Josiah and Helen Stanford

Josiah Stanford moved to California in 1849 and, along with his brothers, sold supplies to gold miners. Josiah Stanford and his second wife, Helen purchased the House in 1882 and owned the House for twenty-three years. They split their time between their Oakland home and the family ranch east of Fremont near Warm Springs, which was originally the site of the fashionable resort for wealthy San Franciscans in the 1850s. There Josiah and Helen helped to established a large and prosperous grape vineyard. In addition to wine, Stanford Brothers Winery produced California’s first champaign. Josiah W. Stanford, the son of Josiah and Helen, ran the Warm Springs Ranch after his father's death, producing hay, barley and beef as well as wines. Years later, Stanford Brothers Winery later became Weibel Winery.

Josiah, often in conjunction with his brothers, struck up many business ventures. During and after the Gold Rush the imported oil and kerosene from the East Coast. When the Civil War drove prices higher as supplies to the West Coast dwindled, this created a climate for a short-lived California oil boom that took place around Sulphur Mountain in Ventura County. Josiah Stanford became the first person to establish commercial production of petroleum in the state and a principal in one of California’s first major oil companies. And, according to Michael P. Nelson's article in the 2001 Pacific Petroleum Geologist Newsletter, Stanford did it by tunneling rather than drilling. His digs, incorporating Chinese labor, began to produce 20 barrels a day in 1866 that was loaded and sent, by ship, to the Stanford Brothers Refinery in San Francisco for processing.