Madrona Manor

Posted on August 2, 2004 by Bryan Reed

Madrona Manor is located in Healdsburg California in the heart of wine country and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built in 1879 by John Alexander Paxton. It has been open to the public as Madrona Manor Inn since 1981.

Ghost Stories

When we asked the employees during our stay, none of them had admitted any unusual experiences with the supernatural or paranormal, but we did hear of a story about the ghost of a woman approaching a guest in the main house and asking her to tell the owners that “She liked what they have done to the place.” There are consistent stories on the web about unusual experiences in room 101 and the dining room. Most of these stories say only two things, that there is a ghost of a young girl in room 101 and a woman named Elise in the dinging room. This seems to indicate a single source, and not corroboration–especially since some websites use the exact same phrasing. Another website listed many more manifestations, and among these both the dining room and room 101 were prominently mentioned. However, there was no mention of the ghost of a little girl or anyone named “Elise.”

Our Review

Accommodations: We stayed in the carriage house. And it was very nice. We liked the decor (Kryis especially liked the amount of Asian art in the carriage house) and the atmosphere. It was nice wandering the grounds. We appreciated the lack of “soft” water in the shower. The staff was friendly and helpful.

Breakfast: The breakfast buffet was one of the best that we have experienced.

We stayed here as part of our “Haunted Honeymoon.” You can get more information about our stay by visiting our honeymoon pages day 1 and day 2.

Official Website of Madrona Manor

Honeymoon Day 2

Posted on August 2, 2004 by Bryan Reed

Day 2
August 2nd, 2004
Healdsburg, CA to Mendocino, CA

She Says

As of 1pm: Had a hard time sleeping at Madrona Manor. About 11:30 I woke up in that weird state where I am aware, but can’t move or even open my eyes. When I did, I had an afterimage of a very dark green sphere.

My allergies kept me awake, as well as the pillow being too fluffy. Eventually I did get sleep. I did dream of Bryan, Chris, Amanda and ABC being in a car together, but Amanda looked like Leelu from 5th element, but with darker red hair. Like Chiana’s when she had blue skin.

We had breakfast at the manor. Continental style: I had Brie on Ham with hard boiled eggs. Yummm.

The manor is filled with antiques. The carriage house has many Asian and Japanese looking things. Beside the check-in desk is a print of a Caucasian girl in a kimono by Conrad Kiese.

Bryan wrote my mom a letter on manor stationery. We mailed it today. Mom should be even more enamored with him than she already is!!!

Since then we have mostly been driving along the back roads and seeing the wineries. We saw a lot of sheep. We both thought of Chris.

He Says

We woke up on the second day and spent some time hanging out on the semi-private patio connected to our room. Then we headed to the main house for breakfast. This was one of the best continental/buffet style breakfasts that I have ever had. We talked for a while with an older married couple from Arizona that was sitting next to us during breakfast.

After breakfast we walked around the grounds and snapped a few more pictures. Including some purple flowers.

We then went driving aimlessly through the wine country. Not being big wine drinkers, we did not actually do any wine tasting, but just enjoyed the natural beauty of the ambling hills and fields of grapevines.

Eventually we headed up towards Mendocino. There was a great deal of construction or maintenance, or something, going on along the windy roads to the coast. We had to detour numerous times, but eventually we ended up in at the Mendocino Hotel for check in. We walked down the main street on the coast of Mendocino. Kryis saw a shirt that she liked in one of the stores. But, more on Mendocino tomorrow.

More information about Madrona Manor can be found here.
More information about the Mendocino Hotel can be found here.

Honeymoon Day 1

Posted on August 1, 2004 by Bryan Reed

Day 1
August 1st, 2004
San Jose, CA to Healdsburg, CA

She Says

Bryan didn’t sleep well. I got more sleep, but kept waking up. We woke, had breakfast. Nice comp breakfast… We visited with my Aunt Jeanette after breakfast. After we were packed to go and were waiting for our ride, Aunt Cathy and Uncle Tom were going back to their room, so we got to visit with them as well.

We got our rental car, visited the Schmitz clan, had our family pic taken, and ate burgers.

We drove up the 880-980-580-101 to Healdsburg and got to Madrona Manor after 6pm.

Burnt out and tired, we took a walk about the Manor, the gardens and the carriage house (where our room is) and crashed. The room came with free cookies, but I am chocolated out! OoOoo Bryan just used the word “dichotomy.” As in “The dichotomy of the bathroom is odd.”

He Says

After a rather unconventional start to our honeymoon (namely getting our picture taken with the extended family on my Mother’s side and having a barbecue with them afterwards, we headed up towards the wine country in our rented Chevy Malibu.

Most of the ride was not really that interesting, as we had been through Oakland California before. It is an ugly city from the freeway, but once we got north of the Bay Area it turned much nicer.

The Madrona Manor was nice. We were not actually in the Manor itself. Our room was on the second floor of the carriage house. It was nice, and had it’s own balcony overlooking trees and the parking lot. I set up the video camera in our room in the hopes that we might discover a supernatural presence there while we went to explore the manor house and the grounds.