A landmark inn and quiet luxury amid splendors of redwood country

It was well after 11 on a cool spring night by the time my husband, Paul, and I, along with friends from the Bay area, Fritz and Anne Kasten, pulled up to the Applewood Inn in the Russian River Valley. We were tired from the two-hour drive from the San Francisco Airport where the Kastens met us: through San Francisco, over the Golden Gate Bridge and past wall-to-wall Marin County suburbs on U.S. 101, then onto California 116, which winds through Sonoma Valley farmland into redwood country. Jim Caron, one of the innkeepers, had waited up for us (everyone--guests and staff included--retires early at this quiet country inn). Caron led us through the box-beam-ceilinged parlor of the historic building, which was built in 1922 as the home for a leading banking family in nearby Guerneville.

Downstairs, Paul’s and my room was done in warm green tones and dark woods. At one end was a curved, low-ceilinged sitting area; at the other, an inviting antique cherrywood sleigh bed. The Kastens’ room was across a courtyard with fountain in the seven-suite Piccola Casa, which Caron and his partner, Darryl Notter, added to the inn last year.

In addition to a four-poster bed, the Kastens’ room had a fireplace, a double-size “couples” shower and a “Juliet” balcony. (Room rates run $125 to $250, including breakfast, plus tax.) We were pleased with the 16-room inn’s cozy, non-fussy charm, but it wasn’t until the next morning, in the brilliant sunshine, that we could appreciate its spectacular setting. Groves of 100-foot-tall redwood trees shade the original building and the Piccola Casa, both of which are solidly built in California Mission Revival style with pitched, red-tiled roofs, salmon-pink stucco walls and dark-green wood trim.

Mediterranean-style gardens provide serene sitting areas on the landscaped hillside; a pool-and-hot-tub patio offers vistas of distant redwood-covered mountains and verdant pastures. And in the 12 years they’ve operated the inn, Caron and Notter have planted its six surrounding acres with apple and pear orchards, roses, azaleas and rhododendrons. After breakfast in the inn’s solarium--fresh strawberries and delicious buttermilk pancakes--Fritz, Anne, Paul and I climbed into the Kastens’ Volvo to explore a corner of California that Paul and I had never seen. Two minutes north of the inn, we crossed the Russian River into Guerneville, which, Notter explained, was a leading summer vacation spot for San Franciscans in the 1920s, when there were more than 200 resorts and four ballrooms that attracted big-name bands. Hard to believe. Today, the town has a handful of bars and a throwback ‘70s feel. We poked around a used-book store, then Anne and I homed in on North Coast Mercantile, a funky shop stocked with esoteric gifts and antique kitchenware from the ‘50s.

A short detour off 116 took us to Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve, a 700-acre state park that, according to Caron, offers more and bigger redwood trees--and many fewer visitors--than Muir Woods near San Francisco. Instead of going for a hike, however, we decided to drive along the Russian River to the coast. At first the highway wound through shadowy redwood groves and past ramshackle vacation cottages. We spotted weekenders canoeing and fishing in the river’s muddy waters. Twenty minutes later, the redwoods gave way to rolling green hills frosted with purple lupine and white Queen Anne’s lace, and, finally, the rugged Sonoma coast.

The fog held back just long enough for us to enjoy the scenery for another 15 minutes en route to Bodega Bay, a town perhaps best known as the setting for Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.” In fact, photos of the legendary filmmaker and his mechanical crows decorate the knotty-pine walls of the Tides Restaurant on the boat landing, where we stopped for fresh Dungeness crab cocktails and fish chowder.

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After lunch, we took a leisurely inland route, driving past emerald-green pastures where cattle and sheep grazed, and ancient redwood groves barely penetrated by sunlight. Since we had admired the gardens at the inn, Notter suggested we stop at the Sonoma Horticultural Society Nursery and Gardens, near Sebastopol.

An anomaly in the midst of the surrounding open farmland, it is a 7 1/2-acre tangle of brilliantly hued rhododendrons and azaleas, interspersed with streams, bowers and gazebos, and bordered by regal blue, purple and yellow irises.

Later, driving back to the Applewood, we passed a number of inns, B&Bs; and motels--not one even remotely as charming and refined as where we were staying. Another reason we wanted to spend a weekend at the inn was because in February Caron and Notter lured chef David Frakes, who worked with Gary Danko at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Dining Room in San Francisco, to prepare gourmet dinners here. (The dining room is open to the public and serves dinner Tuesday through Saturday.) After a quick nap, a shower and a glass of Russian River Valley Chardonnay in the garden, we were ready for a genteel dining experience.

The four-course $37.50 prix-fixe dinner began with an anise-seed-spiked melange of chopped roasted fennel, eggplant and carrots, or curry-scented fresh vegetable soup, followed by a green salad brightened with mango and goat cheese.

The entrees included a delicately seared filet of halibut napped by artichoke-and-pepper ragout, lusty ricotta gnocchi tossed with beans, corn, tomato and Parmesan cheese, and a crisp duck breast in a blackberry-basil essence.

For dessert, it was a tough choice between the caramelized-apple cheesecake with strawberry-rhubarb coulis, and the fresh fruit sorbets with candied kumquats in a lace-cookie tulipe. That night, when we retired to our down comforter-covered sleigh bed, Paul and I felt as pampered and satisfied as we would have at a Michelin one- or two-star inn/restaurant in France.

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Budget for Two

Round-trip air fare: $189.00

Applewood, 2 nights including tax and breakfast: 403.00

Lunch, Bodega Bay: 15.50

Dinner: 75.00

Gasoline: 18.09

FINAL TAB: $700.59

Applewood Inn, 3555 California Highway 116, Guerneville, CA 95446; telephone (707) 869-9093, fax (707) 869-9170.