In July of 2025, Ian Tavelli, Brad Wilkinson, and John Hensley opened the doors of Mayacamas Lending Inc. at 3700 Montgomery Drive in Santa Rosa. A private lending firm rooted in Sonoma County, built to serve real estate entrepreneurs and the private lenders who fund them.
But this company did not start in 2025. Its roots run three generations deep in the Sonoma County community.
Sonoma County Roots
Ian’s grandpa and mentor, John H. Downey Jr., arrived in Santa Rosa in 1950 after serving as a merchant marine in World War II and spent the rest of his life building in Sonoma County. He ran Downey Tire Co. on Fourth Street for decades. He served on the City Council through the 1969 earthquake that reshaped downtown, and his colleagues elected him mayor twice, in 1971 and 1974. He co-founded National Bank of the Redwoods and served as its first chairman.
National Bank of the Redwoods, headquartered at 111 Santa Rosa Avenue, was known throughout Sonoma and Mendocino Counties as a business bank built for the local entrepreneur. It lent to the operators, the builders, and the small business owners doing the real work in their communities. It understood the borrower across the table because it was run by people who had been that borrower. Many in Sonoma County still remember it for exactly that reason.
John was also a devoted poker player, and he and Ian spent years at the table together, sharpening their skills at the 101 Casino in Petaluma. In 2009, John bought Ian into the World Series of Poker Main Event in Las Vegas. They both played. Ian, who was 21 at the time, walked away with $500,557. The lesson John instilled was not about cards. It was that skill, preparation, and discipline will outperform luck over time.
Building Mayacamas Lending
Ian invested his share of winnings, finished his degree in Global Business Finance at Arizona State University, and built a career in lending. He served as Assistant Vice President and Loan Officer at North Valley Bank, as Relationship Manager at Tri Counties Bank, and founded and scaled a family-owned collection agency. He then served as Director of Lending at Altus Capital Group, where he led the firm’s expansion into private credit.
As of 2026, Ian lives in Santa Rosa with his children, a few miles from where his grandpa had built his businesses. He partnered with Brad Wilkinson, owner of BW Co, a local Sonoma County real estate agency, and John Hensley, a lending professional with over 15 years of experience working for local banks. Together, they launched Mayacamas Lending. The company is named for the mountain range between Sonoma and Napa Counties. The Mayacamas are not the tallest peaks in California. But they are steady, enduring, and they define the landscape of this place.
What We Carry Forward
The values that guide how we lend were not invented for a website. They were inherited.
Protection: we structure for survival, not optimism. If a deal only works in a favorable market, we do not do it.
Truth: we tell the full story, including what can go wrong. No spin. No pressure. No hiding risk behind yield.
Alignment: we only partner where incentives and values match long term. If they diverge, we walk.
National Bank of the Redwoods was built on the belief that a lender should understand the borrower’s world because it operates in the same one. Mayacamas Lending was built on the same belief. The institution is different. The principle is the same.
John H. Downey Jr. passed away in 2016 at the age of 91, at home in the city he helped rebuild. Today, Mayacamas Lending sits a few miles from where Downey Tire Co. once stood on Fourth Street and where National Bank of the Redwoods once operated on Santa Rosa Avenue. The proximity is not a coincidence. Neither is the approach.
The work continues.
