Graziano Perozzi
was born in Italy and studied in the culinary academies of Rome, Nice,
Sardinia, Canterbury, and Lausanne before bringing "Cucina Italiana" to the
Wickersham Building in 1982, one of Petaluma's landmark buildings.
The Wickersham Building at 170 Petaluma Boulevard North, has a history as
rich and varied as the cuisine at Graziano's Ristorante. The building
(featuring twenty-inch thick brick walls) was constructed in the 1850's by
the attorney, banker, and cattleman Issac Wickersham. Mr. Wickersham built
the first bank in Petaluma and was a member of the group that constructed
the building which is now a part of the Great Petaluma Mill shopping
complex. The Wickersham Building was originally used for feed storage and
was an integral part of Petaluma's thriving nineteenth-century river trade.
The building has also housed Petaluma's first telephone exchange, a
furniture store, a dentist, a beauty salon, a Chinese restaurant, and a
silent movie theatre. In 1917 a fire gutted the 13,000 square foot building,
but was quickly rebuilt and became home for Ben Franklin's Five-and-Dime and
J.C. Penny's. It's been rumored that speakeasy thrived in the building
during Prohibition and at various times a red light burned in an upstairs
window. In 1958 Beasley's Restaurant opened and served three meals a
day in the Wickersham until 1979. The building was renovated in 1980, and
features a unique method of earthquake protection. An epoxy resin was used
when bolting the walls - the resin provides the needed strength and
flexibility, eliminating the need for unsightly steel beams.