SUITESPOT HARMON GUEST HOUSE.
Many credit Hotel Healdsburg, which opened in 2001, for putting the small ranching town on the map of internationally renowned tourist destinations. The posh 55-room hotel, which faces Healdsburg Plaza and houses Charlie Palmer’s acclaimed Dry Creek Kitchen and the Spa Hotel Healdsburg, attracted so many visitors that by 2010 its founders opened a second, somewhat more affordable inn down the block: the 36-room, environmentally friendly H2hotel, home to hip Spoonbar restaurant.
Piazza Hospitality, the Healdsburg firm that built and manages the lodgings, along with Spoonbar and Hotel Healdsburg’s newer Pizzando pizzeria, now plans to open an equally sustainable third hotel in May, just two doors north of H2hotel on Healdsburg Avenue. The 39-room Harmon Guest House bears the name of town founder Harmon Heald, who literally put the plaza on the map in 1857.
Setting: A block south of Healdsburg Plaza, connected to H2hotel by a short private walkway.
The appeal: Eco-chic enclave. Behind the reclaimed redwood, sun-shading exterior slats, garden courtyards separate pods of rooms where the spare but not spartan decor will include Sonoma-made concrete sinks, organically dyed pressboard bedside tables, natural felt rugs and locally produced art. A private park along Foss Creek provides more greenery, while the guests-only rooftop deck will offer lounge chairs, fire pits and sunset happy hours with cocktails from Spoonbar, plus views of downtown Healdsburg and Fitch Mountain.
Insider’s tips: Make a reservation to dine across the street at Mateo’s Cocina Latina, serving spicy, sustainably sourced Yucatan-inspired fare for lunch and dinner Wednesday-Sunday and breakfast on weekends. At the Spa Hotel Healdsburg, choose a massage, body wrap or manicure perfumed by locally produced Meyer lemon and sage.
It’s a fitting tribute to civic planning from the hoteliers, whose own name comes from the Italian word for “plaza.” They say they have tried to minimize not just their carbon footprint but their overall impact on the town.
“There’s been a lot of resistance to new hotel development and rightly so, because people have been coming up with ideas for big hotels,” says Paolo Petrone, Piazza’s managing partner. “We’ll do things within the scale of the town, and with the approval of the town.”
At Harmon, that includes providing parking to keep 50 cars off the street and eventually offering public wellness talks and yoga programming on the rooftop, with other attractive meeting spaces available for guests and residents, too.
“That’s our philosophy: to create a great environment for locals and visitors, where the whole town can be part of the hotel,” says Petrone.