The hook
The stone ruins of the dream mansion Jack London built and never got to live in, burned to the ground days before he moved in.
01Why it's worth it
Jack London, the wildly famous adventure writer, poured his book fortune into "Wolf House," a massive stone-and-redwood mansion in the hills above Glen Ellen. In 1913, days before he and his wife were to move in, it burned overnight, arson was suspected, though it may have been spontaneous combustion in a pile of oily rags. London died three years later and it was never rebuilt. Today its haunting ruins, soaring stone walls and empty window arches open to the sky, stand at the end of a short walk through his Beauty Ranch, now a state park. Nearby are his cottage, his grave under a plain boulder, and the ranch he obsessed over. It's a poignant place, a monument to a huge ambition that literally went up in smoke, set in beautiful Sonoma oak-and-vine country.
02How to experience it
It's in Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen. Pay the day-use fee and take the easy trail (under a mile) to the Wolf House ruins; add London's grave and the Beauty Ranch buildings. It folds naturally into a Sonoma Valley loop.