There was a large dairy near what is now the Montebello Open Space Preserve's main parking area on Page Mill Road, and cattle freely grazed the slopes of Black Mountain.

Oseo Perrone, a physician and immigrant from Mattarana, La Spezia Province, Italy, came to San Francisco in 1881, became interested in viticulture and purchased a large ranch at 2,600 feet (790 m) on Black Mountain in 1885 where he, and then his nephew of the same name, began production of Montebello Winery (now Ridge Vineyards) wine in 1892.

A large ranch building was used as a central dining hall, and maintained a woodworking shop, a stained-glass workshop, and a food store selling bulk items.

Stevens Creek originates in the Montebello Open Space Preserve on the west flank of the mountain and flows southeast then north to the Bay.

The upper watershed of Adobe Creek is protected by the Hidden Villa, a nonprofit educational organization founded by Frank and Josephine Duveneck, who purchased the land in 1924 and offered it as a gathering place for discussion, reflection, and incubation of social reform.

Over the following decades, the Duvenecks established the first Hostel on the Pacific Coast (1937), the first multiracial summer camp (1945), and Hidden Villa's Environmental Education Program (1970).

[15] Rainfall on the summit of Black Mountain averages 40 inches (1.0 m) per year, much higher than the Santa Clara Valley which lies in its rain shadow.

Nineteenth century loggers used oxen to drag huge firs and smaller Tanbark oak (Lithocarpus densiflorus) trees along the trail.

The Monte Bello ridge's grasslands include California poppy, checker mallow, purple owl's-clover, bluedicks, and blue-eyed grass.

Monte Bello hosts a wide variety of owl species, including great horned, barn, pygmy, long-eared, western screech, and northern saw-whet.

The San Andreas Fault runs along the base of Monte Bello Ridge, of which Black Mountain is the highest point at 2,812 feet (857 m).

East of the fault, the North American Plate rides to the southeast, and here the bedrock is the Franciscan Assemblage, made up of rocks common in the Bay Area such as sandstone, basalt, and metamorphics.

[18][19][20] These rocks occur as jagged gray boulders and outcrops just southwest of the radio towers on the summit, as well as in the large Permanente Quarry downhill east of the preserve where the limestone is mined to produce cement.

The summit can also be reached from the northwestern entrance of Rancho San Antonio on Rhus Ridge Road in Los Altos Hills by a 5 miles (8.0 km) route from about 400-foot (120 m).