Casa Madrona Hotel & Spa

There are plenty of hotels, both old-fashioned and painfully hip, within the San Francisco city limits. Casa Madrona is different, though; no towering city hotel, this is a Victorian mansion tucked into a hillside in Sausalito — just off the far end of the Golden Gate Bridge, in upscale Marin County.

It’s a short ferry ride from Market Street and the Financial District, but it’s a completely different world, all rustic charm on the quiet waterfront. The main building is an authentic Victorian mansion, dating from 1885, which is ancient history on the West Coast. The rooms in this building are appropriately old-fashioned, and not particularly expansive, though many compensate with dramatic views of Richardson’s Bay and Belvedere Island.

31 more rooms are found in the modern addition, product of a 2002 renovation, and these rooms are more contemporary in style, nineteen of them featuring private balconies facing the waterfront. And those seeking greater privacy may book one of the garden casitas scattered throughout the property.

Though a small hotel just outside the city, Casa Madrona has a few nice touches that push it a little closer to destination resort territory. An hour on the massage table in the spa, and you may forget whatever business brought you to the Bay Area. And let’s not even get started on those seaweed wraps and sea salt scrubs.

How to get there: Casa Madrona Hotel & Spa is approximately a 15-minute drive from downtown San Francisco and 40-50 minutes from San Francisco International Airport (SFO).