Hall Newbegin

Poet Gary Snyder says, “When you go off the script of who you’re supposed to be you become who you are.” Hall was groomed to be a businessman in the country club world of Portland’s elite but that was not the role he wanted. Hall needed to go off script to become who he was, so he left. He moved out to California hoping to find the role that fit.

He found it in the mountains.

As Hall says, “Being out in the mountains was saving me from my self and my sadness. It was making me feel whole and normal again. It wasn’t like nature was something I liked, it was something I needed. I needed it deeply in my soul.” 

Hall decided he would make soap that smelled like the mountains and he would sell it to those who longed for what he found. He used old-style techniques and crafted high-quality suds in the basement of his Berkeley home. He took those soaps to the farmer’s market and that was the beginning of Juniper Ridge – a multi-million dollar company that brings places to people through sustainably-harvested products like perfumes, incense, candles, and soap.  

Creating success as an “hippie-entrepreneur” was an arduous adventure that almost ended in bankruptcy six years ago. But hall persevered and, in the end, succeeded beyond anything he’d imagined. This is Hall’s story from beginning to end. The story of a man who wandered off the script and became exactly who he is supposed to be.

“My answers have always been in the mountains: what I’m supposed to do with my life, who I’m supposed to be, where I’m supposed to go. All those answers are sitting there in the mountains for us. We just have to spend our time out there to understand them. That’s how it’s always been for me.”