Architecture chronicles the way we live
On loan from the Napa County Historical Society’s Architecture exhibit, SHHS staged the exhibit that was customized for a St. Helena audience. The exhibit was on display during the fall and winter of 2024. While we tried to focus on buidings that were
As early as 1875 there was movement underway to establish a library. When St. Helena incorporated in 1876, they began collecting the taxes that would help pay for services like schools, police and fire departments and libraries.
The Carnegie Building
St. Helena’s Carnegie Building was designed by William Corlett in 1908 in a Mission-Spanish Colonial Revival style.
One of the few Carnegie libraries executed in the Mission Revival style, the building features curvilinear gable ends, semicircular arched windows, and a red tile roof. In 1978, the building was converted to a community center. The structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
Grace Episcopal Church
Founded as a congregation in 1875, Grace Episcopal Church dedicated its first building on December 12 of that year. The stone sanctuary that still stands today was completed in 1883 by Bostonian architect William P. Wentworth at the corner of Spring Street and Oak Avenue. The church joins the City in celebrating its own 150th anniversary in 2026 with a series of special community and historical events.
Episcopal Church
The congregation began after arsonists destroyed the earlier Cumberland Presbyterian Church building on the same site. Reverend James Mitchell arrived from Northern Ireland and organized the new church along with its 17 charter members. Rev. Mitchell had beenworking as a circuit rider by buggy before becoming the first full-time pastor in 1882. The Gothic-style frame building on its stone foundation was dedicated on January 30, 1876. An 880-pound bell was installed in the steeple. The Presbyterian Church has a long history of community involvement, hosting groups like the St. Helena Child Development Center for over 40 years and providing space for the UpValley Family Centers
The El Bonita Motor Inn
Constructed in the 1940s, the El Bonita served as a religious retreat before transitioning into an Art Deco motor court in the 1950s. This roadside landmark on Main Street blends classic mid-century and art deco character with completely upgraded, modern guest rooms. The Bonita comes with a heated outdoor swimming pool, a hot tub and a sauna.
Mondavi Winery
Howard Backen designed a few notable residential, hospitality, and commercial projects in St. Helena, helping define the signature indoor-outdoor “Napa Valley style”. That style is notable for its simplicity, easy on the land and on the eye and sustainable. Timber and concrete enhance the landscape and become one with the surroundings.
Backen Arrigoni & Ross designed the $27 million To-Kalon project expansion for the Robert Mondavi Winery in the late 1990s.
The Post Office
St. Helena’s beautiful Post Office at 1461 Main Street opened in 1941. This was a depressioin-era project, an excellent example of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) at work. Designed by architect Lewis Simon in a transitional Art Deco to Moderne style typical of small federal properties from that era. The building won a California Preservation Design/Construction (CDSC) Preservation Award in 1997. It also served as a civil defense bomb shelter during World War II in 1942.
Two remarkable murals on the walls of the post office are also Treasury Department projects depicting local farm laborers harvesting grapes in the Napa Valley. They are styled in the social realism popular during the New Deal era.
Distillery No. 209
Distillery No. 209 was originally founded in 1882 by William Scheffler at the Edge Hill Estate in St. Helena.
Modern Revival: Entrepreneur Leslie Rudd purchased the historic property in 1999, discovered the faded “Registered Distillery No. 209” signage above the old stone barn doors, and resurrected the brand. The old facility, the ivy-
