Proposal for new Santa Rosa hotel on former Fountaingrove Hilton site takes shape

Developers have submitted plans to rebuild on the Santa Rosa site of the former Hilton Sonoma Wine Country hotel in Fountaingrove more than six years after it was destroyed in the Tubbs Fire.

The project calls for a boutique hotel with 158 rooms connected by landscaped walkways, a sprawling outdoor courtyard and a ballroom on just more than 11 acres off Round Barn Boulevard.

It’s being proposed by new owners Palo Alto-based Radiate Hospitality, the family-run company behind the rebirth of Petaluma’s historic brick silk mill as a Hampton Inn hotel.

Perry Patel, president of Radiate Hospitality, said the Hilton was a gathering space for visitors and locals alike who enjoyed the hotel’s food and drink offerings.

He hopes to recreate that in the new project.

“This was the place to be, the hotel that the locals came to whether it was for weddings or for dining purposes,” he said. “So that’s what we’re trying to do, create that same anchor that the hotel once was while also catering to today’s travelers.”

Residents can get a first look at the project during a 5 p.m. public meeting Monday at a City Hall building at 637 First St.

Written comments can be submitted to the city ahead of the meeting. People can provide comments in person, but no comments will be taken online.

The meeting is a first step as the project winds through the city permitting process.

The property has sat mostly vacant since the majority of the buildings on the site were demolished following the 2017 wildfire and it remains one of the last and largest sites in the city’s northeast hillside yet to be rebuilt as thousands of new homes rose around it.

The Tubbs Fire, which started on the night of Oct. 8, 2017, destroyed about 1,600 homes in Fountaingrove, Montecito Heights, Hidden Valley, the Highway 101 corridor and Round Barn areas.

The Fountaingrove Inn just below the Hilton was burned to the ground.

In Santa Rosa alone, dozens of business and commercial properties also were destroyed and more than 3,000 homes were lost.

The recovery in hilly, upscale Fountaingrove has taken longer than other parts of the county hit in the firestorm. In late 2022, crews demolished the old retaining walls at the former Fountaingrove Inn site, making way for more than 200 for-rent apartments at that 10-acre property.

Patel said the company first eyed the Hilton property about a year ago and acquired it in September. They submitted plans for the new hotel to Santa Rosa in December.

He envisions a full-service, independent hotel and a smaller-scale project than what was once on the site, but with many of the same amenities. The Hilton had 230 rooms.

“We’re not looking to rebuild what was there in terms of the number of guest rooms or the large meeting spaces,” he said.

The project is planned in two phases with the first phase calling for the renovation of three existing buildings on the site.

Those buildings house 108 guest rooms that Patel described as “frozen in time.”

The rooms will be modernized and workers will upgrade fire safety measures at the site.

A second phase calls for building out the remainder of the property with 50 new guest rooms tucked along the western edge of the site.

New facilities would also include a lobby, ballroom, a restaurant and bar near the entrance to the property off Round Barn Boulevard and a spa near the existing pool on the northwest corner. Outdoor gathering space to host receptions also is planned.

Patel said plans for the first phase are going through the city permitting process and he hopes to have project approvals by the end of the month and start renovations soon after. The second phase is still in design and he plans to submit construction plans to the city in the second half of the year.

“We’re really excited about this,” Patel said, adding that his team had become fond of the area after their work in Petaluma.

Early cost estimates weren’t immediately available as the team finalizes the design but Patel said more details about the cost, construction timeline and employment opportunities would be available by the end of the year or early 2025.

You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or paulina.pineda@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @paulinapineda22.