All decked out in its holiday best, the McClelland-Priest House and its owner Celeste Carducci have a lot to celebrate this Christmas, as she opens her doors to visitors on Landmarks’ annual Holiday Candlelight Tour today.

This year Carducci received a Napa County Landmarks’ Award of Merit for her preservation and adaptive reuse of the 129-year-old Randolph Street residence and inn.

The McClelland-Priest House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places twice, as part of the Napa Abajo-Fuller Park District and as an individually significant building due to its architecture — a unique interpretation of the Second Empire style with its asymmetrical floor plan, convex mansard style roof, Corinthian columns, scrolled brackets, dentil-work molding and ornate ceilings.

The McClelland-Priest House also offers a glimpse into Napa’s past. Its name comes from its first two owners. Originally it was built for Joseph A. and Anna West McClelland in 1878. Joseph, a Pennsylvania native, established a Main street mercantile shortly after his 1866 arrival in Napa. Anna arrived in Napa from New York following their East Coast marriage in 1868.

Several years later, Joseph changed careers to become a director of the J.H. Goodman Bank and then the First National Bank. The story goes that Joseph was encouraged by friends and colleagues to build a new home that better reflected his new position within the community. Whether or not it’s true, the McClellands did move into the larger and more elegantly appointed 569 Randolph St. home. They had no children and the house passed to a cousin following Joseph’s death in 1919.

In the 1930s, the house was purchased by Carlton and Ethel Priest. Carlton worked as an orthodontist while Ethel juggled being a mother and physician. In the 1940s, Ethel became the first woman doctor hired by the Napa schools. Following Carlton’s death, Ethel lived at the Randolph Street house until the year before her death. In 1986 94-year-old Ethel passed away at a local rest home.

Two years later, Carducci, an East Bay resident, saw the house. The ornate ceilings and architectural features reminded her of her mother’s Italian home, and Carducci knew the McClelland-Priest House would be the perfect place for her to make a transition from the corporate world to innkeeping.  “Buying the house was in of itself a task,” said Carducci, who purchased the house from the Priest estate and heirs.  

As Carducci began restoring the house, much to her delight she found the house was in good shape. She made every effort to preserve its historic materials and integrity, especially the lathe and plaster construction. “The upstairs had been shut down, the window glazing had been painted as was the dining room’s wood floor,” she said. “I could tell the house has received a lot of loving care over the years. Any changes I’ve made were, and are, either non-permanent or restorations to period appropriate elements and details. I’ve also preserved decorative items and styles including Dr. (Ethel) Priest’s Battenburg lace curtains and her paint color palette.”

During this time the McClelland-Priest was also the family home for Carducci and her children, Mark, Erica and Gianna. Today Gianna occasionally helps out as the assistant innkeeper.

 Carducci faced more challenges when she applied for a bed and breakfast license in 1991. In addition to dealing with issues such as parking and sidewalks, the biggest obstacle was the fire prevention codes, in particular the fire sprinkler requirement. After considerable negotiation, she reached a compromise that exempted and safeguarded the house’s two most significant and historically sensitive features — the dining and living room ceilings. Carducci received her bed and breakfast license in 1995.

In addition to balancing the demands of the inn and family, Carducci also deals with the unpredictability of tourism while maintaining the McClelland-Priest House. “It is challenging floating out the cashflow in order to complete projects,” she said. “After 9/11 tourism tanked and projects had to be put on hold.”

One project proved to be an exception, she said, “One day we heard a noise coming from the front parlor,” she said. “A large section of lathe and plaster had fallen from the ceiling in front of the fireplace.” Damaged by a water leak upstairs, the ceiling needed a $17,000 repair job.

“There are a lot of on-going repairs and expenses associated with preserving a historic building,” she said. “That’s why the bed and breakfast concept was adopted by communities. The income produced by the inn helps to off-set the costs of preserving historic homes.”

Nonetheless, Carducci considers her job as steward of the McClelland-Priest House to be a privilege.  “I love my lifestyle and my beautiful historic home.”she concluded.