New hotels in Napa

Napa is the city at the southern end of the valley, and for the purposes of this guide it is the part of wine country where the hotels are built for people who also want a town around them. We follow two hotels here. Casa Mani Resort Napa Valley, Curio Collection by Hilton opened in April 2026 in downtown, and The Elene, a new-build boutique resort on Solano Avenue, is planned for fall 2026. They sit about five miles apart and answer different questions: one is a large rebuilt hotel with a spa and a steakhouse, the other a 50-key resort on a cycling trail.

How Napa works on the ground

Napa is the largest city in the county and its seat, with 79,246 residents at the 2020 census. It is in the North Bay, about 50 miles from both Oakland and San Francisco airports, 30 miles from the Sonoma County airport and 65 from Sacramento's. State Route 29 runs through the city and carries on north into the valley, and Route 12 passes south of town toward Sonoma and Fairfield.

The Napa River runs through the middle. It flooded badly in 1986, and again in 2005, when the whole downtown went under and about 1,000 homes across the county were destroyed. Voters narrowly approved a sales tax in March 1998 to pay for the Napa River Flood Project, which aims to reduce flood risk along six miles of the river and one mile of Napa Creek. The waterfront downtown that visitors see today, around First and Main streets and the Napa Mill complex, is partly a product of that work.

The valley towns lie to the north: Yountville is first, then Rutherford, St. Helena and finally Calistoga. Napa is the one with the airport transfers, the train connection and the largest hotel stock, which is why a stay here works as a base for the whole valley. It is also the most urban of the valley's places to stay, and the only one with a river running through the middle of the downtown.

We follow hotels, so this guide says little about restaurants and tasting rooms, and describes only what we have been able to check.

What to do in Napa

The riverfront and downtown

Downtown is compact. The Napa Valley Opera House, built in 1879, held its first performance on 13 February 1880 and was reestablished in the 1980s after decades of decline. The Sam Kee Laundry Building, from 1875, is the oldest commercial building in town, and the Cayetano Juárez Adobe, from 1845, is the oldest building of any kind. The Alexandria Hotel and its annex also survive.

Copia, now the Culinary Institute of America at Copia, opened in 2016 and gives the riverside a food-and-wine institution. The Napa Mill complex and the streets around First and Main are where most visitors find their dinner.

The Wine Train

The Napa Valley Wine Train runs 18 miles of standard-gauge track between Napa and St. Helena. The operating company, Napa Valley Railroad, was formed in 1987. The train usually makes two runs a day and uses nine passenger cars, including lounge, observation and dining cars, several of them built by Pullman in the early 1900s for the Northern Pacific Railroad. The original train holds 320 passengers. It is a tourist railway and should be booked as an excursion, not as transport.

The Vine Trail

The Napa Valley Vine Trail is planned as a 47-mile paved route for walkers and cyclists, starting at the Vallejo Ferry Terminal and running up the valley to Calistoga through ten sections: Vallejo, American Canyon, Los Carneros, the city of Napa, Oak Knoll, Yountville, Oakville, Rutherford, St. Helena and Calistoga. The first section opened in Yountville in 2012. The 12-mile gap between Vallejo and American Canyon was filled in 2022, and eight miles between Calistoga and St. Helena opened in 2024. The ten miles between Yountville and St. Helena are the last construction project, and completion is estimated for 2028.

For a visitor, this means the trail is real in places and unfinished in others. Check the Vine Trail Coalition's map before planning a long ride. The Elene's site on Solano Avenue is on the trail, which is why the hotel plans a bike barn and a cycling programme.

Yountville

Yountville has 3,436 residents, and nearly a third of them live at the Veterans Home of California. It is also where The French Laundry, founded in 1978 by Sally Schmitt and now owned by Thomas Keller, holds three Michelin stars, and Keller's Bouchon holds one. The town is described as having the most Michelin stars per capita in North America. Tables at the top of that list are booked well in advance, which affects how a stay in Napa should be planned.

A short history

Nathan Coombs founded the city in 1847. John Patchett opened the county's first commercial winery in 1859, and the Napa Valley Register began weekly publication in August 1863. The city was incorporated on 23 March 1872. The state hospital took its first patients in 1876. Napa leather was invented at the Sawyer Tanning Company in 1875. In 1915 Edwin Pridham and Peter L. Jensen invented the moving-coil loudspeaker here. A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck on 24 August 2014, centred a few miles northwest of American Canyon. The San Francisco, Napa and Calistoga Railway, set up in 1905, and the state hospital, which opened in 1875, are reminders that the city had an economy before wine tourism.

Where to stay in Napa

Napa's two openings are on opposite sides of a question that visitors usually answer on the first day: do you want the town or the valley?

Downtown, on California Boulevard

Casa Mani Resort Napa Valley, Curio Collection by Hilton is at 1075 California Boulevard, on the footprint of the former Embassy Suites. Hilton announced the grand opening on 23 April 2026 after a redevelopment and rebrand, and calls it the city's first downtown urban resort. One report put the cost at about $80 million, which Hilton did not confirm.

It has 203 rooms, 188 guest rooms and 15 suites, with interiors by DyeLot Interiors, a spa with five treatment rooms and a hydrothermal circuit, a Peloton Spaces fitness centre and more than 15,000 square feet of event space. BOA Steakhouse, from Innovative Dining Group, was to open a month after the hotel. Hilton lists the resort as walkable to First Street. Creekside Terrace serves breakfast, lunch and brunch by the pool, The Lobby Lounge does cocktails and small plates, The Marketplace sells local products, and the Offering Tree in the lobby is the setting for afternoon wine tastings. Signature rooms and suites have private patios with firepits. No nightly rates have been published.

Solano Avenue, between Napa and Yountville

The Elene is a different kind of project: a new building at 5091 Solano Avenue, five miles from downtown by Mosaic's count and about three from Yountville. It has 50 accommodations, 46 rooms with vineyard views and private decks and four suites, a heated 25-yard pool, a Spa & Sauna Garden designed by Lydia Mondavi and a restaurant, bar and café. Signum Architecture designed the building and Parts and Labor Design the interiors.

The opening has slipped from early 2026 to late summer and then to fall 2026, and we have found no confirmation of a date. Mosaic named Cody Felice managing director in March 2026. Rates are unpublished, the restaurant has no name yet, and the vineyard pool and Spa & Sauna Garden are the main attractions the releases describe. Nordby Construction is building it, and Napa Valley Land Company, based in St. Helena, is the developer.

Which hotel in Napa for your trip

For a group, an event or a town stay

Casa Mani. A hotel with seven meeting rooms and a lawn for 200 is built for weddings and corporate trips, and it puts guests a short walk from the restaurants and the river. It is a rebuilt 1980s block, so anyone expecting a vineyard setting will not find it here.

For cycling and a quieter valley stay

The Elene, once it opens. The Vine Trail runs at the edge of the site and Yountville is a short ride. Treat the fall 2026 date as provisional.

For a trip built around the valley's top tables

Neither hotel changes the arithmetic. The most sought-after Yountville tables are booked far ahead, Yountville is a short drive or ride from both hotels, and the sensible order is to secure the dinner first and the room second.

For a quieter, spa-town stay

Napa is not the only base. Calistoga, at the northern end, has its own hotel stock and a different character, and it is the other end of the Vine Trail.

Getting around

Visitors arriving by rail should know that Napa has no passenger train of its own: Amtrak Thruway route 7 stops daily at the Soscol Gateway Transit Center, 825 Burnell Street. VINE Transit runs buses in the city and across the county. The Napa Valley Airporter offers a daily shuttle from its office on Route 29 to Oakland and San Francisco airports. Sonoma County Airport, about 30 miles northwest, and Sacramento International, about 65 miles northeast, are the alternatives to the Bay Area airports. Most visitors rent a car or use rideshares for the valley, and the Vine Trail is an alternative on the flat sections.

The climate is Mediterranean: cool, damp winters and warm, dry summers, with rain falling mostly between October and April and about 31 inches in an average year. The record high is 114 degrees Fahrenheit, set on 6 September 2022. Summer brings the risk of heat waves and wildfires, and winters can bring flooding. Check conditions before a late-summer or autumn trip.

Frequently asked questions

Which hotel opened most recently in Napa?

Casa Mani Resort Napa Valley, Curio Collection by Hilton, which opened in late April 2026 at 1075 California Boulevard with 203 rooms and suites.

Is The Elene open yet?

Not as far as we can confirm. Mosaic Hotel Collection has given fall 2026 as the target, after earlier dates of early 2026 and late summer 2026, and we have found no opening announcement as of 21 October 2026.

What was Casa Mani before it became a Curio Collection resort?

An Embassy Suites by Hilton. Hilton redeveloped it from top to bottom and relaunched it under the Curio Collection, with 188 renovated guest rooms and 15 suites.

Can you cycle from Napa up the valley?

In sections. The Napa Valley Vine Trail is planned at 47 miles from Vallejo to Calistoga, with the final ten miles between Yountville and St. Helena still to be built and completion estimated for 2028.