The water
The spring is tested monthly and never heated, chilled or chlorinated beyond what the county requires.
[01] Beginnings
A ranch house, a spring, and no particular plan
Ruth Alvarado bought eleven acres of west-facing escarpment in 1974 because the light was good and the water was warm. She was not trying to build a hotel.
Guests arrived anyway — friends, then friends of friends, then people who had heard there was a spring up the ridge road and a woman who would feed you. By 1981 there were nine rooms and a bath house built over the well. By 1996 there were thirty.
Her granddaughter runs it now, and the brief has never really changed: keep the rock, keep the water honest, keep the kitchen small enough that it can change its mind on a Thursday.
0The year it began
0Rooms today
0People on staff
0Acres of ridge
[02] How we work
Four things we don't compromise on
The people
Everyone here is on payroll, not agency. Average tenure is seven years, which is why the service feels like it does.
The valley
Ninety per cent of what the kitchen buys comes from inside a two-hour drive. The rest is coffee, salt and citrus.
The quiet
No piped music anywhere on the property. No events that need a PA. Phones stay off the table in the dining room.
[03] Fifty years
What happened, and when
1974
Eleven acres
The ranch house, a barn, a well, and a road that washed out twice a winter.
—
1981
The bath house
Nine rooms open to paying guests for the first time.
9 rooms
1996
Ridge Kitchen
Thirty covers, one menu, an open hearth that has not gone out since.
30 rooms
2012
Fourteen routes
Cut and maintained with the county trust; all of them start at the gate.
14 walks
2024
Fiftieth year
Forty-two keys, and the last building we intend to put on this land.
42 rooms