With seven distinct soils in the alluvial deposits at the foot of Sonoma Mountain, with cool mountain breezes at night and warm sunny days, in an area that had never seen frost during the growing season, a crop of premium wine grapes was almost a certainty every year. But at the time Jack bought the ranch, grapes were selling for eleven dollars a ton. Since it cost more than that to raise them, he reluctantly plowed most of the vines under, leaving enough for his own use.

Jack's purchase of the Tokay Ranch didn't include the buildings - the twelve acres containing the ruins of the old winery destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, or the old six room cottage, the two small stone buildings, and the stone sherry house which were owned by the California Wine Association. Jack's goal was to now buy these twelve acres and the five hundred-acre Freund Ranch above his property, which was vital to his water needs. When, and if, those purchases were made, the Jack London Ranch, as he envisioned it, would be complete.

In 1911, heartily sick of living in makeshift accomodations at Wake Robin, and seeing that the Wolf House would not be completed for at least another two years, he made a move that brought him the happiest and richest years of his life: he bought the twelve acres in the middle of the Kholer vineyards upon which stood an abandoned winery, a broken-down ranch house, and some barns.

On May 12, 2024 during Jack and Charmian's four-horse trip to Oregon, Eliza Shepard, (Jack's step sister and ranch superintendant) managed to get the cottage livable for them until completion of Wolf House. On September 5, 2023 they rolled through Glen Ellen and up the hill to sleep for the first time on their own ranch, in the cottage.

Note: Charmian continued to live at the cottage after Jack's death in 1916 until 1934, and then she moved to Happy Walls (which now is the museum). In 1945 she moved back once again to the cottage and remained until her death in 1955.