The Healing Waters of Wine Country, A Documentary
This includes a proposal for a documentary. After the videos is the complete text describing this remarkable story.
Our four minute proposal video for the Napa Arts Council. 4 mins
Ralph's commentary from the KSVY Sonoma Radio Show and Podcast. 16 mins
The Heart of the material in the presentation by Don Winter for the Napa Historical Society Annual Meeting, 23 mins
The Waters of Napa, A Proposal by Ralph DeAmicis
This film is a portrait of Napa from a special time, told through the contemporary stories of six artists, healers and entrepreneurs. During the Gold Rush miners spending the winter in Napa discovered precious Mercury, nested alongside the valleys numerous mineral hot springs, and those two treasures attracted people from all over the world.Our reverence for healing springs is ancient. In spiritual traditions pure water symbolizes love and heat is a vital healing tool. This clean hot water bubbling out of the earth was considered a gift from the Goddess. These mystical beliefs annually bring millions of pilgrims to the spring at Lourdes, hoping to touch the divine and reclaim their health.
Beneath European cathedrals are healing springs where they draw the holy water for the baptismal. Long before these monuments were constructed these sites were healing springs where violence was forbidden, beginning the tradition of offering sanctuary in churches. Later temples to the Goddesses were built to shelter those in need of healing from the weather. The Cathedrals cut their followers off from the healing waters because they wanted parishioners looking up to heaven, rather than down to Earth for salvation. Yet, Cathedrals are often named for women like the Parisian Notre Dame, and Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, and our Lady of Chartres. In light of that, how remarkable is a place like Napa, where so many healing springs are available to so many? They were so important to the native people that the tallest mountain, which we call Saint Helena, they called Mayacamas, for ‘Many Springs.’
The people who came to Napa and Sonoma to build spas, hotels and sanitariums were not simply hoteliers, they were healers, with a mission. Because natural healing is not a famously profitable business, like the second little pig, they mainly built with wood, so fires periodically reduced their work to ashes. But the springs remained, so they rebuilt again and again, and sometimes even again, because this was their mission!
Napa was seen as the healthiest spot in California and from the 1880’s to the 1960’s thousands arrived every summer, staying at more than eighty hotels and spas. Eventually grand hotels and sanitariums were built, and it became a favorite retreat for artists and writers.
On weekends sailboat regattas would arrive at the Napa docks, the sailors would take stage coaches up narrow Soda Canyon Road to Colonel John Putnam Jackson’s Soda Springs. A lover of architecture, every building he commissioned was unique and spectacular, and one even sported an illuminated crystal dome that could be seen, like a beacon of hope, in San Francisco.
Lillie Langtry, born on the isle of Jersey during the gilded age, was the Taylor Swift of her day. She arrived in St Helena in our own luxurious rail car. She built her grand estate in Pope Valley to be close to her American lover, their racehorses and Aetna Springs which was later a favorite of Hollywood celebrities. Though she traveled the world, and was wooed by Princes and Kings, this was the place, where surrounded by stunning beauty, she was at peace and in love. Sam Brannan’s over the top optimism for his Saratoga Springs of California was visionary. But like the hero in a Greek tragedy, California’s wealthiest man was felled by a fatal flaw. He was brought down by his illicit love affair with the international beauty, actress, dancer and undeniably notorious Lola Montez. But he led the way to Calistoga and the town of mud and wine is thriving today.
Jack London was the world’s most successful author of his time. He returned from Alaska with his pockets empty and his head full of stories. He fell desperately in love with Charmian Kittredge, and seeking paradise they moved to their ‘Beauty Ranch’ up the hill from springs people still enjoy today. Jack hitched his horse to an ancient bay leaf tree next to the Hearst winery, and sat in its shade and worked on the book he called Valley of the Moon.
Eighteen year old Georgiana Pacheteau’s first trip outside Napa was when she followed her husband to New York City to raise the money for their spa. Her husband died there, but she returned to Calistoga with his body, and the money. Undeterred, she and her family built and ran the Indian Springs spa successfully for many years. Robert Louis Stevenson was a poet in love when he left Scotland to pursue Fanny Vandergrift, the queen of his heart, to her home in San Francisco. Even though, after his journey, RLS looked like a bag of skin and bones, fortune smiled on him. So, the newlywed couple headed to Calistoga hoping the waters and ‘good’ air would save his health and life. It did! Thanks to Napa’s healing nature, RLS was able to later pen his book Treasure Island, which includes some wonderful Napa notes, and gave Disney material for a great classic movie seventy years later.
People were able to come here at that time to help others heal, to be healed, to rekindle their creative spark, to find peace, or because they were in love, thanks to the invention of the steam engine. It not only powered the printing presses that made these artists famous, it powered the vessels that made crossing the oceans safer, and river commerce in places like Napa economically feasible.
We are able to do this film project successfully for several reasons. After producing over 200 TV episodes and a dozen documentaries locally, over the past twelve years we have the skills and equipment necessary. We have access to a wealth of historical photos from that period. Between researching our episodes and travel books we know these locations well. Through producing our show Wine Country at Work at Napa TV, and KSVY Radio Sonoma we have extensive contacts in the community, and we are collaborating with other historians.
While we mostly self-fund, this project includes some unique expenses including filming on a ferry and inside a stagecoach to capture the travelers experience. Some photos and recordings of Lily Langtry singing may not be in the public domain. On certain rural locations we need to hire qualified help to transport the gear, and make sure it is done properly the first time. We plan to arrange showings and community discussions, including artists, healers and the general public at the Napa Historical Society, the new Calistoga Community Arts center, the Sonoma Community Center, Napa and Sonoma Center’s For Spiritual Living, and Union Pacific College, which started as the Dr. Angwin sanitorium. We will promote the film on YouTube, and the PEG (Public, Education, Government) network, and submit it to film festivals and numerous PBS stations. Ralph DeAmicis, ralphdeamicis@gmail.com, 707-235-2364.