Montage Healdsburg

Bungalows Set Into an Oak Hillside Above the Vines

Healdsburg sits where three Sonoma valleys meet, and the resort that carries its name is not in the town but above it, on a slope of oak woodland with vineyard running below. The accommodation is arranged as bungalows rather than as a building, low and wood-clad and spaced apart, so that arriving feels like being shown to a cabin rather than checked into a lobby. About a third of each one is given over to outdoor living: a terrace, a fire, a view down the hill. The architecture keeps out of the way. The landscape is what you came for, and the design knows it.

Why It Works

The outdoor third of each room is the whole argument. A dog in a wine-country resort spends most of its day outside, and here outside is part of the room rather than a walk away from it. The second reason is the policy, which is unusually explicit: dogs and cats up to forty-five pounds, two to a room, welcome across the outdoor areas and kept out of the pools, the restaurants and the spa. You know exactly what you are buying. The third is the kitchen. Hazel Hill cooks California with a French accent under an executive chef, and a resort that takes its restaurant seriously is a resort that will take the rest seriously too.

Why This Location

This is the top end of Sonoma, which is the working half of the California wine country and the half that still looks like farmland. Healdsburg town is minutes below, with its plaza, its bookshop and a cluster of tasting rooms you can reach on foot once you have parked. The Russian River runs nearby, and the Dry Creek and Alexander valleys open north and west. What the position gives is trails from the door, vineyard air and a town small enough to walk. What it asks is a car, and the acceptance that everything worth drinking is a short drive apart.

Fast Facts

• Price: Luxury

• Vibe: oak hillside, wood and glass, quietly Californian

• Rooms: a hundred and thirty bungalow guestrooms and suites, each giving roughly a third of its space to outdoor living

• Best For: couples with a dog, wine weekends, walkers who want a resort at the end of the trail

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the terrace that comes with every bungalow, which turns a resort stay into something a dog can actually share

• Dining: Hazel Hill for California cooking with a French accent, Scout Field Bar for cocktails, Hudson Springs Bar and Grill for seasonal seafood

• Amenities: Spa Montage, outdoor yoga in the vineyard, pool, fitness centre, hiking and cycling, private parking, dogs and cats up to forty-five pounds

• Attractions: Healdsburg plaza and its tasting rooms, the Dry Creek and Alexander valleys, the Russian River, the Sonoma coast to the west

Hazel Hill, Scout Field and the Grill

Three places to eat, and they do different jobs. Hazel Hill is the dining room, California produce handled with French technique under executive chef Sergio Howland, worth booking for the evening you are not driving. Scout Field Bar handles cocktails and the hours between. Hudson Springs Bar and Grill takes the poolside seafood shift. Dogs are not admitted to any of them, which is the trade for the terrace, so the practical pattern is one dinner in the room and one at the table.

The Spa, the Vineyard and the Trails

Spa Montage builds its treatments from the land around it, and the yoga happens outdoors among the vines rather than in a studio. Beyond that the resort leans on its acreage: walking and cycling routes across the property, archery, guided wine experiences, and enough oak woodland to make an early morning walk feel like countryside rather than grounds. That last point is the one that matters with a dog: there is somewhere to go before breakfast that is not a car park.

What to Know Before You Book

The weight limit is firm at forty-five pounds and there is a non-refundable pet charge per room, so confirm both when you reserve. Animals cannot be left alone in the bungalow or in public areas, and the leash rule is specific, which shapes how you plan dinner. And take the car: the valleys around Healdsburg are the reason to come, and they are all a few minutes apart.