Comfy Benbow Inn Takes You Back to an Old English Setting

By George & Ninette Medovoy, Editors

You're driving up the Redwood Highway through the pine forests of southern Humboldt County. There, in Garberville, looking every bit like a picture postcard out of the English countryside, stands a Tudor inn half hidden in the trees.

We spent the earlier part of the day visiting some of the wineries and vineyards of Mendocino County and now were heading for some relaxation at the Benbow Inn, just over the border in southern Humboldt County.

At the top of a stairway visitors find a pleasant veranda filled with large potted plants and white wicker chairs. But it is when you pass through the double glass doors into the lobby, you know that this is no ordinary highway stop. A national historic landmark, the Benbow Inn is like stepping into another place and another time.

The place, of course, is England, and the time is decades ago when inns like this were popular getaways for the whole summer.

Everything has the look and feel of comfort and relaxation, easily seen in the lobby: big high-backed, red velvet chairs, antique tables with giant jigsaw puzzles, checkers on one table, chess on another, comfortable love seats, needlepoint, and a giant fireplace with an antique bellows.

And next to the fireplace, shelves stocked with dozens of board games, which, one imagines, must be great fun when the rain comes pouring down in the winter. There are old English prints on the wall and a likeness of the Queen Mother. And a giant teddy bear reclining in his own stately English chair.

The lobby is the center of the inn and comes alive with 3 o'clock tea and scones and continues into the evening, when couples and families with children try the puzzles, the board games or simply snuggle into a comfy big chair with a book. It's all quite unpretentious and informal.

Off the lobby is one of the best bed & breakfast dining rooms we've ever sampled, where we enjoyed the Apple Oat Pancakes, the breakfast breads, and the wonderfully rich coffee to savor ever so slowly. Dinners are equally wonderful, including, for example, Roasted Salmon Filet - fresh Pacific Salmon roasted with an orange Fennel sauce; with herb gnocchi and garden vegetables, and Pork Tenderloin - baked in phyllo dough with chicken mousse, spinach and a maple-miso sauce; served with vegetables and grilled herb polenta.

The inn features an enticing wine list with some of the best wines from California, but also labels from the Pacific Northwest and a sampling of European selections, as well.

The inn's cozy lounge, on the other side of the lobby, features piano entertainment every night. The large terrace is great for enjoying a lavish Sunday brunch or a drink.

The Benbow Inn first opened its doors in 1926, designed for the Benbow family by noted architect Albert Farr, famed for creating "The Wolf House" for author Jack London in Glen Ellen.Soon the inn became a favorite, secluded getaway of the Hollywood elite, frequented by movie stars like Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, Alan Ladd, Basil Rathbone, and dignitaries like Eleanor Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover and Lord Halifax.

Everyone must have loved the peacefulness, the elegant hospitality, and the clean air up here in southern Humboldt County.

Through the years, many guests have left their mark by painting their own impressions of the lovely old inn, now seen on the wall behind the front desk.

The Benbow Inn has gone through a number of owners over the years. Its current management is made up of two couples, John and Teresa Porter and Jack and Linda Macdonald, innkeepers with many years of experience.

John Porter's philosophy of innkeeping shines through everything here. As he puts it, "I try to exceed peoples' expectations. If I had to put it in simple terms, that's what we like to do."

One of the ways Porter exceeded our own expectations was by the inn's collection of old movies. We could enjoy these in our room - every room has a TV and a VCR in the midst of lovely old-English furnishings - or in the movie room decorated with vintage movie posters.

What fun to sip sherry - there is complimentary sherry in every room - and watch Clark Gable, the very actor who was here way back when, in the 1934 film classic with Claudette Colbert, "It Happened One Night."And after we had seen Gable and Colbert, we put on that all-time favorite of ours, "The Maltese Falcon" - the 1941 thriller with Humphrey Bogart, an amazingly young Peter Lorre, and Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet.

The striking sense of another America suggested by these early American films ironically blended in with the slice-in-time atmosphere of the Benbow Inn.

Back in the lobby that evening, we could almost imagine Gable or Bogart coming through the lobby, heading perhaps to the lounge for a late-night drink.Guest rooms are upstairs in the main building or in adjoining sections.

Our room had a big four-poster bed and lots of mahogany. A patio with table and umbrella looked out onto a grassy area above Benbow Lake. One of the best times up here is when day turns to night - when the light, to borrow a phrase from a book of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poems on a table in our room, is "neither night's nor day's, but one which...(has) a beauty in its doubt."

This is, of course, a great area for day trips, with the Benbow Inn your ideal base. You can start off close to home and borrow one of the inn's bikes to go for a ride. But if you decide to venture out a bit further, don't miss the wineries and vineyards of Mendocino County to the south.

The Avenue of the Giants, a scenic drive along a 31-mile portion of the Redwood Highway (Highway 101), has 51,222 acres of redwood groves and the famous Drive-Thru Tree.

Surrounding the Avenue is Humboldt Redwoods State Park, with the largest remaining stand of virgin redwoods in the world.

Scotia, a company-owned town with the largest redwood mill in the world, is also found along the drive.

One of the nicest stops is Ferndale, an old-fashioned Victorian village with shops, galleries, historic buildings and churches where one can expect to spend two to three hours strolling down Main Street.

Summer is a wonderful time in southern Humboldt County with warm days and mild nights, but don't forget that the Benbow Valley's warm Indian Summer extends into October. By November, the Fall foliage of the surrounding woods rivals the colors of New England.

Wintertime, when the Benbow Inn's lobby is decorated with a 15-foot-tall animated teddy bear tree, is a perfect time enjoy the fireplace.

And maybe an old Bogart movie and a glass of sherry.

PLANNING YOUR TRIP TO THE BENBOW INN
Information: www.benbowinn.com, or call 800-355-3301.