On one corner of Paso Robles' main square--a charming place with a park and gazebo at its heart and a sweet mix of historic buildings, wine-tasting rooms and boutiques at its edges--is a clock tower shaped like an acorn. It is meant as a tribute to the oak trees that give the area its high visual drama. And although Paso Robles without its oaks would be, well, pretty boring, you would think someone would have the good sense to monumentalize the grape, at the very least, and maybe even the olive, depending on whether this artisanal olive thing has legs.
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B&Bs (only better)
Wineries fill the lodging gap with style in Paso Robles
If it weren't for the wine boom in Paso Robles, what is a beaming little downtown would be stone dead. Its nadir was the 1980s, when big boxes landed with a thud on the fringe of town, killing off local businesses. "We had 33 vacancies," says Norma Moye, executive director of the Downtown Paso Robles Main Street Assn. Now, 24 restaurants and 12 wine-tasting rooms flank the sidewalks, with a cheese-making operation to open this year in my favorite building, a Mission Revival beauty erected in 1905 as a public spa.
At times this boom, which began in the '90s with a stampede of new winemakers focusing on Rhone varietals, feels like a Gold Rush. Lots of folks pouring in but not a lot of infrastructure.
I don't know about you, but after a long day of drinking wine I like a nice place to sleep it off. Something like the Fairmont Mission Inn & Spa in Sonoma. Or the Four Seasons Biltmore in Santa Barbara, a hop over the hills from the Santa Ynez Valley wine country. Yet for years in Paso Robles the only place that made people feel even slightly pampered was the Best Western Black Oak Motor Lodge, mostly because it's well-run. But it's right off the 101 Freeway and looks out on a Denny's, McDonald's and Carl's Jr.Cris Cherry, owner of Villa Creek restaurant and winery, had one regular customer, a wealthy New Yorker, who was wondering where to stay in the area. "I asked what he had in mind, and he said, 'You know, like a Ritz-Carlton or Four Seasons.' We just don't have anything like that yet."
But over the last 15 years a handful of charming inns and B&Bs ranging in style from ultra-luxe Mediterranean to tranquil traditional have been built. Most of them are on the grounds of wineries, which, consciously or unconsciously, stepped up to fill some of the lodging vacuum. And these are certainly not your falling-down-old-house, second-life B&Bs.
Not being a fan of the moldy-oldie B&Bs and disliking even more the overpriced predictability of the chain hotels, I am eager to try these new interpretations of the country inn.
I'm contemplating how the best hotels make you want to move in. The suite I booked at Villa Toscana Bed & Breakfast is having that effect. All the room names--this one is called Pinot Grigio--invoke the Italian varietals featured at the Martin & Weyrich winery that owns the place. There's an elegant mural above the fireplace that mimics a stone carving, one of several touches by local artist Stephen Kaylor throughout the grounds. There's a deep couch and two comfy armchairs. The TV disappears into a wooden bureau that doubles as a desk. Around the corner is a marble-topped kitchenette with nice tableware in the cabinets. The kitchen table where I eat the breakfast that comes with my $315 midweek package--I choose eggs Benedict, which arrives with a gorgeous fruit plate--has a view of the vineyard through the French doors.
But it's the Florentine blue-and-gold tile in the bathroom, which has a mosaic floor and oversized spa tub, that settles it. No question, I am moving in.
The Mediterranean experience at Villa Toscana starts at the ornate iron gates in the parking lot and winds along the stone walkway into an expansive courtyard. I don't know where to look first: the decorative hotel colonnade or the splashing fountain or the giant oak. Lawns and gardens beckon to the bistro, where appetizers--that evening it was spicy sausage, pork loin and seared tuna--are served at happy hour with Martin & Weyrich wines in a fireplace-lit, beamed-ceiling room.
There is no spa, but off-site services will come to guests. I was more tempted to try the River Oaks Hot Springs & Spa, near Villa Toscana just off Highway 46 East. It's situated in a new housing development that looks, spookily, like a Camarillo tract. The spa itself is more aspirationally decorated and has open-air bathing rooms with tubs of mineral water from the natural hot springs and wood-deck seating, the better to soak in the views of the celadon hillsides. All for $12 an hour.
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