Where did the name Garnet Hill come from?

It’s a question we’ve heard often in 40 years – right up there with “What’s the difference between a King and a California King?”

Garnet Hill is named for an actual hill – this one:

Photo by Jason Tors

Our gambrel-roofed office building is located in Franconia, New Hampshire. This hill is just up the road in the town of Sugar Hill, behind the former home of the couple who founded Garnet Hill 40 years ago, in 1976.

An abundance of garnet stones are found in the rock under that idyllic New England landscape.

Garnets in granite. Photo by Jason Tors

In the 1940s, actress Bette Davis vacationed in Sugar Hill when she wanted to get away from Hollywood, in a cottage she called Butternut. You can rent the place still.

She donated a grand piano to the town, which keeps it on the stage in its historic town hall. A while ago, at an employee celebration in the hall, one of us played it.

Garnet Hill is now 40 years along, but we’re just getting started. (And we don’t look a day over 39.) Some days the momentum of this business – with new products, new designers, new stores, a new office in Exeter, New Hampshire – leaves us almost breathless.

That’s when we think back to the serene place on the hill, just up the road.