Yountville’s Bardessono family has owned its five-acre vineyard in the heart of town for more than 80 years. When it came time to develop the property, Steve Bardessono wanted only the best for his home town.

Bardessono sought out eco-developer Phil Sherburne, a former head planner for the city of Seattle who is now CEO of the investment group that’s leasing the land from the Bardessono family.

Sherburne can fairly be described as a visionary: He impulsively quit his city-planning job to help develop Decatur Northwest, a 485-acre vacation community on an island off the Washington coast, where 97 percent of the land is held in common by 75 homeowners, motorcars and personal watercraft are banned and roads are just 12 feet wide.

“We decided to change the island as little as possible,” says Sherburne, who wants his 62-room Bardessono Inn and Spa to fit into downtown Yountville just as Decatur Northwest suits its rural island.

Describing his goal as “to do something that connects with the community, feels like it belongs here,” Sherburne said he also wants the inn and spa to be “a strong example of what you can do with a project of this scale to reduce its environmental footprint.”

Scheduled to open Feb. 2, the inn promises to be one of the most environmentally friendly places to stay in North America: Sherburne is determined to earn a platinum rating from the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System.

If he succeeds, the Bardessono won’t be the first hotel in the Napa Valley to win LEED certification. Gaia Hotel and Spa in American Canyon has already earned a gold rating from the U.S. Green Building Council, which administers the system (and has also awarded a gold rating to the Napa County Sheriff’s Department building, near the airport).

LEED platinum-rated lodgings, however, are rare. To qualify for certification, Sherburne estimates he’s spent at least 10 percent more on design and construction than it would have cost to build the inn and spa conventionally.

A 200-kilowatt solar system, discreetly installed on the inn’s flat roof, will generate electricity, while heating and cooling will originate deep in the earth: Beneath the inn’s vineyard, a geothermal field with 82 300-foot-deep wells will let the inn pump air warmed by the earth into guest rooms on cool days. In hot weather, the geothermal pumps will cool the inn by returning heat to the ground.

“The only energy we use is to run the pumps,” Sherburne said.

Running $600 and up for one night, rooms at the Bardessono are designed to take advantage of the abundant natural light, their large windows equipped with exterior, Venetian-style blinds that are automatically controlled by thermostat to self-adjust against the heat of the day.

Fluorescent bulbs and light-emitting diodes will take the place of energy-greedy incandescent fixtures, while occupancy sensors will switch off the lights and flat-screen television after a guest leaves the room. Instead of throwaway bottles, Bardessono’s toiletries will be stocked in dispensers.

Sherburne’s vision is not only green, but healthy: All rooms will have non-allergenic flooring, made of wood and concrete instead of carpeting and glue. The paints, stains and adhesives used throughout the inn will be low VOC, meaning they emit fewer of the unhealthy gases known as “volatile organic compounds.”

Linens are organic, and the furniture — all certified green — is aired out repeatedly before it is installed in the rooms. The laundry will be washed using an ionization system that leaves no detergent smell or residue.

The Bardessono building is full of recycled and repurposed materials, from bedside tables made from reclaimed wood and steel to desks and woodwork from Marin sawyer Evan Shively, who specializes in milling what Sherburne called “trash wood” trees.

“He turns them into gorgeous lumber that you can use,” said Sherburne, pointing out the inn’s reclaimed cedar decking, redwood doors and orchard-walnut flooring.

The inn even makes use stone from Napa quarries that had originally been part of the Bardessono family home, built 80 years ago and later used as a wine and produce cellar.

“We’ve done everything we can think of that makes sense, from an environmental standpoint, to reduce our footprint,” Sherburne said