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California
The Experience
If you want to visit Yosemite but want to do so in style, your options are limited to the Ahwah-nee -- in the park itself but with disappointingly Marriott-like guestrooms -- and the Chateau du Sureau, a romantic re-creation of a Teutonic schloss located conveniently just south of the park. Built by the owners of Erna's Elderberry House -- a restaurant that, despite its down-home name, has long been known for extraordinary food -- at the rear of their piney hillside property, the ten-room stucco and stone house is filled with European antiques, giving it the air of a B&B fit for a king. (By the way, sureau is French for "elderberry.")
The RoomsHardcore modernists should steer clear. Each of the ten guest rooms has a bed (often canopied) draped with toile de Jouy or chintz; walls hung with vaguely Netherlandish oil paintings and decorative plates; and a pair of armchairs flanking a wood-burning fireplace. When it comes to practicality, results are mixed. Some of the bathrooms (in the Chamomile room, for instance) have sunken shower/tubs that can be treacherous to clamber down into; however, every bed has a pair of adjustable halogen reading lamps mounted on its headboard--no need to bring your Itty Bitty Booklight.
The ServiceCheers has nothing on this place: Everybody will know your name, even though there's no tip-ping (service is included in the rates). In fact, low maintenance guests might find the hovering presence of the staff oppressive, but how can you resent the sudden appearance of a chatelaine who assures you--when she catches you nosing around the TV cabinet in the Grand Salon--that yes, it does get cable and then asks if you'd like a portable flat-screen set brought to your bed-room? (The inn's rooms are billed as being TV-free.) And at dinner, the Vienna-born Erna Kubin-Clanin herself will stop by your table to say hello.
The HighlightsThe Chateau is a magnet for honeymooners, especially those who want to mix luxurious nights and seriously haute cuisine--think mostly French-inflected, with the occasional Austrian touch (Sachertorte appears often for dessert)--with outdoorsy days. (Though there is a small pool and, as of 2005, a full-service spa, most guests head into Yosemite come morning.) The only flaw in the picture? The nighttime glare of the Route 140 commercial strip just down the hill: That big red VONS sign isn't anyone's idea of mood lighting. You'll forget that, though, as you sit down to dinner in the cozy, candlelit dining room, walls and cathedral ceiling all painted a warm ma-roon with tendrils of gilt tracing the rafters.
-- Chris Ryan
