Ashland Wants To Be Known as ‘Storytown.’ The Rogue Valley Already Has Plenty of Material.

By the time Matt Hoffman graduated from high school in his native Ashland, Oregon, he was ready to escape. 

“I wanted to spread my wings,” he said. “But you travel the world a bit and realize, I grew up in a pretty amazing place.”

So after a couple of decades in Los Angeles directing commercials, Hoffman brought his wife and two children home again, eager to reconnect with the virtues of the Rogue Valley, its schools, trails, food and culture. But a lack of students forced two grade schools to close, he said, and the town’s premier cultural draw, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, or OSF, had hit a slump. Add a series of scary wildfires into the mix, and the region needed a boost.

Hoffman thought it might be time for a rebrand: if Portland is Stumptown and Eugene is Track Town, maybe Ashland could be “Storytown,” a nod to the theater scene but also an opening for more investment in comedy and music.

Last year, he co-founded Storytown Ashland, a nonprofit that launched the Ashland Sarcasm Festival, taking place Dec. 4-6, and this year added the Storytown app, a calendar for everything happening in the valley. As the cultural capital of the Rogue Valley, Ashland’s offerings are a big draw. But they’re only the beginning of what the region serves visitors: restaurants, trail networks rivaling any in the West, whitewater rafting and winemakers taking advantage of a Mediterranean climate, experimenting past the Pinot Noirs to the north and the Cabernet Sauvignons to the south. And because the valley, which is southwest in the state, lies more than a four-hour drive from Portland and nearly six from San Francisco, it rarely feels overrun outside of summer.

Winemaker Craig Camp moved to the valley in 2016 from Napa, California, lured by the Siskiyou Mountains and soils that reminded him of Provence, or Corsica. 

“We’re getting a lot of visitors from Northern California, and it’s such a different experience than in Napa or Sonoma,” said Camp, who runs Troon Vineyard in the Applegate Valley, west of Jacksonville. “Here you’re going to meet the winemaker, see the farm. The natural beauty here is just amazing.”

Dionne Irvine also makes wine in the valley, at Irvine & Roberts Vineyards. She and her husband, Doug, explored the state when they were searching for a new place to live, and when they found Ashland, she thought, “Oh my gosh, Mayberry still exists,” referring to the fictional town in the “Andy Griffith Show.”

Hoffman, Camp and Irvine often find themselves advising visiting friends and clients on where best to explore, as do one of the valley’s most celebrated chefs, and one of its top hoteliers. Their favorite places:

Hotels

Lithia Springs Resort. The water is the draw. Three miles north of downtown, the resort pipes it from its namesake mineral springs straight into the soaking tubs of 28 bungalows and suites, set among koi ponds, arbors and aspen groves. The on-site Waterstone Spa adds massages and facials.

Ashland Springs Hotel. At nine stories, the 1925 landmark still owns the downtown skyline, a block from the OSF theaters. Doug and Becky Neuman rescued it from years of decline and restored it in the late 1990s, and its restaurant, Larks, is a longtime pre-show favorite.

Both properties belong to the Neuman Hotel Group, where Amanda Owens is general manager.

Ashland Hills Hotel & Suites. Families land here, just off Interstate 5, for the pool, the tennis courts and the space: 14 acres of what was once the Windmill Inn, redone with globe chandeliers, ball chairs and a giant green peace sign in the lobby.

Restaurants

Mäs. Chef Josh Dorcak runs a 16-seat tasting-menu room, one seating a night, Thursday through Sunday, applying Japanese technique to foraged, hyper-seasonal Rogue Valley ingredients. It started as a pop-up in a bakery basement and by 2022 the New York Times had named it one of the country’s 50 best restaurants.

Osteria La Briccola. Grab a deck table over Ashland Creek, up a flight of stairs from Calle Guanajuato, and order anything made with the house pasta. Regulars swear by the gnocchi and the wild boar ragu.

Bar Juillet. The fried chicken has its own following at this [Ashland] Plaza bar, which pairs natural wine with a vegetable-driven, family-style menu. Doors open at 4 p.m. every day, early enough for dinner before an 8 p.m. curtain.

Brothers’ Restaurant. Order the cheese blintzes and whatever the scone of the day is. Brothers’ has been serving breakfast on Main Street since 1976, and the weekend line shows it.

Alchemy. The bartenders at this bar inside the Victorian Winchester Inn reach its wall of more than 350 spirits with a sliding library ladder. Weekday happy hour, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., brings seasonal cocktails and the chef’s bar bites at reduced prices.

Outdoors

Lithia Park. Ninety-three acres of sycamore, ponds and paths follow Ashland Creek from the Plaza up into the canyon, with trails that keep climbing into the city’s forested watershed. Back on the Plaza, the fountains run with the park’s namesake lithia water.

Hald-Strawberry Park. Two miles of quiet trail at the top of Strawberry Lane wind through madrone, manzanita and ponderosa pine to benches looking across town to Grizzly Peak. For the Pacific Crest Trail itself, drive 30 minutes up Mount Ashland, where the PCT crosses wildflower meadows with Mount Shasta floating on the southern horizon.

Rafting the Rogue. Congress made the Rogue one of the original eight Wild and Scenic Rivers in 1968, and its 40-mile roadless canyon below Grants Pass is where the multiday outfitters go. OARS runs three- to five-day trips through rapids like Rainie Falls and Blossom Bar. For a single day on the water, Orange Torpedo Trips will put people in self-manned inflatable kayaks, or “duckies,” if they’re up for it.

Culture

Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Ten productions a year fill three theaters, including the open-air Allen Elizabethan. This season’s slate, running through late October, pairs “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Henry IV, Part One” with the musical “Come From Away.”

Ashland Mystery Fest. Owens is particularly looking forward to this one. Cozy-mystery author Ellie Alexander, who sets her “Bakeshop Mysteries” novels in Ashland, started the October festival in 2023, and it has since spread from its headquarters in the Historic Ashland Armory into shops, tea rooms and the Ashland Springs Hotel. 

Britt Music & Arts Festival. Pack a blanket and claim a patch of lawn on 19th-century photographer Peter Britt’s old hillside estate in Jacksonville, a natural amphitheater that has hosted concerts every summer since 1963. This season brought Bonnie Raitt, Alison Krauss & Union Station and Modest Mouse.

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