Inn of redwood is a cut above
Barry Stone visits a craftsman-style bed and breakfast
in northern California that’s one of a kind.
If you’re an egret or spotted owl and your habitat includes
Mendocino County in northern California, I know a great place to
stay. The birdhouses are handmade from eco-salvaged redwoods;
there’s your own personal wetlands restoration project to snack in;
and there are state forests on one side and the Pacific Ocean on
the other with three ponds and two streams set in more than four
hectares of sophistication and tranquillity. Welcome to Brewery
Gulch Inn.
Humans like it too. In 2004, it was voted favourite Californian
inn on iLoveinns.com.
The inn’s pedigree stretches back 150 years to the time of the
gold rush and the taming of the frontier. Brewery Gulch Inn began
with a chance meeting at a local pub. In 1995, surgeon and
self-confessed “wood freak” Dr Arky Ciancutti was sharing a drink
with two Arkansas lumberjacks in Dick’s Place, a bar in the coastal
hot spot of Mendocino.
The lumberjacks had been earthquake-proofing a bridge over
nearby Big River and mentioned how, after drilling to a depth of 12
metres, they were surprisingly bringing up wood shavings.
Within months, Ciancutti and another Mendocino local began
hand-winching redwoods from the depths of Big River.
Redwoods, particularly virgin redwoods, are a big deal in
America. There aren’t too many left and you’re liable to be
arrested if you cut them down. And the timber is more expensive
than most metals.
So what do you do if you dredge up a small forest of redwoods
from the depths of a local riverbed and air-dry it for three years?
You build an inn with it, of course.
Fast-forward to 2001 and Brewery Gulch is selected as Inn Of The
Month in the November issue of Travel %26amp; Leisure
magazine. The following year it is voted one of American Historic
Inns’ “Ten Most Romantic Inns”.
More a luxury boutique hotel than a traditional bed and
breakfast, its 10 rooms are named after birds and trees of the
region. All have ocean views and are filled with craftsman-style
furniture, down-filled comforters and gas-lit fireplaces.
The inn is spared harsh coastal winds by a surrounding wall of
old-growth Douglas firs and looks out over Smuggler’s Cove, a
drop-off point for illegal liquor during Prohibition. Deer
regularly wander in from the surrounding state forest to graze on
the inn’s Dutch white clover, and Ciancutti boasts you can walk
inland for 80 kilometres all the way to Ukiah and not see a single
house.
Local wines and hors d’oeuvres are served daily in the Great
Room, the inn’s common area where the focal point is a massive
567-kilogram stainless-steel fireplace with exposed welding, built
by Fort Bragg artisan Chris van Peer. Lowered in through the roof
during construction, Ciancutti described the operation as every bit
as delicate as hand-winching the redwoods from the brine of Big
River.
The wood is everywhere in subtle, variegated shades of cinnamon,
burgundy and even blonde, made possible by 150 years of
mineralisation ensuring the woodwork and unique ambience of the inn
can never be duplicated. Local craftsmen lined up to show off their
skills, thrilled by a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with
wood of such calibre.
Its deployment throughout the inn is exquisitely appropriate and
almost reverential. You’ll find it on the banisters and as
surrounds on bathroom vanities and baths. Every window in every
room is framed in it, as are all the mirrors, the inn’s double
entry doors, its french doors, and the soaring panelling in the
Great Room.
Breakfast is complimentary and is prepared and served in the
Great Room by French-trained chef Jeffrey Neumeier. Local growers
provide him with produce such as wild mushrooms and berries foraged
from the surrounding woods.
The inn is a California Certified Organic Farm and the only one
in the state that doubles as a B%26amp;B-hotel - herbs are grown in
its wetlands restoration project and eggs with deep yellow yolks
come from organically fed hens. All breads, muffins and pastries
are made in-house.
Surrounded on three sides by the Pacific Ocean, Mendocino is a
state preservation district, with most buildings dating from the
late 1800s. The old days of providing timber for a burgeoning San
Francisco are long gone. An artist’s colony since the 1950s, its
five square blocks are a refreshingly low-key mix of restaurants,
home stays, art galleries and cafes.
Big River itself is easily explored by foot, kayak or bicycle,
and its 2995 hectares of watershed are home to 22 species of fish
and 131 species of birds. Emptying into the Pacific Ocean just
south of town, it is the longest, undeveloped navigable estuary
remaining in northern California.
Neumeier will even provide one of his romantic picnic lunches to
sustain you as you step back in time, walking the riverbank in
search of a 150-year-old splitting log, a rusted jackscrew, or a
raker saw’s broken tooth - relics perhaps of the humble origins of
this extraordinary little inn.
The writer was a guest of the Brewery Gulch Inn.
TRIP NOTES
Getting there: Hawaiian Airlines and Northwest
Airlines fly to San Francisco via Honolulu. Prices start from $1653
including taxes. Phone Escape Travel on 1300799783. Mendocino is
about four hours’ drive north of San Francisco.
Staying there: Brewery Gulch Inn is at 9401
Coast Highway One North, Mendocino, California. Rooms from $US170
($192) per night. For bookings, email innkeeper@brewerygulchinn.com
or visit http://www.brewerygulchinn.com.
More information: Visit http://www.mendocino.org for details
on where to eat and what to see in the Mendocino County area.
Source: The Sun-Herald
Posted
on
Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 12:12 am under