Mountain Mill House SR 29, Napa County, CA

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MOUNTAIN MILL HOUSE

First Mountain Mill House before McNulty:

Morning Union, 15 July 1871

M. W. Curley, of the Mountain Mill House, is constructing extensive trout ponds a few miles from Calistoga, at the foot of Mount St. Helena.

Sacramento Daily Union, 21 July 1871

The survey for the Mountain mill site, St. Helena mountain, has just been completed by Moran, the plan of which can be seen at this office. The capacity or the water-power is 125,000 gallons in twenty-four hours. The dam is 100 feet in length, and the flume 650 feet, with 15 feet head at the lowest stage of water The Mountain Mill House fish-ponds are located adjoining the mill site, aid will soon be stocked with fish, when anglers may enjoy themselves in a manner which can't be beaten, by a dam site.

Russian river flag 10/12/1871

The Calistoga Tribune gives an account of the shooting of James M Finley, by Thomas Dye, at the Mountain Mill House on St. Helena mountain, ten miles from Calistoga. The fracas was the result of an old feud, Finley was shot in the thigh; amputation is necessary, and the wound may prove fatal.

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McNulty’s Mountain Mill House

PHOTO BY DAVID BERRY

According to 1960s reports from the Napa Valley Register & the Oakland Tribune, Felix and Delia McNulty bought 157 acres in 1873, at the intersection of the Old Lawley Toll Road with the Palisades and Oat Hill Mine Road. They took title from the colorful Sam Brannan, who had bought up thousands of acres in the area during the 1860s.

The McNultys commenced building in 1880, using redwood lumber brought from a mill on the Mendocino coast. The wide boards were hand sawed, and transported by freight team over the coastal mountain range, across the valley and up Mt. St Helena. The piers were redwood resting on rock columns in lieu of a foundation.

The house was two storied, with six bedrooms upstairs (plus a bathroom of more recent vintage.) There is a huge kitchen, scene of preparation and processing of vast quantities of food. The dining room is large, with long tables where hungry drovers, coachmen and passengers were fed. Later innovations include a large living room at the rear, and a bar.

There are two downstairs bedrooms, both with fireplaces. In one of these, Delia McNulty was brought to bed of a daughter, Lilly, in 1882. A few years make later a son, Willy, was born there.

McNultys, as Mountain Mill House was called in its heyday, was a beehive of bustle and activity. Several stage lines carried passengers over the mountain, most of them families seeking relaxation at one of the lake resorts. Freight wagons creaked along the dusty road, lifelines to cities and the coast. They carried the necessities of life to resorts and families on the mountain and over into Lake County.

Herds of sheep and cattle moved slowly along the road on their way to market, kicking up clouds of thick yellow dust. McNulty's was a favorite stop for the drovers on the way to Calistoga and the railroad.

Stages leaving Calistoga had a three and a half hour trip to the stop at Mountain Mill House. Tired horses were turned into the corral there, or lodged in a barn which burned in the 1940s. It stood where the pond is now. Weary drivers, sweaty and dusty, and their cramped and jolted passengers, refreshed themselves at McNultys. They drank thirstily of the cold spring water, or buttermilk fresh from the churn, for there was no bar. Those who wanted something stronger got it at the Toll House Inn at Silverado.

Delia and Lilly worked as pioneer women have always worked unendingly, from daylight until long past dark. There was the garden to plant and tend, poultry and eggs to be raised and readied, cows to milk, butter to churn, fruit and vegetables to can, rooms to clean, beds to make, dishes to wash, clothing and linen to wash and iron. It was all hard labor, and the hands were those of Delia and Lilly.

0n their part, Felix and Willy took care of stock, cleaned stables, fed and watered, raised field crops, cut wood for the many fireplaces, and worked three cinnabar mines on the place, none of these produced much except hard, back-breaking toil.

As the 20th Century crept into the second decade, the Mountain Mill House changed. Horse and buggy days were going, with a clip-clop of hoofs, and cars were coming over the mountain. Freight began to move in trucks along the dusty road and in l925 the present Highway 29 was started. By the time it was open to traffic in 1926, Felix and Delia were dead, and so was the Mountain Mill House. Willy had been gone a long time. Only Lilly was left.

Independent, social, hardworking, she hung on to the spot she loved. She rode a small black horse to various jobs of housework for families over the mountain or in the valley. She lived in the big house alone, as year followed year and no traveler had sought the McNulty hospitality for a long, long time. Gray crept into her hair; her laughter was stilled. The bustle and company that brought laughter was gone. During the 30's the property was sold, with Lilly reserving a three-acre patch. On this patch she built a small cabin for her home. She no longer wanted to live in the big house filled with ghosts of those long dead and echoes of laughter long silent. She loved the mountain, the tall cedars, the sun on the meadow by day, the sigh of the wind by night.

A Mrs. Roberts of Los Angeles was the first buyer, but the land came back to Lillie and she then sold to Fred Sells, who in turn sold to Al Beacher who sold to Herb Gordon. Later Gordon sold to Henry Brandenberg. After years of taking the property back between owners, she sold it to the Girl Scout Council of Oakland in 1958. This time she sold the entire acreage, including her own home, retaining a lifetime tenancy.

During her later, lonelier years, Mountain Mill House occupied by strangers and old friends dropping away, Lilly developed a fondness for wine. It gave warmth and comfort to a starved and lonely spirit, and softened the rough edges of life for an old, tired and infirm woman. The last few years of her life she spent winters in town, at the insistence of friends. She came back with the first wildflowers, hungry for the sights, sounds and smells of spring on her mountain. Her one wish was to die there, where she was born.

Late in March, 1965, Lilly left Santa Rosa where she had wintered with friends and went back home for the last time. Her body was frail now, but her spirit burned bright and unquenched. She died in her cabin at Mountain Mill House, alone, as she had lived, three days after her return.

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