George Hillebrecht bought his first parcel of the ranch in Escondido in 1924, and continued to buy adjoining parcels as he could afford them, until he had 150 acres. His parents were citrus farmers from Orange County, and he chose this area because the land was affordable and they had a promising source of local water. 

George planted valencia oranges and lemons from his own nursery, and later planted fuerte avocados. He retired in the mid 50’s and his son Ben, Laura’s father, continued planting more avocados, Hass this time. Ben also planted about ten acres of muscat grapes when the last “old Escondido” vineyard was plowed under in the mid 1970’s. When the muscat grapes matured, he found that the only market outlet for the imperfect-looking muscat-of-Alexandra grapes was roadside selling to the public. Thus, our farm stand operation was born of necessity in the late 1970’s. My brother and sisters were of college age at that time, and we all helped with the growing and selling at the stand. We converted some of the very old citrus plantings into crops which would widen our variety of offerings at the farm stand. We planted five acres of deciduous fruit trees, six acres of raspberries, two acres of asparagus, four acres of strawberries, two acres of tomatoes, and other small crops.