The son of a wealthy shipping magnate from Hillsboro, New Hampshire, became enamored with the West while on a sailing trip to Cape Horn in the early 1800s. Fifteen years after his voyage, he left his home and roots on the east coast for a part of Mexico called California, where he became a partner in a general merchandising company and bought a tract of land from the Mexican governor. The property, called Rancho San Mateo, cost $25,000 and stretched nearly 6,500 acres. He built an elegant home called El Cerrito and established a working ranch that would become the heart of Hillsborough less than a century later. 

Within a few years, William Davis Merry Howard’s company and the entire area were transformed by California’s gold rush, and by burgeoning business opportunities in the city of San Francisco, which lay only 17 miles to the north. Following Howard’s death in 1856, Rancho San Mateo was broken into parcels and sold to prominent and genteel families that are known today as Hillsborough founders. 

Two new rail stations were built in neighboring towns just before the turn of the century, so the Peninsula quickly became a destination for moneyed San Franciscans drawn to the combination of rural tranquility and the opulence of ballrooms and polo fields. When nearby towns Burlingame and San Mateo tried to annex their prestigious estates, residents decided they would rather see their taxes used to preserve the rural charm of their own lands, than to pay for the sidewalks in the growing cities next door. So in 1910 the Town of Hillsborough was formally incorporated.

Today Hillsborough is still characterized by this unique combination of luxury and rural serenity. It is nestled between a national park on the west and the sea half a mile to the east. It is ideally situated between two capitals of innovation in the U.S.: San Francisco to the north and Silicon Valley to the south. 

The spacious beauty of local properties is preserved by 70 year old zoning laws which require each lot to be at least ½ acre and require homes to be at least 2,500 square feet. Hillsborough's population hovers around 10,000 and the city covers roughly six acres of wooded hills and winding streams. Since the very beginning, Hillsborough has been home to both exceptional architects and architecture. It has always been a community of families and is known for its award-winning schools.