TEN THOUSEND ACRES OF SOLITUDE

BOB COLACELLO FINDS SHANGARI-LA IN SONOMA COUNTRY:THE NORTHRAN CALIFONIA RANCH OF DENISE PRENTI COBB HALE

TERRY HUSEBYE

Land, land, and more land: that is the essence, and the luxury, of Denise and Prentis Cobb Hale's ranch in Sonoma County, two hours north of San Francisco. Not far from the Russian River, the property rises from the vine-carpeted Alexander Valley to the golden ridges of the Pacific Coast Ranges, 10,000 acres of wild oats and old oaks, pines and firs, pungent pepperwoods, giant madronas, tangled manzanitas with bark as red as garnet. It is almost as large as Manhattan. There are deer and quail, bulls and boar and bobcats, and at night the only sound is the cry of coyotes, eerie and somehow comforting. This is the way California must have been when the Spanish missionaries found it. This is the West that was, the West of big skies and endless horizons, of hope and freedom: a West without limits.

Set in the center of this precivilized landscape, hidden by huge oak trees and hung with jasmine bushes, is the Hales' house, a low-slung sprawl of adobe and wood. To one side are the pool and pool house, to the other a guest bungalow with a deck facing layers of mountains. Simplicity is the object, but Denise Hale says, "Just because we're in the middle of the wilderness doesn't mean we can't have the comforts of home.'' For Denise, one of San Francisco's reigning hostesses, and Prentis, a retailing and technology tycoon, the comforts of home include Porthault sheets, Chinese ivories, a small Vuillard, a large Liberman, and the finest wines from nearby Napa and far-off France. Food writer John Carroll, a protege of the late James Beard, comes up from the city to grill salmon, roast lamb, and bake souffles.

As the nearest neighbor is half an hour away over rugged dirt roads, the Hales choose their houseguests carefully, knowing that splendid isolation is not everyone's idea of bliss. The guest book, in fact, contains the same signatures again and again, old friends returning for a weekend's respite from the fever of urban living. The King and Queen of Spain honeymooned here. And among others who have spent carefree days roaming the range in Prentis's Jeep are Princess Ghislaine de Polignac (who found a snake in her bedroom), Lord Weidenfeld, Ann and Gordon Getty, Betsy Bloomingdale, Nancy and Zubin Mehta, Barbara Sinatra, Anne and Kirk Douglas, John Dodds, Susan Mary Alsop, Douglas Cramer, and Her Imperial Highness Princess Napoleon, though never more than two or three at a time, a party being the last thing the Hales either need or want at their plushly primal hideaway. Indeed, sometimes those invited have a hard time finding it: columnist Herb Caen arrived at the front gate at eleven A.M. one Saturday this summer, then wandered lost in the landscape until he finally appeared at the house eleven A.M.Sunday.

Eventually, the Hales plan to give the ranch, one of the last of its kind in the area, to the state for a nature preserve. In the meantime, Mrs. Hale lazes by the pool, the hills behind her turning amber in the late-afternoon sun, the air full of lemon and jasmine and good old-fashioned oxygen. "Isn't this Shangri-La?'' she asks. "When we leave I always feel like Margo in Lost Horizon." □