Wine Country Lodging - Napa

Hennessey House, Napa

One of the most important decisions for me when planning a holiday is accommodation. I think the place you're bunking in can make or break your vacation, so when we planned to go to Napa, the wine growing region in the United States last November, I pored over Tripadvisor, travel blogs and Google for more than two weeks looking for the perfect place for our stay......and it sure paid off.

After all that research, I zeroed in on Hennessey House, a lovely bed and breakfast run by Lorri Walsh which got rave reviews. The place is a charming old world house with Victorian interiors and each room has a unique character, some with four poster beds and names like Mary Delight, Fox's Den, Pheasant Dreams, Duck Nook and Vintner's Trellis to name a few.

We stayed in a room called Lavender Lace and our friends stayed in Mary Delight. Our room had a four poster queen bed complete with drapes and a canopy and while I admit I wasn't too keen on a queen bed thinking it would be too constricted for the two of us, I had one of the best nights sleep there.

Lounging in Lavender Lace

What also helped was the fact that the rooms, instead of having a kettle with provisions for tea and coffee had instead a decanter of sherry with two glasses in keeping with the whole wine country atmosphere. Nice touch! 

The bathroom had a stained glass window and a boxy wooden flush above the commode with a chain that you needed to pull, which gave off the old world vibe perfectly. The place has since been renovated so might be a bit different than I described. The inn, located in a residential area is about a 10 minute walk from the Napa Wine Train station.

Mary Delight

However, the high point there was actually the service. We got so much more than we bargained for and every aspect of it was personalized. We arrived late around 5 p.m. driving in from San Francisco and were warmly welcomed by Lorri and Lynn. After dropping off our bags in the rooms we were treated to an evening feast on the dining table. 

Laid out on the dining table were three different bottles of wine, one red, one white and a rose, a cheese and fruit platter, and very refreshing water with cucumber and lime along with home made cookies. All on the house.

Last but not the Least

Breakfast the next morning had very nice coffee, even though I'm not much of a coffee drinker, teas of different kinds laid out, home made granola and breads laid out on the side table. The meal was personally made by Lorri and Lynn and served by them to all the diners. If the dining room gets full, guests are set up in the living room. We had a crystal goblet filled with freshly cut fruit placed in front of each of us and then plates with an artichoke omelet with asparagus on the side and a delicious muffin. 

There were two different types of butter on the table including maple butter and a foodie glutton like me just had to have it all! The coffee, the granola and, and, and. By the time I got up from the table, I was ready to explode. We also had to eat fast as we were running late to catch the wine train and then head out to Tomales Bay for the next leg of the trip. Our time at Hennessey House was so short and fleeting that it felt incomplete. 

While planning our trip my friend and I had a tussle about whether to spend two nights in Napa or two nights in Tomales Bay. I was pushing for more of Napa, but we went with Tomales Bay. We arrived at our`resort' which was more like a motel in the middle of nowhere, It was dark, our friends' room keys were taped to the window pane of the reception door in an envelope, and ours was nowhere to be seen.

 After calling our contact we found it had fallen on the floor. The place was so impersonal, and the exact opposite of our experience at Hennessey that we were quite depressed. We razzed our friend quite a bit for opting to spend more nights here. However, we got a ton of sightseeing done over the next day and a half which would never have happened otherwise and the motel grew on us by the second night so she was forgiven!

Still, Hennessey, the lovely bed and breakfast, run with so much warmth, care and thought is a destination in itself and should be savored for at least two or three days. I'll be back for sure.