Mystical Moments

For me, one of the highlights of the 20th Anniversary Celebration for Genesis was the place most of us stayed: The Allegretto Vineyard Resort is a spectacular facility created as an extension of the imagination of the property’s owner, Douglas Ayres.

The hotel embodies an eclectic blend of design concepts, from dashes of feng shui to dollops of talk-to-the-land spiritualism mixed in with impressive Italianate architecture and symbolic details revolving around the elements of wind, fire, water and earth.

I tend more toward the rational than the mystical in my own design thinking, but I admire those who are able to take their belief systems and find ways to turn them into practical reality. Allegretto is, after all, a hotel, and as such has to meet the needs of its guests with respect to comfort, service, convenience and, in this case, elegance.

In approaching the place, I liked the name Allegretto and its suggestion of a governing musical theme. The restaurant is called Cello, for instance, and bits of musical notation pop up in artwork appearing throughout the space. (According to Ayres, the presence of so many olive trees had to do with the wonderful sounds their leaves make when gusting winds blow. He’s nothing if not thorough!)

The hotel’s large central courtyard includes a fountain that, at ground level, appears as a set of intersecting circles above which has been placed a very sculptural chunk of sandstone. To Mr. Ayres, the rock suggests a sort of Earth Mother, a womb-like utterance that stands at the core of the hotel. For my part, I was happy enough looking at it as the cool placement of an interestingly eroded boulder. Beautiful little spillways, too.

As part of a tour he guided through the grounds, Mr. Ayres pointed out something that was difficult to appreciate at eye level: The extended composition of the fountain is set up like a guitar, with the intersecting circles as its sound hole and its body and neck defined by plants and paving selections. The only way to appreciate it fully, he told us, is from a second-level observation deck.

It was at this point that I started to get into the energy of the place and enjoy the ride Mr. Ayres graciously offered his guests. I’ve always enjoyed landscapes in which my perception of a single detail keeps expanding and changing as I move to new points of view. In this case, my smile kept widening as I began to recognize the depth of this guy’s commitment.

I didn’t walk away as a believer, but after three days within these surroundings, well-served by an attentive staff, at ease with the property’s dominant themes and coddled by the generosity of the place, I became a contented guest, ready for another visit.

I recall of couple conversations in which some of those present wondered what sort of client Mr. Ayres would be: The stories he told of his intimate involvement with every detail and his willingness to work and rework various elements of the composition made him come across as inspired but mercurial. I for one am grateful that he persisted and found contractors who were willing to come along for what had to have been a long, complex ride.

If all that I’d seen of the place was its central fountain from above, it would’ve been enough to convince me that the designer had a spark of genius. Finding out that it was the vision of the hotelier and that he came to it with mystical determination? I’m still smiling, and maybe even more impressed that it all managed to come together so well.