Dalya Sachs never intended to own a vineyard or get into hospitality. It was “far more of an investment” than she ever wanted to make.
But after a few years in Austin, the Marin-grown, UC Berkeley-educated Ph.D. in French and Italian literature desperately missed the Bay Area. When pandemic shutdowns stretched into their second month, she began to look for a place in Wine Country. When she found it, a gorgeous estate in Sebastopol with a landscape reminiscent of Tuscany or Provence, it was love at first sight.
The Dalya Estate(Curtis Myers)
Sachs envisioned the six-acre property as a multifaceted venue for retreats, workshops, and other meetings and events. The main Vineyard House—a 2,400-square-foot, three-bedroom home with an expansive garden and 60-foot pool—and the Guest Cottage—a historic, 1,400-square-foot farmhouse—would also serve as a vacation rental, one the Emmy Award-winning travel show Staycation featured as one of Wine Country’s “finest.”
The name that fit best, she decided, was the one she’d been carrying since birth: Dalya, which in Hebrew means a slender twig or branch of an olive tree or grapevine.
While the opportunities at The Dalya Estate are virtually endless, (“I’m like a little percolating idea factory,” she laughs.) Sachs has a special interest in cultivating the property as a hub for creativity and deep connection. That’s the objective of Detour at Dalya Estate, a one-of-a-kind women’s retreat where art open the door to candid conversations, creative expression, and unexpected moments.
Detour is “something deeper and more creative, more vulnerable and profound, than the average women’s retreat,” Sachs explains. This fall’s three-day event (November 5-8), Dreams in the Grammar of Possibility, turns the estate into an immersive art gallery for a collaborative exhibition that’s recently been shown in Austin, New York, and at SF’s Minnesota Street Project.
Photographer Stephanie Duprie Roth and Dalya Estate owner Dalya Sachs at Minnesota Street Project(Courtesy of The Dalya Estate)
The installation, which explores the shifting sense of identity women experience as they age, struck a nerve with audiences. After viewing the 19 photographs by Austin photographer Stephanie Duprie Routh paired with poems written by Sachs and bespoke scents created by a Mexico City olfactory artist, “a lot of women came up to us and looked us right in the eyes and said ‘I want to talk about this more,’ Sachs explains.
This fall’s Detour at Dalya Estate provides that opportunity, expanding on the project’s original concept by bringing eight women together to engage with creators Duprie Routh and Sachs through curated conversations about truth, purpose, desire, and possibility; guided silk and sfumato painting and hyperlocal botanical cocktail composition; a blind wine tasting with VinePair’s Sommelier of the Year and Wine Enthusiast’s Rising Star of 2026, Alexandria Sarovich; one-on-one portrait sessions; chef-led dining and culinary experiences; and more.
It is meant to be, quite literally, a detour: a fork in time that presents retreat participants with an alternative path for their relationships with their past, their bodies, and their futures.
(Curtis Myers)
With its lush gardens and vineyard, its Wine Country views and relative solitude, the estate’s grounds play no small role in the experience. ”People who have stayed here as either vacation guests or to do workshops and retreats have become pretty effusively attached to the privacy and the intimacy of the space and its particular ample layout,” says Sachs.
Going forward, signature Detour at Dalya Estate retreats—both those devised by Sachs and her team and those created by guest facilitators including artists, writers, and thinkers—will provide one of many opportunities (remember those percolating ideas?) for them to return again and again.
// Detour at Dalya Estate’s ‘Dreams in the Grammar of Possibility’ will be held November 5-8. Early-bird discount pricing is available now through September 30th. Get more information on all-inclusive rates and logistics at dalyaestate.com/detour
(Courtesy of Dalya Estate)
