A Visit to the Health Retreat at St. Helena

In January and February, the climate near the northern California coast is often unpleasantly characterized by rain and fog. Ellen White, finding her lungs and throat affected by the damp and cold, decided to spend a few weeks at the Health Retreat a little farther inland on the side of Howell Mountain, near St. Helena, just below the bountiful Crystal Spring. Picking up her writing materials, she drove from Healdsburg with a woman physician, Dr. Chamberlain, the thirty-five miles to the Retreat (Letter 36, 1884). She found the weather sunny and warm. She would write until she was weary and then she and Dr. Chamberlain would take their canes and climb the mountains.3BIO 243.6

In writing to Uriah Smith and his wife, Harriet, she described the scenery as “most lovely, exceeding any pictures of loveliness I have ever seen. Brother Smith's artist eye would take in the scenery and enjoy its beauty, if possible, more than myself.”—Letter 11a, 1884.3BIO 244.1

Every time she visited the Retreat she became more enamored with the favorable qualities of the location. She found that William Pratt, who had donated the land for the institution and had aided and fostered its development, now was opening the way for Adventist families to come in and settle close to the institution, hoping to develop a small supporting community.3BIO 244.2

Pratt had given building sites to two families. Now he offered a plot to Ellen White if she would build a home on it. Suitable land close to the institution was in short supply; when he offered her a lot she countered with the proposition that she wished to purchase the available land southeast of the institution. Pratt protested that this would spoil his plan, and she told him that that was precisely what she wanted to do. She stated that she had been shown that the time would come when that land would be needed by the institution and she wished to secure it and hold it for such use.3BIO 244.3

Reluctantly he sold her eight and a half acres, which she held for a number of years till it was needed for the normal expansion of the plant. With this land, so beautifully located, in her possession, she dreamed of building a modest cottage near the institution. She would make it available to the Retreat when needed. She spent three weeks at the Retreat, during which time she made the initial arrangements for the erection of a home. She was back again in late February. She described the new home in a letter to Mrs. Ings as a “little gem of a house” (Letter 22a, 1884); she named it “Iliel.” She arranged for planting and fencing a family orchard on that portion of the land that could be cultivated. “Iliel” still serves the institution, overlooking the valley, although in a slightly different location.3BIO 244.4