St. Helena’s White Sulphur Springs Inn and Spa, which has been a resort for 154 years, is no longer taking reservations for lodging; instead it will be used only as a retreat center.

Liza Ingrasci, vice president and managing director of the Hoffman Institute, said the general public probably won’t notice a difference. “Nothing really has happened,” she said on Dec. 28. “It has always been our goal to edge out the other uses at the resort.”

One of the graduates of the Hoffman Quadrinity Process bought the 45-acre resort and gave it to the Hoffman Institute Foundation in September 2000. But before that, the Hoffman Institute held its retreat seminars at White Sulphur Springs (WSS) beginning in the 1990s and the institute was a long-term renter from Seward “Buzz” and Betty Foote, who bought the resort in March 1983. According to Buzz, White Sulphur Springs was California’s first resort.

After taking over the facility, Ingrasci said they hosted weddings “to make ends meet.” They also rented the cottages to the public until Dec. 18. Ingrasci added, “We adore the public.” But, the Hoffman Institute business has grown and WSS is the company’s retreat center on the West Coast. “It’s a pretty, lovely site and we hosted a 150th anniversary in 2002. People came out of the woodwork to attend the party,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere.”

Future plans include renovations of the current facilities, which include nine creekside cottages, the Carriage House, bathhouse, dining room and other buildings. Its retreat capacity is 60 to 65 people, Ingrasci said. “We are bound by the agreements we’ve made,” she said, “and we’ll keep the footprint as it is. There will be nothing new built.”

Office manager Sven Kujat has been with the Hoffman Institute for the past couple of years and is currently the office manager. For the past eight months he has lived in the only original cottage on the site, which was built in 1852. The young man, who grew up in Healdsburg, said he enjoys living in the historic home but said the cottage’s foundation evidently has shifted, since the door to the kitchen slants one way and the door to the bedroom slants another way.

8-day residential program

The Hoffman Institute offers an eight-day residential experiential education program for adults, according to its Web site. Liza’s husband, Raz Ingrasci, CEO and president, had worked with Bob Hoffman for many years, until Hoffman’s death in 1997. Hoffman first formalized the program in 1967 and its current form, the Hoffman Quadrinity Process, was established in 1985, according to the Web site. The process seeks to equalize four parts of every human being — intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual and is offered in 12 countries throughout the world. Some 5,000 people go through the program each year.

The White Sulphur Springs Inn & Spa is one of three training sites in the United States; the others are in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. According to the Web site, www.hoffmaninstitute.org, the program offers a technique that empowers an individual to forgive his or her past, heal the present and transform the future. Cost is $3,950 and the program goes from Friday to Friday. In 2007, the seminars at White Sulphur Springs begin on Jan. 5 and continue each week through the end of the year.

According to a history of the White Sulphur Springs, compiled by Genevieve Sheffer and published in 1971, the springs were discovered by John York and David Hudson in 1848. Sheffer’s history, which is available at the St. Helena Library, shows that four years later, in 1852, the springs were first used as a resort.

Hotel built in 1859

The first hotel was built in 1859, but it was destroyed either that year or a year later. Sven Alstrom, the White Sulphur Springs owner, built a new hotel in 1861, but it burned down after a drunken employee threw a firecracker on its roof in 1875.

Luckily, 30 rooms were located above the sulphur pool for lodging of the guests.

The property was sold four times from 1881 to 1904, when Col. John Sanford bought it. He continued to operate it as a resort and finally, Sanford used the property as his private residence before his death in 1915. Acquiring the property in 1916 was W. F. Mercier of St. Helena, who reopened it to the public. In May the first public swimming pool, which was the largest in the Napa Valley, was built. The tank was filled with constantly flowing sulphur water to assure a fresh supply for each day’s use. According to articles in the St. Helena Star, Sheffer notes, “There was considerable emphasis on local use, such as the Red Cross swimming lessons in the WSS pool, and the American Legion annual meeting.”

Tom Giugni was born and raised in St. Helena and remembers riding his bicycle to White Sulphur Springs to go swimming. “That really was the only pool, other than Chuck Carpy’s private pool, to go to,” he said. “I would get on my bicycle and swim in that cold, cold water.”

Used for swim lessons

Giugni said that was in the 1940s, and added that the Red Cross used to teach swimming there as well. Three of his four sons were born in St. Helena, he said, and the oldest also took swimming lessons in the White Sulphur Springs pool.

Giugni was principal of St. Helena High School before leaving for a superintendent’s job in Lompoc in 1961. After spending his career in education, he and his family moved back to the Napa Valley in 1993.

The pool at White Sulphur Springs needs repair and is no longer in use.

Five years later, the Oak Lodge, a bathhouse, dining hall and 12 cottages were built. Sheffer’s history notes that one of the cottages burned down, “leaving the gap now seen in the row by the creek.” She also said the manager’s cottage probably was the Alstrom home. Alstrom also built the Madrone Lodge and a neighboring cabin. Her notes state, “The present caretaker was there when one of those cabins was torn down. He still saves an occasional old nail that he finds on that spot.”

According to a history of White Sulphur Springs available at the resort, at one time WSS had gambling and one-armed bandits, as did many other resorts. “There are stories saying that when the sheriff wanted to make his visit to the Springs to make sure there was no gambling, he would call ahead so they knew he was coming to make his inspection. He would then return at night to try his luck along with everyone else.”

Sheffer’s history states that Mercier sold the resort in 1941 and it sold an additional four times in the 1940s. One of those sales, in 1948 was to a Sausalito resident, Bob Campbell, who turned the resort into “Bob’s Steak House” complete with bar, dancing, sulphur baths and hotel accommodations. He sold it three years later to William Nickerson, a former telephone company executive, who renamed it “Sun Valley” and hired Mr. and Mrs. Miller as managers.

The resort became an exclusive boys camp in 1955 and two years later the Methodist Church Conference bought the property for $85,000. It was used as a retreat and seminar resort and was rented to other church groups to help support the facility. The largest conference held was for 400 people.

In 1971 the Methodist Church Conference leased WSS to the Hadassah Zionist Church, according to the WSS history. Three years later, the Hadassah Northern California Zionist Youth Commission from Kensington, Calif. bought the resort for $250,000, according to Sheffer’s history. The property was informally renamed “Little Judea.”

The WSS resort history states Santana Darma Foundation bought the resort in 1977 and legally changed the name to Kayavarohan, which means “descending in form,” as in God materializing on Earth.

In March 1983, the Footes bought the resort and reestablished the original name of White Sulphur Springs.

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