By the mid-1850s, this area had come into the hands of legislator Horace Hawes, who used the stock pond for irrigation. In the 1880's Moses Hopkins, brother of Mark Hopkins of railroading fame, owned the land and dammed up the pond to increase capacity.
In 1920 developer George Irvine coined the name 'Emerald Hills' for the area, which he marketed to San Francisco dwellers as a vacation locale. His financial and engineering dreams exceeded reality: His firm went bankrupt, and an overtaxed sewer system burst the dam. Leonard & Holt Real Estate & Mortgage Co. bought up the property, repaired the dam, and resumed selling lots.
In 1926, 20 owners of property around the lake associated as the Emerald Lake Country Club, and purchased it from the developers. The deed contains the restriction:
"...the second party (Emerald Lake Country Club) shall not conduct or carry on, nor suffer, permit or allow any person to erect, conduct or carry on, at or on said premises, any barroom, livery stable, hospital, undertaking establishment, factory, manufactory, blacksmith shop or unsightly structure, trade or occupation, which shall, can or may be in anywise noisesome or noxious to the neighboring inhabitants or to the owners or occupants..."
And indeed, no such establishment can be found here. (Edited from the Emerald Hills Homeowners Association history page.)
The Country Club is still in business nearly 80 years later, now up to 50 owning families, with another 60 temporary members accepted each summer. In warm weather, splashing children mingle with the ducks that nest in the reeds at the far edge of the lake.
Note: Coordinates updated 5/13/05, based on cachers' feedback (see logs). Old coords: N 37 28.075 W 122 15.777