O say, can you see it? Boise’s Simplot Hill and its flag have a lot of stories to tell

It was 1979 when potato king J.R. Simplot built a 7,370-square-foot, Mediterranean-style mansion atop a prominent hill in the Boise Highlands.

Although the mansion has since been demolished, Simplot’s 30-by-50-foot U.S. flag on a 200-foot pole still flies proudly overlooking the city, and the hill below is used by families whose parents weren’t even born when it was erected.

“The richest man in Idaho used to celebrate Halloween by handing silver dollars to trick-or-treaters who trudged to his hilltop home,” the Idaho Statesman wrote in 2008. “Each dollar came with an admonition to ‘make it grow,’ words that embodied Simplot’s long and prosperous life.”

The Idaho billionaire, who died in 2008, donated the property to the state in 2004 to be used as a governor’s residence, but that never happened. The cost to maintain the empty residence and surrounding 37-acre property was estimated at $180,000 per year, according to Boise State Public Radio.

The state attempted to raise funds to renovate the residence, but then-Gov. Butch Otter, who is Simplot’s ex-son-in-law, refused to live there, staying instead at his ranch in Star.

Citing the cost of maintenance, the mansion at 4000 Simplot Lane was returned to the family in 2013 and demolished in 2016 after sitting vacant for more than 10 years.

“There’s no use for the house that anyone could find,” a Simplot family spokesperson told the Statesman in 2016. “None of the family members felt comfortable moving into J.R.’s house, and by selling they would have lost control of the land, so it was agreed that, rather than continuing to maintain the vacant home, taking it down was the best option.”

While the home no longer sits atop the hill, the flag still waves in the sky, a hard-to-miss sight whether you’re driving on the Connector, bicycling on parts of Hill Road or walking on top of Camel’s Back. As the story goes, neighbors initially complained about the sound of the flag flapping in the wind and keeping them awake at night.

“Some said it sounded like a gunshot,” the Statesman wrote in 2013.

So Simplot, who made sure an American flag flew at every business his company owned, simply installed a taller flag pole to alleviate the flapping volume.

While the hilltop residence and flag were maintained by the state, the flag required monthly repairs, and the state cycled through three or four per year, with each one costing around $1,800, according to previous Idaho Statesman reporting.

The Simplot family has once again taken over maintenance of the land and its towering flag, keeping the grounds ready for the scores of families who use the hill for sledding and tubing in the winter. In the summer, they sometimes slide down Simplot Hill on blocks of ice.

J.R. Simplot would encourage grandparents to get out there and join the family fun. He was a skier until the age of 89.