Inglenook

As ship’s captain, Gustave Niebaum sails into San Francisco Bay, after traveling throughout Alaska and its surrounding islands, with a cargo of fur hides and sealskins worth $600,000, a fortune at the time.

He settles in San Francisco and, along with several partners, founds the Alaska Commercial Company, which establishes trading posts and shipping lines in Alaskan territory. Within a decade of leaving Finland, Niebaum is a multi-millionaire with a refined taste for life and a dream of building an American winery to rival the great chateaus of Europe.