A Gehry Signature in the Napa Valley

SURROUNDED by acres of sun-ripening grapes, 300 dignitaries and guests convened in the Napa Valley of California last month to celebrate the long-delayed groundbreaking of the Hall Winery, designed by the architect Frank O. Gehry.

The project will encompass 120,000 square feet of space that will include modern wine production facilities and the restoration of an original stone winery building.

The winery is the latest - and by many measures, the most ambitious - addition to the Napa landscape, where showcase wineries have sprouted like vines since the construction of the Clos Pegase winery, designed by Michael Graves, in 1987. The Hall Winery is on Highway 29 near St. Helena, on the site of the former Napa Valley Wine Co-op, which, before Prohibition, turned out roughly 40 percent of the area's wine, according to Craig Hall, the chairman of the Hall Financial Group, a private investment firm based in Dallas. Mr. Hall bought the winery in 2003 with his wife, Kathryn, who was ambassador to Austria for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

The project encompasses 120,000 square feet of space that will include modern wine production facilities and the restoration of an original stone winery building, built in 1885, that had been hidden by a large metal warehouse erected in the 1930s. The centerpiece of the design is a 10,000-square-foot tasting room made of glass, stone, plaster and wood, and topped by undulating trellises in Mr. Gehry's signature style. The trellises will be made of wood or lightweight concrete to harmonize with the bucolic surroundings.

The winery buildings will also incorporate 40,000 square feet of solar panels and undertake other energy-efficient measures. The project - expected to be completed in 2010 at a cost of more than 0 million- will be built in three phases, allowing the Halls to continue to make their lush cabernet, merlot and sauvignon blanc using the existing facilities.

Like some past Gehry projects, the initial winery proposal prompted controversy. When the proposal was first made to Napa County in 2004, local residents voiced concerns that Mr. Gehry would put up a large titanium building that would draw scores of gawkers to the area's already crowded roads. Although he has used titanium in some of his previous designs, it was never in his winery plans.

The Halls met with their critics over the course of two years, and Mr. Gehry kept revising his designs. "We made changes that ultimately made it a better project for the community and ourselves," Mr. Hall said.

When it went back to the Napa County Planning Commission in January 2006, it sailed through on a 5-0 vote.

This is not the Halls' first foray into Napa. The couple have been buying up vineyards since 1995 and now own around 3,400 acres in Napa and surrounding areas, where they grow classic Bordeaux grapes like cabernet, merlot and cabernet franc. Ms. Hall's family has also grown grapes in Mendocino County in Northern California since the 1970s. And the Hall Financial Group has provided .2 million in financing for two boutique hotels in the area - a Hilton Garden Inn and the Napa River Terrace.

When it comes to investing, Mr. Hall likes to think of himself as a contrarian. "Much of our real estate relates to doing things others wouldn't do," he said. He pointed to the 162-acre Hall Office Park in Frisco, Tex., which is in its third and final phase of development. When construction began in 1997, on a former cornfield, the Dallas North Tollway had not yet been built.

"We had to bring in people in four-wheel drives," Mr. Hall recalled. "At the grand opening, just six people showed up." Today, the complex is home to 160 companies employing more than 5,000 people.

And in the months after 9/11, when the travel and hospitality markets were in a slump, Hall Financial stepped in to finance several hotel projects whose funding had dried up. For example, the company lent .5 million as a second mortgage to develop the Hotel Vitale in San Francisco. By the time the hotel opened in 2005, the market had recovered.

"When building slows down because there is too much vacancy, we increase our building," Mr. Hall said, and in boom times he often builds less.

Right now, he may be entering a busy period. "The subprime problems will translate into more scrutiny and scarcer, more expensive capital," he said, referring to the current problems in the mortgage industry. "Everyone's pulling in their horns now, and we're excited about the opportunities," he said. In addition to lending to developers, he is interested in buying into portfolios of subprime mortgages.

Hall Financial recently closed on a 62-acre parcel along State Highway 190 in Richardson, Tex., where the company has plans to develop a nine-building office and hotel complex.

Mr. Hall's business philosophy has carried over into wine, too. Most of the 3,400 acres the Halls have bought in the Napa area were acquired when the area was in a relatively quiet period. (Napa real estate rarely has a down cycle.)

And rather than settle for a lesser-known architect for the new Hall Winery, the Halls set their sights on Mr. Gehry, whose famous designs include the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Through friends, they arranged for him to come to Napa in the fall of 2003. Upon viewing the sweeping vista of vineyards and mountains with his associate, Edwin Chan, Mr. Gehry agreed to a deal on the spot.

Capitalizing on the cachet of their famous designer, the Halls say they plan to make the winery a destination, where visitors could take one of several tours that will be offered of the winemaking facilities, the architecture and artwork. "This is what Napa is good at," Mr. Hall said. "I think we can do that better than others."

At the groundbreaking ceremony, Mr. Gehry, dressed in black, mingled with the assembled guests, which included Jerry Brown, California's former governor and now its attorney general; Paul Pelosi Sr., an investment banker based in San Francisco and the husband of Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker; and the winemaker Robert Mondavi and his wife, Margrit, whose Mission-style winery in Napa was designed in the 1960s by Cliff May and was a pioneer among Napa wineries built after Prohibition.

"With the artful combination of the historic and the new, the natural and the human-made," Mr. Gehry said, "it is our intention that the new Hall Winery will be an experience that is unique to and harmonious with the beauty of the Napa Valley."

Mr. Hall, too, said he hoped that the winery would become an important addition to the Napa landscape, as well as a symbol of the area's rise in the winemaking world.

"We have a chance to make a difference, to create something that will stand the test of time," he said. The way a great wine does.