Ten Million Americans Own Timberland

Which asset class offers growth, a hedge against inflation, and has great tax benefits? Timber.

That’s one of the many interesting points brought out by this in-depth article that ran in Forbes last month. One of the other interesting elements the story touches on is that of the 500 million acres of timberland that exists in the U.S., government entities own 27 percent; wood and paper companies own 17 percent; and institutional investors such as funds and endowments own 4 percent.

The remaining 54 percent? It belongs to private citizens, and that number is up from 45 percent two decades ago.

Read more HERE.

Land Report 100: No. 62 Clayton Williams Jr.

OF THE COUNTRY’S 100 LARGEST LANDOWNERS, FEW ARE AS COLORFUL AS CLAYTIE.

A passionate approach to land stewardship is but one of Clayton Williams’s claims to fame. The diehard Texas Aggie is a born entrepreneur whose many pursuits have ranged from insurance salesman to banker, farmer, rancher, real estate developer, big-game hunter, philanthropist, conservationist, and, at one pivotal point in his career, front-running gubernatorial candidate. And like any self-made man, he can ride out tough times with the best of them—even down to his last bullet.

Williams’s trailblazing traits date to his colorful forebears, who mixed it up with the likes of Kit Carson, Billy the Kid, and Geronimo. The native Texan was born in Alpine in 1931 and raised in Fort Stockton. After attending Texas A&M and fulfilling his military obligations, he cut his teeth selling life insurance in Mineral Wells. But fate called him back to West Texas, where in a Fort Stockton coffee shop he learned about a farm for sale. He struck a deal with its owner to form an oil and gas partnership, and the cornerstone of his career was set. From that small start, his financial empire eventually grew to include a host of companies, from cow-calf operations to a safari company to several entities bearing the ClayDesta moniker, a nod to himself and wife Modesta.

It was in Modesta that the wildcatter found a soul mate who shared his love of the land and sense of adventure. In his book Claytie: The Roller-Coaster Life of a Texas Wildcatter, Mike Cochran describes Williams’s run as “an exciting mix of hard work and great fun, building pipelines and drilling wells one day and branding calves and working cows the next—all embellished with a spectacular marriage. Claytie and Modesta really are bigger than life.”

After an unsuccessful run for governor of Texas in 1990, Claytie turned his considerable energies on going public with Clayton Williams Energy Inc. (CWEI). With an estimated net worth of $100 million, his name was added to the Forbes Four Hundred. Today, he is a fixture on the Land Report 100 and ranked No. 62 in 2009 with 146,655 acres. During the past decade, CWEI has drilled 167 horizontal wells, mostly in the Austin Chalk formation as well as the Cotton Valley Reef in Texas, in Louisiana, in Mississippi, and in New Mexico.

“Claytie is, by all measures, one of a kind,” says Cochran. “He’s an absolutely wonderful character. With his ranch he’s been really innovative and was recognized nationally for some of the innovations to trap water and to get the best use of the land.”

Ask the Expert: Improving Access

Winter provides the perfect opportunity to evaluate access, one of the most practical yet overlooked aspects of sound property management, according to Bill Benton and Robert Chandler, founders of Evolved Outdoors. Their company advises land-intensive recreational businesses such as Bill Dance Signature Lakes and Deer Creek Lodge on how to maximize stewardship, quality of experience, value acceleration, and return on investment.

What’s a good approach for landowners looking to maximize a property’s value?
Too often, land management is split into two distinct camps. On the one hand you’ll have the biology and wildlife camp, which can be all about stewardship. Then there’s the financial camp, which is driven by the real estate market and sales value. A competent landowner needs to adopt an overall philosophy that combines the two to maximum effect.

Give us an example.
Consider access. Most landowners are guilty of simply using whatever roads are on the property they purchased. They do little to no analysis on how the roads run, and why they run the way they do.

What’s wrong with that?
There’s an emotional element to access that translates to value. When you pull onto a property, you want the “Wow!” factor, one that adds to the financial and aesthetic value of your land.

So how do you balance these two approaches?
From a stewardship perspective, roads should allow for wildlife sanctuaries, corridors, and viewing areas. Although you want convenient access to hunting, you also need to maintain contiguous blocks of excellent habitat. Poorly planned roads can degrade habitat, cause erosion, and create the potential for unwanted disturbance.

Why is this time of year a good time to consider access?
Winter allows you the opportunity to view your property without leaf obstruction. You can see the lay of the land in ways you can’t during the growing season. This is the best time to consider ways that access improvements can enhance both the ecological and financial value of your property. You may want to lay out roads to improve the visibility of lakes and ponds or consider separate routes for regular property maintenance and hunting. Access should be controlled to minimize excess or public traffic and to maximize a sense of exclusivity.

What about stewardship? What role does that play?
Always consider natural drainage by working with Mother Nature to minimize erosion. Remember, stewardship equals value, and well-designed access is an important part of that equation.

Library: Working Dogs of Texas

Both the author and the photographer are valued contributors to The Land Report, and there’s no doubt in my mind that landowners from coast to coast will be able to identify with this book. So let’s begin by getting two misconceptions about this book off the table.

First off, Working Dogs is not a tribute to hunting dogs. Yes, there are great chapters on curs and feists, pointers, retrievers, and the fearless breeds that track wild hogs. The authors even tail a pack of hounds that are bona fide man-hunters à la Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke. But at its core, Working Dogs is about the countless ways man’s best friend has been bred and trained to serve different masters, which is why this book is such a compelling volume.

“The one thing these dogs all have in common is that each has a job to perform,” Wyman Meinzer says. “It might be highly specialized task that requires enormous amounts of training like search and rescue or detector dogs. It could be a more traditional one such as herding cattle or guarding against predators. It could even be as important as providing friendship to an elderly person.” To that end the final chapter is titled “The Caretakers.”

The second element that needs to be dismissed is that Working Dogs of Texas suffers from geographic limitations because of its focus on the Lone Star State. On the water, in the woods, on ranches and farms, and at border checkpoint and international airports – Chappell and Meinzer covered an enormous amount of terrain researching this compelling project.

Available online at Amazon.com

Heath Shuler: Eye on the Prize

Growing up in the 1970s, Heath Shuler saw quail hunting disappear from the mountains of his native North Carolina. “It occurred to me early on that if I wanted to hunt quail, I might have to buy property with good habitat,” he says.

Nowadays, that’s no small feat, especially in the Southeast where bobwhite populations have been declining for the past half-century due to changing land use. But Heath Shuler has never been a man of modest goals.

BY HENRY CHAPPELL
PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMBER HUMPHRIES & GRETA REYNOLDS
PUBLISHED SUMMER 2009

After a record-setting career as quarterback at the University of Tennessee, a second-place finish in 1993 Heisman Trophy voting, and several years in the NFL, he founded Heath Shuler Realty and grew it into one of the largest independent real estate firms in the South. Naturally, he kept an eye out for the best hunting and fishing properties.

“I’ve always wanted to invest in and be involved with property with excellent wildlife habitat,” he says. “That’s very important to me.”

But it was his career as a football star that led him to his dream property. Several years ago, at the annual Quail Unlimited Celebrity Quail Hunt, Rocky Evans, the organization’s longtime president, told him about a prime quail plantation in South Georgia. In 2003, with the money from the sale of a Knoxville property, he bought a stake in Wynfield Plantation (www.wynfieldplantation.com) in the storied quail country near Albany.

One of only 24 Orvis Endorsed Wingshooting lodges, Wynfield was named the plantation Wingshooting Lodge of the Year in 2005. October through March, Wynfield welcomes quail hunters, their families, and hunting dogs to some of the South’s best quail hunting, sporting clays, dining, and accommodations.

Now imagine the scene: A classy brace of English setters, high on both ends, locked up tight on a covey of bobwhites amid the pines and knee-high sedge. A pair of hunters approach, one with a Labrador retriever at heel. They position themselves for clear shots, and the dog handler sends his Lab in for the flush. The birds whir out the grass, boring away toward the nearest escape cover, trying to put trees between themselves and the hunters. All the while, the setters remain steady. The guns thump four times; four birds fall.

Having stopped at the flush, the Lab marks two of the downed birds. On command, she fetches them both, sitting to deliver. With the “dead bird!” command, the setters snort up the other two birds and bring them to hand before being cast in search of another covey.

A passage from a Nash Buckingham story? Actually, similar scenes play out nearly every fall and winter day at Wynfield Plantation. Heath is serious about his dogs and shooting.

“I started out as a kid hunting squirrels on those steep ridges around home,” he says. “As soon as I got big enough, I graduated to what I consider to be the most challenging game bird in the world – the ruffed grouse. A dog that can handle grouse can handle anything.”

Later, when he wasn’t playing football or closing real estate deals, Heath worked his Labs at the highest levels of amateur field trail competition and field testing. Several of his dogs achieved Master Hunter level in the American Kennel Club testing program.

In 2006, Heath’s schedule went from full to packed when he defeated an eight-term incumbent Republican to win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was reelected by a landslide in 2008. He’s a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a caucus of moderate and conservative House Democrats. His district covers most of his home region in the mountains of Western North Carolina. As Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Rural Development, Entrepreneurship, and Trade, he sponsored and shepherded into law the Small Energy Efficient Business Act, which stimulates growth in alternative energy markets by increasing investment in small producers. True to his conservationist sensibilities, he sponsored legislation aimed at developing biomass and carbon trading markets for private forest owners, and he continues to work closely with the Environmental Protection Agency on the assessment and cleanup of a large, contaminated former electronics manufacturing site that threatens water supplies in his home district. He takes stewardship and roots very seriously.

In 2007, realizing that he simply didn’t have time to be involved in the plantation’s day-to-day business, Heath hired his longtime friend Mike Osteen, a veteran professional dog trainer, as general manager and head trainer.

At Wynfield Plantation, Mike and two other trainers work a kennel of English pointers, English Setters, German shorthaired pointers, English cocker spaniels, springer spaniels, Brittanies, and Labrador retrievers. The staff also takes on a limited number of outside dogs for training. Most years, the Wynfield kennel produces several litters of puppies out of championship bloodlines. A few of these pups are chosen to replenish the kennel. The rest are offered for sale. Mike considers, Labs, English setters, and English cockers kennel specialties. Wynfield is a member of the Orvis-Endorsed Breeding and Training program.

Wynfield shooting dogs learn their trade in some of the best quail habitat in the Deep South – nearly 1,900 acres of open longleaf pine uplands and classic Southern bottomland with Spanish moss-draped live oaks. The staff controls encroaching brush and stimulates growth of forbs and legumes through prescribed burning, which mimics the natural, cleansing fires that maintained the open, grassy longleaf ecosystem prior to settlement.

Heath and his guests do most of their hunting on foot, so Wynfield pointing dogs are bred and trained to hunt at medium range: 100 to 200 yards. However, Mike Osteen says that the dogs range as wide or as close as they need to. Mature dogs are steady to wing and shot, and spaniels and retrievers generally stay at heel until sent to flush or retrieve, although they’ll quarter within shotgun range when the situation calls for it.

“I love it when we have multiple birds down so that we can let the Labs and cockers practice blind retrieves,” Heath says. They’ll pick up the ones they mark, and then we’ll handle them to the others.

You read right. English cocker spaniels running blind retrieves: taking lines, sitting at the whistle, and responding to hand signals. Sure, you’d expect that from a decent Lab, but a cocker spaniel? Clearly we’re not talking about the typical neurotic, bug-eyed, coiffed American cocker or even the average working English cocker. This is high-end spaniel work.

But Wynfield welcomes all comers. “By all means, bring your own dogs,” Mike says. “Sure, we’ll provide guides and dogs, but real dog people want to hunt with their own dogs. If your dog has a few problems out in the field, we’ll make suggestions for fixing them, or, if you prefer, we’ll fix them for you. We customize the experience so that everyone feels comfortable.”

That same attitude extends to gunning as well. Wynfield gunsmiths and gun fitters custom build shotguns to individual specification or modify guests’ guns for better fit. Rental guns are also available for guests who chose not to bring a gun.

Heath’s wife, Nikol, though not a hunter, enjoys shooting sporting clays on the Wynfield course. He and his eight year-old son, Navy, hunt with Mike Osteen and his sons, eleven-year-old Grant and nine-year-old John. This past quail season, Navy shot his first quail on the rise. “He’d been watching the older boys and was waiting for his chance,” Heath says. His first bird, on the wing, over a good dog, is a huge deal. Now he’s hooked. He’s a hunter for life.”

Ultimately, Heath’s relationship with his land is about creating memories. “Nowadays, my kids get all excited about staying in ‘their cabin,’ or sleeping in ‘their bunk.’ My four year-old daughter, Island, fishes in the lake and gets to ride on the four wheeler.”

“For Heath, the dog training and hunting really serve as an escape from the pressures of Washington and the demands of his business, and gives him a chance to spend time with his family,” Mike says. “I’ve known Heath for a long time, and he’s more mesmerized by this place than by anything else he’s experienced.

Considering Heath Shuler’s experiences so far, that’s saying something.

61 – Mike Mechenbier – 142,000 acres

An Albuquerque businessman, Mechenbier owns 142,000 acres spread across several New Mexico counties, including farmland and four adjoining cattle ranches. And he wants the land to stay in the family as long as possible. A large portion of the acreage lies in a trust that prevents that land from being mortgaged.

68 – Wilson-Hodge Ranches – 134,000 acres

Headquartered in Del Rio, Texas, this family-owned ranching company has three divisions spread out in three counties in Southwest Texas. In addition to traditional ranching operations, a wildlife management program has been implemented that has bolstered native populations of whitetail and mule deer, turkey, dove, and quail.

88 – Danny, Doug & Larry Adams – 100,000 acres

Based out of Atlanta, the Adams brothers operate one of the most extensive real estate companies in the nation. They literally own hundreds of pieces of property. Some are cattle ranches. Others are for hunting and fishing.

88 – Powell Heirs – 100,000 acres

Jimmy Powell, head of Powell Ranches, runs his family’s sheep and cattle operation on an estimated 100,000 acres in several Texas counties as well as Cherry County, Nebraska. In 2005, the Rice University graduate was recognized for his longtime leadership in Texas agriculture.

88 – Dennis Washington – 100,000 acres

From rail transportation to aviation technology, construction and mining to heavy equipment sales, this aggressive entrepreneur has been a player in a wide variety of business sectors. It should come as little surprise that his real estate interests also include owning a reported 100,000 acres in the Northwest.

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