Montage Healdsburg
Dinner at SingleThread, where the centerpiece has more ingredients than most restaurants put on a plate.
We came to Healdsburg because of SingleThread. Kyle Connaughton's three-Michelin-star restaurant sits a few miles from the property in downtown Healdsburg, and reservations open on OpenTable at 9am on the first of each month and are gone in minutes. We had been trying to book on our own for weeks without success. Before we even arrived, we reached out to the Montage concierge. She had us a table. That is the kind of thing that stays with you, and it set the tone for everything that followed.
Montage Healdsburg sits on 258 acres where Dry Creek Valley, Alexander Valley, and Russian River Valley converge. The property is all oak woodland and rolling vineyard, with 130 bungalows spread across a hillside that has no intention of being flat. This is not a place you walk without purpose. It is the kind of place you find yourself looking forward to returning to at the end of a long day out in the valley.
The Room
The bungalows are single-story and spread far enough apart that you rarely see your neighbors. Ours opened onto a private terrace set under a mature oak canopy. Past the tree, through its trunk and reaching branches, you could see the vineyard rows below. It was not the wide-open vineyard panorama that other bungalows offer, but the combination of the oak shade above and the vines visible just beyond it put you exactly where you were: Sonoma wine country, in a way that a purely scenic view does not always manage. An oak canopy at 5pm with the vines in the near distance is its own kind of view, and the sense of place it gave us was immediate.
Inside, the palette is warm and intentional: light oak floors, a leather-framed bed anchored against a slatted wood headboard feature wall that runs the full width of the room, a round leather ottoman in the center of the sitting area. A Sonoma book sat on the coffee tray alongside the usual amenities, and the wet bar counter was marble, set with wine glasses and a wine configuration that made clear it was not a courtesy gesture. A large dark artwork anchored the wall opposite the bed. The room is calm in the way that good wine country design should be: deliberate, unhurried, nothing competing for your attention.
The bungalow layout separates the sleeping and living areas with enough physical space between them that the room works as two rooms rather than one room with a couch in it. The terrace is the third room. Once you have been on that terrace in the late afternoon with a glass of something local, the decision to upgrade or stay longer becomes very easy to make.
Request This: Ask for a bungalow with an oak tree terrace. Not every unit has the same orientation. Vineyard views are beautiful, particularly in afternoon light, but the bungalows tucked under mature oaks have a quality of privacy and shade that is hard to replicate anywhere else on the property. If you are traveling in spring or fall when the evenings stay warm, that terrace is the reason to be there.
Don't Miss: The Surveyor wine label, Montage's estate-bottled wine produced in partnership with winemaker Jesse Katz of Aperture Cellars, is available throughout the property and in the minibar. The rosé is exactly what the terrace at 5pm is for. Pull it out of the minibar, go outside, and do not make any plans for the next hour.
Our room at Montage Healdsburg. Hardwood floors instead of carpet, a real sitting area instead of a token chair, and a window the size of the wall it sits in.
The Dining Scene
Hazel Hill: The main and only restaurant is Hazel Hill and it does what the best wine country restaurants do: it gets out of the way and lets the ingredients carry the meal. The concept is French-California brasserie, with seasonal menus tied to nearby farms and producers. The alfresco terrace with vineyard views is where you want to be for lunch when the weather cooperates, and it earns the reputation it has built. The service is unhurried in the right way, attentive without moving you along.
For dinner, request The Oak Room. It is a semi-private, glass-enclosed space designed as a modern treehouse set among the property oaks, and it is a room worth requesting every time. The private dining room called Madrone, with its own balcony, is available for groups who want a fully private dining room and is worth reserving in advance if that is what you need.
The wine program is where Hazel Hill earns its keep. The staff can talk to you about the surrounding AVAs rather than just pointing at the list, and the Surveyor wines available by the glass are a good entry point if you want to understand what the Montage vineyards are producing before you venture out to the broader region. If you are working your way through the local lineup, ask for guidance. They know it.
No single dish at Hazel Hill demanded to be called out above the rest, which is a different kind of compliment. The kitchen is consistent, and in wine country, where the gap between good and excellent can be narrow, that consistency counts for something. The bread, whatever vegetable preparation is on the menu that day, and any local cheese on offer have been reliable at every visit.
The Bar: The bar at Hazel Hill has its own presence and is worth visiting separately from dinner. It is where the evening starts and where it sometimes ends without ever making it to the restaurant. The Surveyor wines by the glass are the right call here. The cocktail program leans into Sonoma, with local spirits and wine-adjacent builds that suit the setting better than standard offerings would. If you are arriving at the property in the late afternoon after a day of winery visits, this is where you land.
A Note on SingleThread: SingleThread is not at Montage Healdsburg. It is a five-minute drive away in downtown Healdsburg. Kyle Connaughton's restaurant holds three Michelin stars, a Michelin Green Star for sustainability, and shared the number one spot on La Liste's 2026 top 1,000 list alongside nine other restaurants globally. It is a ten-course tasting menu built on what the Connaughton farm is producing that week, and it is one of the most specific and personal fine dining experiences in the country.
Getting a table requires either tireless vigilance (reservations release at 9am PST on the first of each month and are gone fast) or a well-connected concierge. The Montage concierge is the latter. If a SingleThread dinner is any part of why you are going to Healdsburg, make your intentions known at check-in. Do not wait until the night before.
The view from the property at Montage Healdsburg. Working vineyards in front of you, Mount Saint Helena in the distance, and a rose hedge between you and the row markers.
Beyond the Room
Spa Montage: Spa Montage is 11,500 square feet and one of the better resort spa experiences we have had at any property. Eleven treatment rooms, including two couples rooms, are set within a facility that also holds separate men's and women's lounges, steam rooms, a full-service salon, and a co-ed outdoor relaxation area with a stone fireplace. The yoga garden surrounded by vineyard rows is a detail worth naming: it is a beautiful space where the setting does the work without the program having to. Morning yoga here before the day begins is the right way to use it.
The spa's zero-edge adult pool sits within the complex, looking out over the vineyard, with a hot tub adjacent. This is the adults-only pool and it is quiet in a way that the main property is not always quiet. The stone fireplace in the outdoor relaxation area makes this a usable space well into the evening, and in shoulder season it is where you want to be when the temperature drops.
The Pools: The family pool sits adjacent to the adults-only spa pool, which means you choose your environment clearly rather than negotiating it on arrival. Both are well-maintained and properly serviced. If you are traveling with children, the family pool area is set up for it. If you are not, the spa complex pool is where you should spend your time. The adults-only pool in the late afternoon, when the day's wine tastings are done and the air is cooling, is the specific Healdsburg moment that tends to appear in the recap conversation on the flight home.
The Vineyards and Wine Experiences: The property has 15.5 acres of vineyards on site, cultivated under the direction of winemaker Jesse Katz of Aperture Cellars. This is not decorative acreage. Katz is one of the most respected names in Sonoma, and the fruit from these vines goes directly into the Surveyor label: a sauvignon blanc, a rosé, and a cabernet sauvignon produced exclusively for Montage. Private tastings at Aperture Cellars, a short drive from the property, can be arranged through the concierge and are worth doing if you want to understand the terroir behind what you have been drinking all week at Hazel Hill and on your terrace.
Wine Country Access: Dry Creek Valley, Alexander Valley, and Russian River Valley are all within easy reach, and the three AVAs together cover some of the most interesting Sonoma production. The concierge can arrange private winery visits that go well beyond what you would get by showing up at the tasting room without an introduction. If you have specific wineries in mind, say so at check-in. If you want guidance on where to go based on what you like, that conversation is worth having with the front desk rather than working through a guidebook. The relationships here are real and they produce a different quality of access.
The rooms are cantilevered out over the slope so the terrace ends up at oak-canopy height, which is a better seat than the architects had any right to expect.
The Experience
The Brand: Montage was founded in 2002, and the Laguna Beach property that opened in 2003 still defines what the brand is trying to be: California luxury with a specific sense of place, high visual standards, and service built around anticipating rather than reacting. Healdsburg opened in January 2021 and was the brand's first wine country property, which meant building a version of the Montage identity that did not yet exist. The coastal DNA was there. What the setting required was different.
(A personal note: Glenn was an assistant hotel manager when the Bellagio opened in Las Vegas in 1998, working under Alan Fuerstman, who served as VP of Hotel Operations with several layers of management between them. Fuerstman left the Bellagio in 2000 to found Montage. Glenn's career took a different arc: he eventually checked in as a guest and stayed at a Montage.)
The brand has grown beyond California since then. Properties in Los Cabos, Punta Mita, and Valle de Guadalupe represent a real Mexico presence, and Montage Cay in The Abacos, Bahamas takes the brand into private island territory. Within that growing collection, Healdsburg still feels like the property where Montage worked out what it could be when the view outside the window was not an ocean but a hillside full of oak trees and grapevines.
Ambiance: Healdsburg is a different kind of Montage than the coastal properties. The original Laguna Beach identity leans formal in the way that oceanfront luxury tends to: the lines are clean, the service is precise, the experience is controlled. That is right for Laguna Beach. It would be wrong for Sonoma.
What Healdsburg does is take the same underlying standards and let them breathe differently. The architecture follows the oak-studded landscape rather than imposing on it. The bungalow layout means you rarely feel like you are sharing a hotel with a hundred other guests. The pace across the property is unhurried in a way that feels ambient rather than performed, which is different from a service team that has been trained to move slowly. The staff would rather offer you a glass of something than check you in efficiently, and that distinction is the difference between luxury hospitality and wine country hospitality. Healdsburg has figured out how to be both at the same time.
Service: The concierge team is the most useful thing about staying here and probably the most underused by guests who do not know to ask. SingleThread tables. Private winery introductions. Aperture Cellars timing that works around your schedule. Morning tee times at courses that do not take walk-ins. The access is real and it is built on relationships that the hotel has maintained over years, not just a phone call they are willing to make on your behalf.
Beyond the concierge, the day-to-day service operates at the right register for what the property is. The golf cart shuttles arrive before you have decided you need them. The restaurant staff at Hazel Hill know what you drink by the second evening. The front desk interactions are warm without being performed. Nothing here feels like a script. That is harder to pull off than it sounds, and it is what separates the properties that understand their setting from the ones that are simply expensive.
Accessibility
A note upfront: Montage Healdsburg is a hilly property. The bungalows are spread across a hillside and the terrain is real. For guests who use wheelchairs or have significant mobility limitations, this would ordinarily be a significant problem at a property of this layout.
Montage has addressed this with something we have not encountered at any other resort: a fully wheelchair-accessible electric golf cart. At the rear of the cart, a fold-down metal diamond-plate ramp deploys when the cart arrives, allowing direct wheelchair transfer without a separate vehicle, without improvised workarounds, without anything that feels like an accommodation being made in the moment. Staff deploy it as standard service. It is built in and it works. For a property this hilly, the golf cart is not optional. It is essential, and the fact that it is fully accessible changes what the property can be for wheelchair users entirely. We have stayed at a significant number of luxury resorts over the years and have never seen this done correctly at any of them before Healdsburg.
The accessible bungalow lives up to what the word should mean. The bathroom has a large roll-in shower with a fold-down teak bench, grab bars throughout, and a handheld showerhead. A clerestory window brings natural light into the shower. The soaking tub is separate, with its own grab bars. The floor plan is fully open with no threshold at the wet area entrance, and the room is large enough that navigation in a wheelchair is comfortable rather than merely workable. This is not a room that was retrofitted. It reads as designed.
The terrace off the accessible bungalow is level and fully usable. The outdoor sofa, bistro table, and chairs are arranged with enough space to navigate comfortably, and the oak canopy setting is the same one available in the standard bungalows. Access to Hazel Hill, the spa, and the main lodge is all managed via the golf cart with the ramp. Ask for it at check-in rather than waiting to need it, and confirm that the accessible bungalow you are booking is one with a terrace orientation that works for you.
The first wheelchair-accessible golf cart we have ever seen at a resort, and we have stayed at a lot of resorts. Montage Healdsburg has one, ramp deployed, ready to go.
The TudorTravels Perspective
Montage Healdsburg works best for travelers who want Sonoma wine country as their reason for being there and a reliable home base to come back to each evening. The property is beautiful and the service is right, but the draw is outside the gates: the Dry Creek wineries, the Alexander Valley hillsides, the Healdsburg town square, the three-Michelin-star restaurant five minutes away. Montage is where you return to, not where you stay.
The concierge is the most underused asset here. Bring any access targets to the front desk at check-in, not the day before: SingleThread, a specific winery that does not do walk-in tastings, Aperture Cellars on a schedule that works. The relationships are real and they are worth using early.
This is the right property for travelers who want wine country done at a high level, with accessibility taken seriously, and a service infrastructure that can unlock the region rather than just house you in it. If you are coming primarily to stay on property, there are better options for the money. If you are using Healdsburg as a base for serious wine country exploration with a well-run place that has taken accessibility seriously to return to each evening, this is one of the best options in Sonoma.
One timing note: Sonoma summer heat, particularly July through August, can be significant. Spring and fall are the more comfortable seasons for both wine tasting and spending time on that terrace. If you are visiting in summer, ask about morning activity windows and plan the outdoor portions of your day around them.
Ready to book the Montage Healdsburg, or looking for the right luxury stay for your trip to California Wine Country? Contact us to start planning.