Louis Yori was born in Switzerland. In his youth he went to Italy, then to London, England where, for 4 years, he worked as an apprentice at the G. B. Dellagana & Co. Then he moved to Watsonville, California where he worked for the San Francisco Evening Post. He left the newspaper to start a dairy business in Cayucos, California. In 1881 he purchased the Bay View Hotel in San Simeon, California. He reportedly sold a portion of his land to William Randolph Hearst.