Yountville is a small town, and the second homes in it are often used the way a person uses a small town: a few nights, a long lunch, a weekend, and then the house is itself again. The watch we keep is for that in-between. It is the same house, waiting for the same people. It is not prepared for a stranger’s arrival.
The domestic scale of the place
Many of these houses are close to town, on lots that feel looked-after because the town itself is looked-after. A courtyard, a guest room left in a hurry, an outdoor kitchen that will not be used for three weeks, a casita with a shutoff of its own: the findings are intimate, which is exactly why they should not wait for the next time you happen to be north. A drip under a kitchen sink does not become more dignified because the town is pretty.
We walk the same categories we walk everywhere. Exterior, rooms, plumbing, the water heater, HVAC, appliances, photographs. A smaller house does not receive a thinner standard. It often takes less time, which is why the published monthly rates, for homes up to 3,000 square feet, fit a great many properties here. The figures are on the pricing page.
A casita is not a rumor
If there is a second building, we want it named. A guest cottage can be on the regular route, or it can be the hourly outbuilding add-on when you only want it opened now and then. We will not decide that for you in a footnote. Pool houses, garages, and barns are treated the same way, whether the architecture is modest or not.
Before you come up for a short stay
Because the visits are often brief, the hour before you arrive matters. Air the rooms, set the temperature, run the water, meet a cleaner if you use one. That is concierge, at $75 an hour, billed in 15-minute increments, and it is available whether your plan is weekly or twice monthly. While you are actually in residence, the scheduled walk-throughs stop. Send the dates. We would rather pause than walk through a house that has its owners in it.
The valley on either side
The city of Napa is south, and it has its own page because the midweek pattern there is different. Read that if your house is really in town and Yountville is only where you have dinner. Oakville and Rutherford, just north, are more vineyard than town. They are covered on the service area page rather than squeezed into this one. If your address says Yountville and your lane is just outside it, tell us about the gate. That is the fact we need.
St. Helena is the next long conversation up-valley, for houses with more ground and older trees. It is a different kind of empty.