LOWER LAKE, Calif. — After seven years of planning and work, a new upscale camping experience is open and welcoming visitors to Lake County.

Huttopia Wine Country, located at 13444 Spruce Grove Road in Lower Lake, is the newest hospitality offering in Lake County.

It’s located at Six Sigma Ranch and Winery, owned by Kaj and Elise Ahlmann and their family, but run by Huttopia, a company based in France with locations worldwide.

Six Sigma, tucked into the oak woodlands between Lower Lake and Middletown, can feel like a world apart, with its rolling hills and valleys, and unique microclimates.

Now, the 4,300-acre property, home to winegrapes and cattle, is also now dotted with new tents that are part of Huttopia's particular style of camping.

These aren’t the tents of old, but modern creations, with names like “Trappeur Pacific,” “Trappeur Pacific” and “Canadienne Pacific” that recall the history of French trappers in the American West.

The tents are specially fabricated in France to quality specifications and then brought to the site for setup “like Legos,” Kaj Ahlmann said.

Ranging in size from 350 to 425 square feet, they can house two to five people, with full-sized beds and, in some units, additional bunk beds, plus a sitting area with a ceiling fan, kitchenette, and a deck with a barbecue.

They are self-contained, featuring rooftop solar panels that run lighting and, in some of the tents, refrigeration units.

Some of the tents also feature their bathrooms, and so have accompanying septic tanks. Other tents share communal bathrooms.

“It fits the ranch so well,” said Ahlmann.

Huttopia Wine Country features 63 upscale tents; a main lodge situated on a hilltop with events, games and food; hiking and biking trails; bikes for rent; a brand new large swimming pool and playground; and a bistro with a pizza oven. It’s a pet-friendly facility with access to all of the winery’s existing amenities.

It also includes plenty of Six Sigma’s cows, some of whom like to wander through the campsites, grazing on the knee-high wild grasses. Some have been known to mosey in to join the move night held in a field near the main lodge.

Seven years of effort

Ahlmann said bringing Huttopia to Lake County was an effort seven years in the making.

Now, “All of a sudden, it’s standing here — right in front of me,” he said to a group of community leaders and visitors who came for a Friday grand opening reception at the main lodge, a brand new structure with an American West feel.

On hand for the reception were Philippe and Celine Bossanne, who founded Huttopia in 1999, setting up their first camping facility focusing on families in the Alps. Later, they came to North America, first opening camps in Canada.

When they came to the United States, their first camping facility was at Paradise Springs in Los Angeles County.

Today, they have 1,800 employees across 104 camps in nine countries. The newest country to join the Huttopia fold is Sweden, where a new camp has been set up in the north of the country.

Six Sigma is the second Huttopia site in California. Philippe Bossanne said they think California loves their way of camping.

As a result, Bossanne said a third site is in the works on Catalina Island.

District 1 Supervisor Moke Simon, who Ahlmann credited for his support of the project, attended the reception, taking time to come and offer his support before heading off to fulfill his coaching obligations at a high school football game.

“I love visionaries,” said Simon. “I love people who follow through with a dream.”

He recalled first hearing about the idea and, hearkening to his tribal heritage, likened the project to taking a piece of obsidian and turning it into a spearhead to provide for one’s family.

Simon said it’s necessary to embrace and understand new ideas, and he thanked Ahlmann, whose stewardship of the land he also lauded.

“Lake County is the most beautiful place in California and you couldn’t tell me any different,” Simon said.

He added, “Lake County is putting a stake in the ground and staying, ‘We’re here, come and see us.’”

He said he’s looking forward to bringing his two grandchildren for a stay at the camp.

Asked how he thinks they’ll like the pool, he said, “They’ll love it.”

Making a change

In 1999, the same year that the Bossannes started their glamping adventure, Ahlmann — a Danish native who came to the United States with his family — began his own search.

He had built a respected career in the quality management industry and rose to the top of the corporate leadership of General Electric’s Reinsurance division. However, he decided he wanted to make a change, one that would ultimately lead him to apply Six Sigma quality principles to winemaking.

Ahlmann said he began looking for land in Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties, but didn’t find what he wanted.

Then a real estate agent called him and asked if he would like to see a ranch in Lake County. He said, sure, but he didn’t know where Lake County was.

Ahlmann came to see the property, and there he met the owner — Russell Rustici, a bachelor rancher who had owned the property for 33 years.

Rustici took him for a three-hour tour of the land before asking if he would like to take it. Ahlmann said he needed to know if wife Elise would approve; when imaging a piece of land, she had been thinking more like 10 acres, not 4,300 acres.

Elise Ahlmann clearly approved, because they purchased the land. Rustici moved to Clearlake but, according to a story on the Six Sigma website, he kept a few cattle on the ranch so he could remain chairman of the Cattlemen’s Association.

Rustici, who died in 2008 at age 84, also was a philanthropist. His legacy includes donations to the University of California that established a scholarship program, a rangeland and cattle research and outreach support program, and three perpetually funded rangeland faculty positions.

Closer to home, he donated $300,000 to Carle Continuation High School. Today, the county park at 16375 Second St. in Lower Lake is named in his honor.

Finding a special place

Like Ahlmann’s search years before, about seven years ago the Bossannes were on the lookout for a special place in California for another glamping site. They sent one of their staffers to find that location, and he came to Lake County. When he came across Six Sigma, it was exactly what they wanted.

Within three weeks, the Bossannes had come to meet the Ahlmanns to begin discussing plans. “Working with Huttopia is a special experience,” Kaj Ahlmann said.

Philippe Bossanne said they want to set up in beautiful, natural places. When they found Six Sigma, he said, it was, “like, wow!”

Even with the COVID-19 pandemic landing in the middle of the work, and the heavy rain and snow earlier this year, the project moved forward.

Bossanne also spoke of the partnership with Six Sigma, which is unlike the company’s efforts elsewhere.

“This is an adventure,” Bossanne said.

Both the Ahlmanns and Bossannes have businesses in which family is important.

At Six Sigma’s camp, Huttopia has appointed the husband and wife team of Fabrice and Emmanuelle Masson to manage the site.

The French natives joined the company in 2018, working first at sites in France and, more recently, at East Coast locations in Maine, New Hampshire and New York.

Emmanuelle Masson said they were looking forward to coming to California. “We were waiting for this one,” she said of Huttopia Wine Country.

Masson said she and her husband are enjoying the friendly atmosphere of Lake County and looking forward to exploring it more in the months ahead.

Hospitality is an important part of Huttopia, and the Massons exemplify that. On Friday evening, they were busy serving at the reception, taking people on golf cart tours of the property and stopping in to check on campers.

As the evening drew on, and more visitors showed up for a camping weekend — some with children in tow, some with dogs, some with both — Emmanuelle Masson was busy loading suitcases into her golf cart to help people to their campsites, as cars are not allowed to drive into the clusters of tents.

While the opening reception was Friday afternoon, Huttopia opened on June 30. Masson said they have received very good feedback from visitors in these first three months of operation.

Huttopia will remain open for another month before it closes for the winter, she said.

Ahlmann said that, over the winter, they plan to give staff a break.

While Huttopia is on its winter break, the next phase of construction will take place.

Additions will include a conference tent that will seat up to 52 people. It’s being manufactured in South Africa by a company that makes such tents for safaris, Ahlmann said.

He said there also will be another 40 or so tent units constructed for visitors which will open up next year.

On a tour of the property, Masson pointed out the area where the next phase of tents will go, across the winery’s interior road from the current tent sites.

Ahlmann said Six Sigma’s contract calls for a full capacity of 150 tent units.

“So far, so good,” he said.

For more information

Huttopia Wine Country
13444 Spruce Grove Road, Lower Lake, CA 95457
Telephone: 707-461-0740
Web: https://canada-usa.huttopia.com/en/site/wine-country/?gclid=CjwKCAjw69moBhBgEiwAUFCx2Lj4wIRzmYdaGFVOhUYND029GROZmPqVQfKqYiceG38n_coiT_9pOhoC4kIQAvD_BwE
Rates depend on size of tent and bathroom amenities, and days of the week.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.