Clackamas County’s approval last week of an application to turn a former farm store on Butteville Road into a large winemaking facility and tasting room.
The site is the former location of the Farm Store Outlet, a farmers market, bakery and farm store that closed years ago just west of the Canby/Charbonneau exits on I-5. The 18-acre property is now owned by Bob Lanphere Jr., of Lanphere Construction and Development, who also owns a number of new and used car and motorcycle dealerships in Beaverton and Newberg.
Lanphere said at the hearing that he planned to take a “little bit” of a step back from the car business if his vision for “Butteville Road Winery” was approved.
As he jokingly explained to the county hearings officer, he was “coerced” into trying his hand at wine-growing and winemaking by his friend and Hillsboro neighbor, Steve Hendricks, of Ruby Vineyard & Winery.
The property has several existing structures that the winery plans to use, including a 10,000-square-foot facility that would be used for wine production and processing, a 4,250-square-foot building that would be converted into a tasting room, and a barn that would be primarily used to store vineyard equipment.
Lanphere said he plans to source grapes from his own land, at least to start with. As you heard, he has several acres of grapes planted at his property in Hillsboro. There are also five acres of grapes that have already been planted at Butteville Road, with two more acres planned.
If the operation grows, Lanphere said he will also source grapes from Ruby Vineyard, as well as several other wine-growing operations in the Laurelview area.
They anticipate approximately six employees to be on-site at any given time, to manage the vineyard, make wine and staff the tasting room, which would be open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week. They expect the traffic impact to be roughly half of what had previously been approved for the farm store.
Wayne Richards, a Charbonneau resident, had a couple of questions about the development. But overall, he said he and his neighbors are impressed with the plans for the long-defunct property.
The timeline for the project has not yet been made known. But one member of the team who also spoke at the meeting, Doug Lanphere, said they look forward to being a positive and supportive member of the rural but tight-knit community that is Charbonneau and the French Prairie area.
To read the full decision by the county hearings officer, as well as the conditions placed on the project, click here.
