CROQUET GALLERY:  Meadowood Resort

Meadowood: A Dreamy Napa Valley Resort

By George Medovoy, Editor of Postcards for You

About one mile east of the quaint town of St. Helena in California's Napa Valley, you'll find Meadowood, a dreamy resort in a 250-acre private valley.

At Meadowood, guests enjoy 85 exclusive cottages, suites and lodges nestled among the oaks and pines of the estate's hidden setting. Mossy tone walls define walkways. Tame and wild landscape blend seamlessly as gardens of rhododendrons and azaleas bloom amidst groves of firs and redwoods.

The estate offers a wide range of services with its standing as a Relais & Chateaux property, including two professional croquet lawns, seven tennis courts, a nine-hole, walking golf course, a 25-yard-lap pool, a family swimming pool, and a complete health spa, providing fitness services and equipment as well as luxury treatments.

Members of the Relais & Chateaux pride themselves on the association's five C's: Character, Courtesy, Calm, Charm and Cuisine.

Meadowood dining takes place in The Restaurant at Meadowood, featuring California Wine Country Cuisine and a wine list on which nearly every Napa Valley wine producer is represented.

Meanwhile, there is casual dining at The Grill, and, weather permitting, you can be seated at a table on the terrace in either restaurant.

For more details, contact Meadowood at www.meadowood.com, or call 800-458-8080. The resort is located 82 miles north of San Francisco International Airport.

Anyone for Croquet?
Meet on the Lawn at Meadowood

The scene is like a setting from an elegant nineteenth-century country estate, with ladies and gentlemen in whites spending a lazy afternoon playing croquet on a well-manicured lawn.

Gabled roofs of the main lodge illustrate the background, while chefs in the nearby kitchen prepare dinners served with Napa Valley wines.

This is Meadowood Resort, nestled in a quiet valley a short distance from St. Helena's town center.

Stepping into this idyllic scene is Jerry Stark, Meadowood's croquet director, a strapping guy you'd think stepped off the football field who wakes you up from your reverie by describing croquet as a "game of blood and guts…"

Here at Meadowood, of course, such sentiments are best taken figuratively.

But they do go to the heart of a game that is taken very seriously by its practitioners, pros and amateurs alike.

"What I like about the game," says Stark, "is the competition, and it brings out the competitiveness in people - me, especially, too.

"I get people that say, 'Oh, I'm really not that competitive,' and then they really want to go and score that point."

But Stark, a former General Motors assembly line worker who realized it was time to do something else, does admit that it's really a "gentleman's game."

And who could deny that when one hand is supporting your mallet - and the other, a glass of Napa Valley wine!

So how is this game played, anyway?

Well, it can be played one against one in singles or two against two in doubles.

You want to beat your opponent "as bad as you can," Stark explains, but since you and the other side are the referees, too, "the game's got some morals, too, which the rest of the world doesn't have anymore, it seems."

Unless, there's a questionable shot where you need to call in an unbiased third party, if you break the rules and you know it, then you call the error on yourself, whether it costs you the game or not.

There are six wickets on the grass court, which is trimmed to a meticulous 5/32 of an inch, and a colored stake - the final step in the game -- in middle of the court.

Each wicket is worth one point. Each side has two balls - blue and black, and red and yellow.

In the tournament version, you must score each wicket twice, 12 points each time, and then the stake for the extra point. The ultimate object is for one side to double 13 and get 26 points…with enough time put aside, of course, for a sip of wine, held in reserve in a tub of ice on the edge of the green.

"At Meadowood," says Stark, "most of the people that I see have never played anything but the backyard game. I like to call what we play here a grown-up version compared to home."

At home, the balls are real light and can bounce in the air. This is more precise, the mallets are heavier and bigger, the balls are heavier, and the wickets are narrower, with only 1/8th of an inch clearance for the balls to go through.

In America, balls go through wickets, but in other countries, they're hit through hoops. In England, of course, if you call something a wicket, people think you're playing cricket.

The origins of the croquet are thought to be Irish, although the British named it golf croquet in the late 1800's — even though it has nothing to do with golf.

Actually, the real name for Wimbledon, the famous British tennis facility, is the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

Whites are normally required in tournaments, although Stark says they've slacked off a bit in New Zealand to try "to get young people interested in the game."

As for shoe wear, it's typically flat-soled.
At Meadowood, white attire is requested, but flat-soled shoes are required.

"Personally," says Stark, "I like the whites, especially at a place like Meadowood, where you've got the beautiful architecture of our lodges and the green mountainsides and green grass, and when there's 60 people all dressed in whites out there, the ambience is really nice."

Stark himself has played on the U.S. national croquet team and three years ago was inducted into the U.S. Croquet Assn. Hall of Fame. He's played in the world championships at least 10 times and once took second place.

Adding to the lovely ambiance of Meadowood's two croquet lawns is its 250-acre private valley in the heart of the Napa Valley, just a mile east of St. Helena.

The resort is a member of the prestigious Relais & Chateau, an association of 427 privately owned, elegant hotels and gourmet restaurants in 42 countries, with only 71 in the U.S.

Members uphold the association's quality charter of the five "C's" — Character, Courtesy, Calm, Charm and Cuisine.

The resort, with elegant suites and guest cottages nestled into the forested hillsides, has a full-service health spa, a 25-yard lap pool, a family pool, a whirlpool, saunas, steam rooms, seven tennis courts, a nine-hole golf course, hiking trail, bicycle rentals, a wine center with on-site wine courses, and winemaker dinners.

In the early 1960's, Meadowood was built as a small club for the local wine industry, but in the late 1970's, it was turned into an elegant estate for a wider audience.

Its natural preserve is perfect for casual walks…and pleasant daydreaming.

When you're not out on the croquet lawns, you avail yourself of wine education from John Thoreen, a former professor of humanities who serves as Meadowood's official "Wine Tutor."

Among Thoreen's offerings for guests here are spirited wine tasting games, wine-and-food lunches, cooking classes, and winemaker dinners.

Thoreen likes to mix a poem or two into his wine lectures!
Meadowood has a year-round program of major arts events, which have even included full-scale productions of Opera on the Lawn, including "Madame Butterfly" and "Magic Flute."

Then there is The Restaurant, headed up by Steven Tevere, whose five-course prix fixe Vintners Menu pairs local wines and special dishes.

"I love finding the ideal complementary flavors among foods and in food and wine pairings," says Tevere, "chanterelles with halibut, Ahi tuna with pinot noir sauce, and scallops with roasted potatoes, truffles, butter sauce and a nice sauvignon blanc."

Like food and wine, croquet, too, tends to bring people together here.

As Stark says, the game is a "great mixer," from corporate meetings to weddings.

And with a game that runs no more than 20 minutes in length, everyone gets a chance to shoot, with boredom not generally an issue.

But if, by chance, you can't muster up enough concentration for the "blood-and-guts" competition of this game, Jerry Stark will not begrudge you a sip of Napa Valley wine on the edge of the croquet lawn.

If You Go …

For more information or reservations at Meadowood, call 800-458-8080 or visit www.meadowood.com.

Meadowood is located at 900 Meadowood Lane, St. Helena.

Rental of croquet balls and mallets is $5 per person for hotel guests. Private instruction is offered at $35 per person, with groups of two-to-four $25.