Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / United States / Healdsburg / The Madrona
The Madrona
Healdsburg, California, United States · Independent · Core Luxury
Madrona Manor was built in 1881 for John Alexander Paxton, a San Francisco entrepreneur who called his Healdsburg estate Madrona Knoll Rancho, and the Second Empire mansion cost $12,000. It stayed a private home until 1981, when it became a country inn, and the Konrad family bought it in 1999 and built a restaurant that earned a MICHELIN star in 2008. It is on the National Register, and MICHELIN gave the hotel Two Keys in 2024 and 2025.
- 24 rooms
- Opened 1981
- Interiors: Jay Jeffers
About The Madrona
- The 16,000-square-foot Second Empire mansion was built in 1881 for San Francisco entrepreneur John Alexander Paxton, who called it Madrona Knoll Rancho.
- It remained a private home until John Harry Muir bought it in 1981 and turned it into a country inn.
- Madrona Manor was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 and is a Sonoma County Historic Landmark.
- The Konrad family bought it in 1999, and its restaurant earned a MICHELIN star in 2008.
History
In 1879, San Francisco businessman John Alexander Paxton purchased 260 acres of land just west of Healdsburg in Sonoma County for $10,500, naming the property Madrona Knoll Rancho after the distinctive Pacific madrone trees — Arbutus menziesii — that grew across the hillside. In 1880 and 1881 he built a seventeen-room, three-story gabled mansion on the estate, commuting on weekends from the city to the property he intended as a rural sanctuary. The mansion was executed in the Second Empire style, with the characteristic Mansard roofline, elegant dormers, and the formal symmetry that the style imported from Second Empire Paris. A carriage house was built at the same time; both structures survive. Paxton also built a schoolhouse on the property, which has since been incorporated into the hotel.
Paxton died in 1888, before he had fully enjoyed the retreat he had built. The estate passed through family ownership, was subdivided, and gradually contracted from its original 260 acres. By the turn of the century it had passed out of the Paxton family entirely. It changed hands several more times through the first half of the twentieth century, functioning as a private residence until 1981, when new owner John Harry Muir converted the mansion and its outbuildings into a country inn. The Madrona Manor, as it was then known, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987; it is also a Sonoma County Historic Landmark.
The Konrad family acquired the property in 1999 and over the following years developed a nationally recognized restaurant program, earning a MICHELIN star in 2008 that marked it as one of Sonoma County's premier culinary destinations. In 2021 the property was reimagined as The Madrona — a design-forward luxury hotel that retained the 1881 mansion as its centerpiece while introducing interiors reflecting the contemporary design world's interest in the California landscape. The eight acres of woods and orchards around the mansion frame vineyard views that reach across the Alexander Valley, and the hotel's restaurant continues to draw from produce grown on the property. The MICHELIN Guide awarded The Madrona Two Keys in both 2024 and 2025.
Restaurants and bars
- The Restaurant at The Madrona — Restaurant · Sonoma Wine Country flavors and cultures
Experiences
- Porch cocktails — Quietly sipping cocktails on the porch to tangerine-hued sunsets.
Amenities
- Pool
Awards
- AAA Four Diamond (2026)
- MICHELIN Two Keys (2026)
Open The Madrona in the atlas for live weekend rates, photos, and the full folio.
More hotels in Healdsburg
- Appellation Healdsburg — Independent · Core Luxury
- The Cottages at Little Saint — Independent · Core Luxury
- Harmon Guest House — Independent · Accessible Luxury
- Hotel Healdsburg — Independent · Accessible Luxury
- Montage Healdsburg — Montage · Grand Luxury
- SingleThread Inn — Independent · Apex Luxury