Pope St, St. Helena

Came to Pope Street in St. Helena over the weekend to celebrate my birthday. My sister-in-law’s family has a mobile home in the park here. This is a senior mobile home park where retirees come to enjoy the beauty of Wine Country in their golden years. The mobile homes are quite big and have nicely sized backyards.

Pope Street comes right off of Main Street in St. Helena, which many tourists mistakenly believe is Napa’s cute little downtown. From Pope Street you are within walking distance of all the shops and restaurants of this location.

Pope Street is mostly, however, not made up of mobile home parks but of attractive older homes, apartments and duplexes. Most of these are clearly half a century old. You will even find a dark red barn with a rusty old sheet metal roof as you round the bend over the stone bridge that fords the Napa River.

The nicest homes on Pope are on the eastern side of the bridge. This is also where you will find Napa Valley College, one of the local community colleges in the Napa Valley.

Pope dead ends over another bridge at Silverado Trail Rd., a popular backcountry shortcut that locals take to avoid the weekend and summer tourist traffic. (Shhh! Don’t tell anyone.)

Homes on and around Pope sell for around 3 quarters of a million dollars while condos going for under half.

As to schools and crime, it is about what you would expect: low crime and strong schools. (Most schools have API’s of 8 around here--solidly above average.)

Of course, if you are not retired, I’m not sure the commute from here would work for most people unless they happen to live in the area.