The feeling of being transported to an earlier and slower paced era in California’s history awoke as we walked up the creaky wooden plank steps of the Boonville Hotel in the Anderson Valley and entered the classic hotel, originally built in 1862 as an elegant stagecoach overnight for travelers heading to the towns of Mendocino and Fort Bragg. The interior was invitingly done in warm hues of mustard and lime and persimmon with large windows overlooking gardens of arbored vines framing flower and herb beds. France?… Italy?… Boonville?

Owner/chef Johnny Schmitt’s greeting, “Would you like lunch outside?” made me wonder if he could read my mind. I was ravenous.

“Would you fill this bowl with purple basil for the pasta?” Johnny asked, “it’s behind the hotel on the right side of the garden.”

So instead of unpacking my suitcase, I walked through French doors toward walls of green beans, hedges of basil, sprawling zucchini tendrils, and towering tomato vines. Around my head swarmed bumblebees and darting hummingbirds.

Not a bad way to find myself in the wine country! California now has several “Wine Countries,” with the Anderson Valley being the country cousin of Napa and Sonoma, but all the more delightful to me as the conga line of tourists on the weekends is missing.

Then it was time to enjoy the quiet of the cottage, finally unpack, and get in the gigantic hand-sculpted bathtub. My friend Delisa, who resembles a six-foot-tall Amazon goddess, exclaimed, “Even I fit in the tub!” And it was comfortable. Johnny said he spent quite awhile molding the right reclining angle in the tub by getting in it while the mud was still drying and laying against the clammy surface. Not many hotel owners go to those extremes to get it right. Johnny has decorated the hotel with a selective eye for clean creative lines softened by warm Mediterranean colors. Sprays of unusual flowers counterpoint the careful use of recycled industrial accents. No lacy doilies here!

The Boonville Hotel
Highway 128
Boonville, CA
(707) 895-2210
www.boonvillehotel.com
(Three hour drive north from San Francisco)