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Funny how one can get lost, even before leaving home.

While planning a trip to Mendocino County, I got sidetracked by details on the website for the Other Place guest ranch. It said the property's first cottage had a great room with a wood-burning stove. A second cottage came with an oversized tub in the bathroom. The last cottage boasted a dining room with pastoral views. Decisions, decisions.

In the end the choice didn't matter. When I drove past all three rentals, I realized the key to this vacation wasn't the bedroom, great room or dining room. It was the breathing room.

That's the appeal of the Other Place, a 550-acre ranch in the Anderson Valley wine country. We were two city guys and one city dog seeking a respite in the country. A place called Boonville, population 751, seemed appropriate. Though the town and the surrounding valley are best known for wine, we came for its other charms: family-owned markets, offbeat galleries, little-known parks. We wanted leisure bordering on languor. We sought accommodations that imparted solitude and scenery in equal measure.

Visitors can get here by flying to San Francisco or Oakland, then driving three hours north on U.S. 101 and California 128. My partner, Todd, and I were in the middle of a road trip when we arrived by car one Saturday last month with Bailey and his dog bed in tow.

From the highway, an unmarked dirt-and-gravel driveway wound two miles past creeks and up to our 960-square-foot hilltop studio, the Oaks, a shabby-chic wood-and-glass box with a roof made of salvaged sheet metal. We took a quick look inside and noted the complimentary extras in the kitchen, including granola and milk for breakfast, Chenin Blanc from the local Husch Vineyards, even two quarts of tomato juice in case the dog played chase with a skunk.

While Bailey scouted our four-acre fenced yard, we drove back down the hill for dinner at the Boonville Hotel. Todd had a Caesar salad and the daily special, a thin-crust pizza with yellow and black chanterelles picked that morning. I had the potato and leek soup with nutmeg cream, followed by a tender half-chicken with mild gorgonzola-mint sauce. We were surprised by the big-city food, service and ambience.

Back at the Oaks, Todd and I got the fire roaring and played a few board games. We went to sleep serenaded by silence and the occasional dog snore.

Counting crows

Come morning, I finally understood the reason for the open layout, sparse furnishings and absence of curtains: breathing room.

Picture windows lining three walls provided a panorama of lichen-laden oaks, dewy grass and morning mist lingering in the valley.

I padded to a window alcove and did little more than sip apple cider and watch a dozen crows flit from tree to tree. An hour passed. I wasn't sure how and, more important, I didn't care.

It was the kind of scene Anne Bennett and husband Aaron Weintraub envisioned when they bought the land six years ago. She was a buyer for Macy's in New York and later division president for a San Francisco apparel company; he was a real estate junkie. Their first venture in the Anderson Valley, a collection of cottages in nearby Yorkville called Sheep Dung Estates, had gained a cult-like following.

The Other Place's cottages are more expensive ($250 a night for ours on weekends) but come with more amenities, such as the high-end in-wall sound system, satellite TV and central air and heat. With only three cottages spread across 550 acres, there's also more privacy.

While Todd slept, Bailey and I rambled down the gravel road toward grassy knolls and trickling creeks. I knew what would happen next but didn't have the heart to stop it. The dog bolted to a creek, spread-eagle in the icy water, and shoved his snout in the mud. When he realized a creek wouldn't get him sufficiently filthy, he sprinted to a pasture and ran a crazy-eight pattern in ankle-deep muck.

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