Rabbit Hill is located in Middletown, a small rural community in Northern California's Lake County. Owned and stewarded by the Lake County Land Trust since 1999, the Trust first held several cleanup days to remove several years of accumulated trash and the debris created when the restrooms on the site were destroyed by vandals. Using funds donated to the Land Trust for Rabbit Hill, in September of 2001, the Land Trust purchased a sturdy picnic table from the County of Lake whose crew delivered it to the top of the hill. This same year, an old nuisance water tank was removed with the help of the California Department of Forestry. In its continuing efforts to maintain the property to the standards requested by the donors of the property, the property is currently monitored on a regular basis by several local residents and periodic checks by the Trust's board of directors. An effort to gather an oral history of the property is underway.

Rabbit Hill was first turned into a nature sanctuary by Juanita "Skee" Hamann and Hugo "Huck" Hamann in the 1950's when they retired to Middletown from Los Altos.  In November of 1966 the Hamann's were devastated when their daughter, Joan Hamann Dole, was murdered at her home in nearby Anderson Springs and they decided the nature sanctuary should be a tribute to her memory.  In 1968 the property was deeded to the Madrone Audubon Society although the Hamanns continued to live on the property caring for the birds using the feeders and birdbaths they had developed on the property and growing vegetables in fifty-five gallon drum halves.  The Hamann's also used stones on the property to construct restrooms and a shelter for their trailer.  In the summer they slept outside on a screened platform. 

Huck Hamann died in 1975 and Skee continued to live and care for the property until 1980 when she moved to a Mrs. Spooner's house on Hwy. 175.  Reports state that by 1983, when Skee Hamann died, much of the work they had put into the property had fallen into disrepair and it wasn't until the early 1990's that work began to find a local steward for the land.  Madrone Audubon deeded the property to the Lake County Land Trust in April of 1999.