Picture an oasis in the middle of the forest near Lake Tahoe in the late 1920s and early 1930s: The cabin has a stone chimney and yellow trim around the windows. Out the front door, a path leads through a grassy meadow with dappled shade and wildflowers. The sound of rushing water is ever-present from the Truckee River’s gentle rapids.
On the other side of the river, a horseshoe-shaped valley steps up to the Sierra Nevada crest — eventually, this valley will be developed into what’s now the Palisades Tahoe ski resort, host to the 1960 Winter Olympics. But it’s summertime in the late 1920s or early 1930s, and the ski resort won’t exist for another two or three decades. In fact, there was hardly anybody around on the summer afternoons when the daughter of a San Francisco entrepreneur ambled up the creek — now called Washeshu Creek, for the Washoe people who once summered here — with only a picnic lunch and a fishing rod.
Phyllis Hills was the heiress to a coffee fortune made in San Francisco. Her father was Austin Hills, who founded the Hills Bros. Coffee company in San Francisco in 1878 with his brother Reuben Hills. The Hills brothers pioneered the way coffee was packaged and sold across the world, and they built a legacy in San Francisco that endures today: One of the old Hills Bros. coffee plants is a landmark on Harrison Street, where the famous “Hills Bros Coffee” sign overlooks the Embarcadero. As Austin’s middle daughter, Phyllis grew up as a debutante in San Francisco society. But when they came to Tahoe, their lifestyle shifted to a much simpler and quieter pace.
In 1925, Austin rented a house on the Truckee River. He loved it so much that he wound up buying the house and the 84.5-acre property, which they named “Coffee Grounds.” From then on, the Hills family spent every summer in Tahoe. Phyllis and her father passed the time with a fishing rod cast in the Truckee River…