St Helena hotels collection

St Helena was built on a Mexican land grant, awarded to an English surgeon, Edward Bale, when California was not yet American. The Napa Valley narrows here between the Mayacamas and the Vaca Mountains, and rows of vines fill its whole floor. The Pope Street Bridge crosses the Napa River on three stone arches. Further up the valley, Bale's mill still turns its great wheel with water from the creek, in a valley that long ago preferred grapes to wheat.