Favourite West Coast Hotels by Martin O'Brien

When Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff and Gone With The Wind's Scarlett chose San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito for their midnight nuptials, they made the kind of mistake that no self-respecting Hollywood screenplay-writer would ever have countenanced. As soon as the ceremony was over, held under the stars on the Ranch's lawn and witnessed by close friends Garson Kanin and Katharine Hepburn, the newly-wed Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh jumped in their car and drove back to Los Angeles. Misty-eyed they may have been but if Olivier and Leigh had had an ounce of sense, they would have taken one of the Ranch's stone and clapboard cottages, thrown a log on the fire and let everything else go hang.

Whether you're getting married on the lawn like Olivier and Leigh, honeymooning like Jack and Jackie Kennedy, or simply taking a break from the razzmatazz of Hollywood like the scores of movie legends who have signed the Ranch register before you, there is nowhere more discrete or delightful than the San Ysidro Ranch. Hidden away in a wooded canyon on the slopes of the Santa Ynez Mountains, a comfortable ninety miles north of Los Angeles along the Pacific Coast Highway, the San Ysidro Ranch is simply the perfect place to hole up.

Scattered amongst ribboned eucalyptus and white-stemmed sycamore, its shingle-roofed ranch-style cottages are a delight. Insulated from the outside world in the midst of a five hundred and forty acre estate and loosely arranged around the ranch's original 1825 adobe dwelling, the cottages are close enough to each other to give a sense of community yet far enough apart to ensure complete seclusion and privacy. With their high, beamed ceilings and hardwood floors, their stone fireplaces and cosy hearths, their king-size plumply-quilted beds, private sun-decks, porches and outdoor whirlpool baths, not to mention probably the best-stocked wet bars on the west coast, they are simply irresistable. Perhaps a little too irresistable. When writer Sinclair Lewis came here to work on a screenplay for Ronald Colman (the actor was co-owner of San Ysidro from 1935 until his death in 1958) he was so distracted by the lush comforts of his cottage and so entranced by the mountains rising up behind the property and the wide Pacific glittering far below, that he was forced to finish his manuscript in the broom closet!

Californians are inordinately fond of cottage colonies. Indeed, if the Auberge du Soleil had been around in 1940, and if Leigh and Olivier had been living in San Francisco and not Los Angeles, then this collection of adobe-syle cottages tucked away in the hills above Napa Valley would have provided an equally alluring setting for the celebrity nuptials.

Overlooking an old stagecoach road called the Silverado Trail and only an hour and a half's drive from the Golden Gate Bridge, the Auberge du Soleil originally opened as a restaurant in 1981. But so immediate and widespread was its popularity that six years later a dozen cottages were thoughtfully added for a faithful and adoring clientele whose only complaint concerned the drive home after dinner. Now all they need do is linger over their sesame-seared scallops, hickory-smoked pheasant and home-made Jack Daniels ice cream for as long as they care to, order up as many bottles of locally-produced Napa Valley wine as they are decently able to handle, before stumbling along the Auberge's garden paths to their handsomely-appointed pied-a-terres.

In every respect the Auberge's accommodation is as supremely satisfying as the food. Comprising nineteen suites and twenty-nine rooms, the taupe-stuccoed, split-level cottages spill down the hillside, each spacious sun-deck enjoying a view over gnarled olive groves to the tidily-braided vineyards of the Napa Valley. Inside, cushion-bloated sofas and stretched-hide armchairs are set around ready-laid log fires, down-filled bedroom quilts are sheathed in the sleekest and softest Frette linens, floors are clad with hand-glazed Mexican tiles, bath tubs and robes alike are deep enough to drown in, while the Auberge's young and energetic staff are as attentive as a school of hungry sharks circling a leaking rubber dinghy. Nowadays, the only complaint you'll hear at Auberge du Soleil is when room service comes to carry off the luggage for that inevitable journey home.

Of course, not every hotel in California has a cottage complex. But given the available acreage in a state roughly the size of Italy, few can resist the lure, and the potential for increased privacy. With three hundred and thirty acres in the exclusive and much sought-after Carmel River Valley the sprawling Stonepine estate is no exception. Although eight of its fourteen exquisitely elegant suites are housed in a pantile-roofed, Provencal-style chateau, there is equally luxurious accomodation in a paddock house and cottage on the grounds. Whichever you choose, the level of service, the attention to detail, and the dedication to excellence remain the same.

Built in 1930 as a country home for the Crocker banking family of San Francisco, Stonepine was completely renovated and redecorated in 1983, opened as a hotel three years later and in 1989 was invited to join the prestigious Relais et Chateaux chain, of which San Ysidro and Auberge du Soleil are also members. As well as providing a full quota of de luxe amenities - Rolls Royce Phantom V transfers from Monterey airport, Baccarat crystal and Limoges china in the oak-panelled Dining Room, hand-knotted Tai' Ping carpets from Hong Kong, generously equipped and marbled bathrooms, multi-play compact discs in every room, and the now de rigeur health club - Stonepine has the added distinction of being the oldest working thoroughbred racing farm west of the Mississippi. Indeed, one of the most pleasurable ways of exploring this unique estate is on horseback, riding along the river valley or up through the wooded slopes of the surrounding Santa Lucia mountains. And if a day in the saddle sounds just a little too strenuous, simply order a Stonepine picnic hamper and head off in your very own horse and buggy.