LandReport.com » Equestrian

Madeleine Pickens Presents Eco-Sanctuary Plan to BLM

Eric OKeefe — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:29 +0000

Madeleine Pickens is no ordinary horsewoman. A lifelong equestrian, she has led numerous champions into the winner’s circle, including the Hall of Fame Thoroughbred Cigar, winner of 16 consecutive races. Now she is championing a new cause: America’s wild horses.

“Wild horses are a living symbol of the pioneering spirit of Americans and the America West,” she says. Her goal is to establish a 501(c)(3) eco-sanctuary for all horses currently in holding facilities on BLM lands. Similar to a national park, it would be a tourist attraction as well as a refuge. To that end she has submitted a proposal to the Bureau of Land Management to create a public/private partnership that would not only locate appropriate land with sufficient forage and water sources but allow wild horses and burros to be free‐roaming and able to form natural bands.

“While the primary objective of the project is to care for these wonderful creatures, we will also be stewards of the land,” she says.

In March during hearings on H.R. 1018, Restoring Our American Mustangs (the ROAM Act), Pickens testified before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Committee on Natural Resources. She has also submitted a plan to initially alleviate conditions for 10,000 wild horses currently being penned in BLM short-term holding facilities.

“My view is for a wild horse sanctuary that will be a tourist destination similar to our national parks where Americans and tourists from around the world can come, observe and be a part of this great part of American history. We can use this treasure to promote ecotourism and at the same time provide for permanent retirement and management of these American icons to which we owe so much,” she says.

To that end, she is urging those who cherish the wild mustang and support her initiative to contact Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to stop the slaughter and confinement America’s wild horses and burros.

To join the thousands who have already petitioned Secretary Salazar as well as read more about her plan, The Land Report encourages you to visit her website.

For Sale: Montana’s Sun Ranch

Grant Gannon — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:27:40 +0000

The jury is still out on my definition of dream property, but I’ll tell you this: Montana’s Sun Ranch is definitely in the running.

Nestled on 18,000 acres just outside of Yellowstone National Park in the Madison Valley, the Sun Ranch ranges from 5,700 feet to over 10,000 and is a sterling example of what a true steward of the land can do with a spectacular piece of property. Almost 100 percent of the ranch is protected by conservation easements.

Three creeks – Sun, Moose, and Wolf – nurture more than a mile of the Madison River, which weaves its way through the property. Needless to say the fishing is out of this world. Elk, deer, bear, antelope, and sheep cross this country going to and from Yellowstone. Throw in a beautiful main residence, and this prime parcel is for sale at $55 million. Fay Ranches has the listing.

According to New West,the owner, Roger Lang, is looking to unload the ranch and free up capital for other conservation projects. According to the article, it looks like he has in mind a development similar to what Russ Maytag has done in Colorado at Maytag Mountain Ranch.

For Sale: Val Kilmer’s New Mexico Ranch for $33 Million

Grant Gannon — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 07:00:05 +0000

Val Kilmer, star of Top Gun, Tombstone and Willow, has put his 5,970-acre Pecos River Ranch on the market for $33 million. John Watson of Orvis/Cushman & Wakefield has the listing.

The Pecos River Ranch features more than five miles of frontage on its namesake river. Kilmer’s 5,550-square-foot adobe home as well as an 1,800-square-foot caretaker’s home, additional guest homes, barns, garages, and outbuildings are included in the sale.

The ranch is located 8 miles from Pecos, 22 miles from Santa Fe, and 90 miles from Albuquerque.

Kilmer, who is rumored to be considering a run for governor of New Mexico, has owned the property for nearly 15 years. He previously listed portions of the ranch for sale in 2006, but found no buyers.

For Sale: Colorado’s Hunt Ranch Back on Market for $30,000 Per Acre / $17 Million

Eric OKeefe — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 07:00:17 +0000

In a surprising turn of events that is the norm in real estate development, the investment group that paid $8 million for an historic cattle ranch downvalley from Aspen was denied crucial development rights by Garfield County. Hunt Ranch LLC had applied to develop 93 homesites on the 561-acre working ranch while preserving a 230-acre pasture. The county’s planning and zoning commission recommended approval of the plan, but in a 2-1 vote in October the Garfield County Commissioners denied it. The property has subsequently been listed for $17 million ($30,000 per acre).

According to the Glenwood Springs Post Independent, the developer’s downfall was a “well-organized campaign” by neighbors. Vail businessman Greg Amsden told the newspaper that the investment group chose not to challenge the decision or submit a new development plan.

This online listing indicates that the Hunt Ranch includes 238 acres of irrigated hay and alfalfa as well as spectacular views of Mt. Sopris and surrounding ridgelines. The ranch sits 2.4 miles off Highway 82 and approximately 25 minutes from Aspen. The property has a water decree for 93 homes plus 155 acres of crop irrigation. Full studies including topo survey, soils, wildlife, & environmental.

Tom Barrack Takes Control of Neverland

Eric OKeefe — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:00:28 +0000

Earlier this month, AP reported a development that every real estate professional in Santa Barbara County fully anticipated: Neverland no longer belongs to Michael Jackson. The new owner of the 2,500-acre trophy property? That was even less of a surprise: Sycamore Valley Ranch Co., an affiliate of Tom Barrack’s Colony Capital.

Jackson’s financial difficulties are nothing new. Neither is Barrack’s deft maneuvering. The California billionaire made his fortune buying up bad real estate loans from troubled S&Ls. In May, the billionaire implemented the same m.o. when he bailed out Jackson after the entertainer defaulted on a $24.5 million note on Neverland.

Prior to purchasing Neverland in 1988, the property was known as the Sycamore Valley Ranch. According to the AP report, the property’s new owner is a joint venture between Jackson and an affiliate of Colony Capital LLC, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction who was not authorized to speak on the record and requested anonymity.

Steamboat Springs Preservation Ranch Takes the Gold

Eddie Lee — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 07:00:20 +0000

It always amazes me when someone takes the time to go above and beyond the call of duty to improve an already one-of-a-kind piece of property. The idea is to take some great place and make it even more over the top. That is definitely the case at Marabou, a Colorado ranch preservation community just outside Steamboat Springs that was recently honored at the Pacific Coast Builders Conference.

The challenge for Jeff Temple and his investors was to take a spectacular 1,717-acre parcel along the Elk River, preserve it, enhance it, and do all of the above while making a profit. No small task.

“We are constantly sharpening the saw, trying to make the service better, and the overall experience better,” says Temple. Many know Jeff from his pioneering success with his brother Jamie at Storm Mountain Ranch. There they used fewer than 40 acres to create 14 homesites on a 1,063-acre parcel just outside Steamboat. The remainder was set aside in conservation easements for wildlife and agriculture. Now Temple is perfecting his craft down the road.

“This weekend we’re going to go on a world-class elk hunt with owners and a prospect. That wasn’t on the program before, but it is now. We are surrounded by one of the largest elk populations in North America, and some of owners really have dreamed all their lives about being able to get a big elk. It’s a lot different than the catch-and-release of the Elk River, and hunting is certainly part of the Western ranch experience.”

Temple and his buyers don’t hunt at Marabou. They take advantage of the tens of thousands of acres of public lands that surround the Yampa Valley. But it’s back at the ranch that he’s made his mark.

Marabou’s recreational facilities comprise 12 amenity buildings: the River House Lodge, Casting Room Theater, Horse Barn, Equestrian Center, Downstream Spa, Outfitter’s Cabin, River’s Edge Fitness Center; River’s Edge Pool, and four Owners’ Cabins. For the amenity building project, TCD of Steamboat Springs was the builder; Denver-based 4240 Architecture was the architect; Braun Associates in nearby Edwards was the land planner; and Elk River Partners of Steamboat Springs was the developer. It was this combination of talents that was singled out in San Francisco at the Pacific Coast Builders Conference where Marabou was awarded a Gold Nugget Award for the Best Public/Private Recreational Use Project.

“Our major challenge was to harmoniously combine themes of ranching, sustainability, and luxury,” says Temple. The dozen buildings are all powered by wind energy. “We wanted the amenity buildings to be well-appointed, spacious, and welcoming gathering places for residents, but we also wanted to minimize our impact on the land and wildlife.”

The results have been telling. Sales of homesteads, which start at $2.9 million, have been brisk even given the present economy. “So far in 2008, we’ve sold four homesteads and expect to sell a handful more between now and Christmas. This year, 2008, has been slightly slower but not much. We feel really fortunate. We’ve recently had a flurry of interest despite the economic news. I think it’s because the project is one-of-a-kind. It’s really special and unlikely to happen again, at least not in some people’s lifetime,” says Temple.

Developer’s Diary: Ute Lake Ranch

Eddie Lee — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:00:35 +0000

A couple of weeks ago my fearless editor and I hitched a ride on a single-engine prop from Denver’s Centennial Airport to Tucumcari, the heart of northeast New Mexico, for a visit to a great new resort development we had been hearing about.

Ute Lake Ranch sits on a picturesque palette along a 13-mile-long body of water within the spectacular bluff country of the High Plains. And it’s the water that strikes you. Ute Lake appears out of nowhere and demands your attention.

As we soon found out, along with the water residents will have a host of amenities to choose from. According to the developer, Carma US, the property boasts a one-of-a-kind, 8,000-yard golf course called TwelveShores, the first Nicklaus Design championship golf course to feature 12 holes that play along the water. No matter what your handicap or ability level is, this course is sure to please.

For fun on the water, residents can have the exciting experience of fishing for trophy largemouth and smallmouth bass, water-skiing, or jumping a wake on a jet ski. If you prefer a slower pace, then just coast into a quite cove or sail into the beautiful New Mexico sunset.

The community marina will host a world-class restaurant where residents can dine for the evening or grab a gourmet meal to go. As we found out first hand, Ute Lake Ranch offers the great outdoors in spades, with paths, parks, mountain-biking, hiking, hunting, and even horseback riding and a full-service equestrian center planned.

While on the trip we were spoiled by hosts Bruce and Muriel Hamon and their always-attentive Golden Retriever, Cinnamon. Not only is Bruce a partner in Ute Lake Ranch and principal in Hamon Contractors, which is overseeing the development, but he is a true land enthusiast and an avid outdoorsman, equally at home on a dove field or offshore angling. That gave us more than common ground to tell some tales of fins, feathers, and fur over dinner on Friday night. The next day he drove me to the “Outback,” a favorite out back part of the 25,000-acre ranch that features unbelievable vistas and historic points of interest.

RESIDENCES AT UTE LAKE RANCH
We received a thorough tour of the two different residence plans currently being offered at Ute Lake Ranch — the Estate Lots and Eighteen62, the patio homes community.

The Estates at Ute Lake Ranch are one-of-a-kind lots located in the sculptured sandstone bluffs that offer full views of and access to Ute Lake. Perhaps the most sought after lots currently available in the Southwest, each lakefront custom home site ranges from 1.5- to 5-acre parcels and prices start in the $200,000s.

Eighteen62 at Ute Lake Ranch speaks to that promise of long ago. It will embrace the spirit of community that gave hope to the early settlers, while at the same time laid the foundation of a legacy to leave to future generations. The quality-crafted patio homes with lots starting at $67,500 will offer views of the golf course and the lake as they are carefully positioned throughout the Nicklaus Design championship golf course.

A decidedly contemporary community that has not abandoned its historical roots, Ute Lake Ranch is steeped in the history and romance of a West once far gone but never forgotten. The assurance of land that was granted to the pioneers in the Homestead Act of 1862 was a gift that spoke to the soul of the people – and that was the need to put down roots, to have a place to call your own. We think Ute Lake Ranch would be a great place to put down roots.

The development is just minutes away from I-40, the area’s main highway artery, a little over an hour from the International Airport in Amarillo, Texas; 193 miles from Santa Fe, New Mexico; and just 375 miles from Denver.

ABOUT THE DEVELOPERS
Carma US, a developer of residential master-planned communities, and Ute Lake Ranch, Inc. are jointly developing the Ute Lake Ranch golf and resort community, Carma has developed more than 80 master-planned communities in the U.S. and Canada over the past 50 years. Since 1958, Carma’s purpose and passion has been developing communities that people love to live, play, and work in.

The joint venture partners have signed an operating agreement with JC Resorts of San Diego, CA, which will oversee construction and operation of the community’s Nicklaus Design championship golf course and other resort amenities. JC Resorts is a leading resort operator in Southern California offering the finest accommodations, golf courses and customer service. Ute lake Ranch will be JC’s first resort outside of Southern California.

Please visit www.utelakeranch.com or call 877-UteLake (883-5253)

The Tom Brokaw Interview

Eric OKeefe — Tue, 01 May 2007 07:00:09 +0000

BY ERIC O’KEEFE
PUBLISHED MAY 2007

Tom Brokaw has had a front-row seat at some of the most momentous events in recent history, yet to hear him tell it, what happened on an isolated river bank on his Montana ranch a couple of years ago could well be just as unforgettable.

For decades, millions of Americans tuned in to Tom Brokaw when they wanted answers. So much so that when the NBC anchorman stepped down in 2004, the Peacock Network wisely offered him a 10-year contract extension to produce documentaries and sit in on major events. In an age of media midgets, this is one guy who didn’t need to be on the market.

But Brokaw is also a gifted storyteller, a fact well known to anyone who has read The Greatest Generation or his autobiography, A Long Way From Home. This facility quickly becomes evident one afternoon at his NBC office overlooking Rockefeller Center. The conversation had shifted from dates and places to the Tom Brokaw America doesn’t see on TV, the man who emerges when he arrives in Montana and sets foot on his ranch. Brokaw starts off by describing how much he loves to go out by himself. “I think the wilderness is at best a solitary experience,” he says, then quickly cuts to the chase: “I’ll tell you one quick story. This is, for me, the apotheosis of the Montana experience.

“Two years ago in the early spring, I was out by myself on our property. And I was on a ridge overlooking a bend in the river, and a herd of mother elk came out with their newborn calves. The calves couldn’t have been more than three weeks old. River’s running very high. They took a long look at me. I’m 150 yards away. I stood stock still. The mothers led the calves into the high river. Most of them made it. They had to kind of crash their way through the hawthorn bushes on the other side. One did not. It got swept downstream. Made its way onto an eddy, got back on the sandbar, tried a second time, missed a second time, missed a third time. Now it’s pretty tired. Goes up and stands on the sandbar, and it just looks painfully at its mother across the way. Honest to God, this cow elk looked at that calf and nodded, waded back into the river, nuzzled the calf, led it upstream to a safer part of the river and across the river where the rest of the herd of mothers and their offspring were waiting, and then they disappeared over the hill.

“I challenge you to duplicate that anywhere else in American life. It was just the most rewarding kind of experience. It’s truly spiritual in its own way, and I keep that memory with me with a lot of others,” he says.

Brokaw’s enthusiasm for this other life of his masks a key fact: Montana wasn’t even on his radar screen until he was almost 50. Although he grew up next door in South Dakota—his family had homesteaded in the Dakota Territory in the late 1800s—his career as a journalist took him every place but the American West. He started at KMTV in Omaha, anchored the late evening news on WSB-TV in Atlanta, and then joined KNBC-TV in Los Angeles. He got tapped for the big leagues in 1966 when NBC News hired him, and with the exception of a stint as the network’s White House correspondent in the 1970s he’s been working in New York City, anchoring the Today show from 1976 to 1981 and the Nightly News from 1982 to 2004.

So how did he first make his way to Montana? On assignment of course. “I was drawn to Montana originally because I went out there to shoot a documentary, and also I was invited to the Montana Bar Association to give a speech,” he says. “The fee that I came up with was they had to drop me at a trail head and pick me up five days later. My wife and I were pretty avid backpackers at the time. And we’d not been in Montana before that. We were thunderstruck frankly by the amount of space that was there—not just the national parks, which we were familiar with, but the wilderness areas and other places.”

What got him back a second time? Another assignment.

“I shot a documentary in a small town called Absarokee down in Stillwater County about the disappearing family ranch … and it became more of an organic relationship at that point,” he says.

Point of fact: When anyone with substantial media experience describes a relationship as “organic,” a major acquisition is imminent. In Tom and Meredith Brokaw’s case, it was time to buy a ranch.

“I didn’t know what that meant frankly. It was kind of a romantic idea that I had of buying a piece of ground. I was really looking for 100 acres and a river, and that’s the hardest single thing to find. And I kept at it, kept at it, kept at it. My wife never believed it would come to fruition. And it did. And it was a life-changing experience or the whole family,” he says.

Oddly enough, the property they now own didn’t fare that well in the initial judging. “The first time I looked at the ranch that we now own, it didn’t take. And I’ve often wondered why. I was at the end of a long day. I was tired. We’d been fishing, pretty hot,” he says.

The second go, however, was a charm. “I went back and rode the property with the then owner and saw all the dimensions of it and fell in love with it,” he says. The next step was to convince his wife.

“I got two partners because my wife was so resistant to the idea,” Brokaw admits. “I didn’t want to step off the cliff on my own and paralyze me. So I had two partners at the time, and we bought it. And it took my wife six months to come out, and then she fell in love with it. And now we own it entirely.”

THE LAND ITSELF IS JUST OVER a mile high. Crow Indians once used it as a summer hunting ground. A Norwegian immigrant homesteaded the property in the early 1900s. In 1989, the New York broadcaster began journeying west with his family. At first it was for a week at a time. Then two. Last summer the Brokaws spent four months on their West Boulder Ranch.

Brokaw describes his experience as a landowner as an evolution. “We tried everything,” he says. “We took the fences down where we didn’t like them. We fenced off the riparian zone because we wanted to bring that back. The cattle were allowed to graze right down to the river. We had a leafy spurge problem that we didn’t know what that meant. Then we found ways of trying to deal with that. Putting sheep on and getting biologicals, and it got to be interesting. With every passing year we came to know more about what we were involved in and what was required. I’m to the point now where I think that we’ve been good stewards of the land. We’ve worked hard at it. Getting the leafy spurge down. Keeping the grasses down.

“We run bison on about half the ranch. On the other half, we lease to a local cowboy who … has a mother-calf operation. It’s good for that part of the land where he grazes his cows because it keeps the grass down. We had fires last year that, I think to a lot of outsiders, were pretty destructive. To us they were renewing. They burnt primarily our grassland, although some timber as well. But I’m relieved. Nobody got hurt. No structures were burned, and it’s going to be good for the ground.”

After almost two decades on his property, Brokaw is anything but a passive landowner. The pace of his voice quickens as he describes the challenges the land affords, the biological puzzles, and the sort of problem solving that has stimulated as well as preoccupied Montana landowners for generations.

At times there was a bit of a learning curve. “One of the big mistakes is that we tried to run cows for a while on our own and have a cow-calf operation. It was too high, too wet, too cold to calf. We were doing it, in part, for the managers that we had at the time—a couple that wanted to make some extra money and loved doing it. And it just wore them down and wore us out as well. So that was a mistake,” he says.

One of his prouder accomplishments is a project that was undertaken in conjunction with a neighbor to increase the upland bird population. “We put in two acres of milo down along the wetlands just so that they would have some feed. And we’ve allowed the grasses to grow higher in some of the ravines,” he says.

Such stewardship has paid big dividends. “We’re going to work harder at it now because we’ve learned that if you do just a few things the right way, the bird population goes way up. It’s Hungarian partridge and sharp-tailed grouse but also rough grouse and other things.”

“Tom is a student, an inquisitive fellow,” says renowned horseman Buck Brannaman, who takes my call at his Wyoming home. Brannaman knows the country in and around the West Boulder Ranch. He served as a technical adviser on the set of The Horse Whisperer, which was filmed not far from the property. Brannaman met Meredith Brokaw not long after the couple closed on the ranch in 1989. He was giving one of his many annual clinics, and she attended. She so enjoyed his approach to horsemanship that she invited him to conduct a private clinic at the family’s ranch. Brannaman has been a regular every summer since.

“It’s kind of a tradition,” Brannaman says. “The clinic is usually four days. Tom and Meredith keep it small. They always invite about 10 of their family and friends. It’s a family get-together for them—they’ve got a great family—and it’s become a real social thing for us. We do a little fly-fishing. We always have dinner on the Fourth of July at Mike Keaton’s place [the actor owns property nearby]. And then we go back to the Brokaws’. Every year Tom sets off fireworks on the bridge. I think he’s a pyromaniac at heart.”

Newcomers are always subject to scrutiny, especially in Montana, a state whose incomparable beauty has been attracting well-heeled buyers from both coasts for decades.

“Frankly, there is always going to be a certain element among the locals that are not going to understand Tom,” Brannaman says. “He’s too famous. He couldn’t possibly be like-minded. But I couldn’t disagree more. Tom is very astute. Very open-minded. Ask him about his ranch 10 years from now, and I promise you what he’ll tell you will be different then from what he’ll tell you today. Each piece of property is different. Tom knows that. He knows that you have to learn your ranch. That’s kind of the fun stuff.”

WHEN IT COMES TO FITTING IN, BROKAW knows his place, and he knows it for the right reasons. Despite his high-profile status and worldly mien, he’s small-town born and bred. He knows better than to put on airs. Red Brokaw saw to that. In A Long Way From Home, Brokaw shows no shame in listing the lessons he learned from his hardworking father and the bruising his ego took when he needed to be put in his place. It’s given him an equanimity that serves him well as a newcomer.

“When I first moved there, I was stopped on the streets of Livingston and Big Timber by every other cowboy saying, ‘I used to hunt on your property. Can I do it again?’ And I said, ‘You know, I’m just going to have to say no to everyone until we sort this out.’ And then we hired an outfitter who had rights on there. And he came and said, ‘I’d like to put some hunters in.’ So we did a trade with him. I don’t think we ever got our end of the trade. That’s fine. And I said, ‘Sure, come on with your hunters.’ And then our manager hunts. And then we generally allow the guy who does our waste management stuff. He comes and picks up the trash once a week. And I think the UPS driver this year got to shoot a cow.

“As I often say to my friends, and I’ve got a lot of friends who lived in Montana all their lives, I say, ‘You know, when I first started coming to this area, I don’t remember the local ranchers standing out in the highway saying, ‘Come hunt on my land,’ or ‘Please come fish in my section of the stream. I’d love to have you over here.’ It didn’t happen that way” he says.

Brokaw recognizes the responsibilities that come with owning land. “For the most part, most people are buying that land because of its beauty, and it speaks to them in a way. And they want to preserve those great natural qualities. And certainly that’s our intention.”

Phrases like “getting biologicals” and “good for the ground” are the type of talk one typically doesn’t hear emanating from a corner office at Rockefeller Center. Maybe at Val’s Deli in Wilsall, Montana. Then again, this is Tom Brokaw speaking. Not the Tom Brokaw with 10 Emmys lining his office walls, but the one whose bison herd will put on more pounds because of the richer soil. The man has found a way to balance two wildly divergent lifestyles, and he’s done so in a manner that not only is rewarding for him and his family but also is a challenge.

“It’s a constant state of discovery I’d say about my two lives,” he says. “This is part of my life, and that’s part of my life. I get up every morning in New York City thinking something exciting is going to happen in this city today. This is just the nature of the city. I get up every morning in Montana saying, ‘I’m going to see something today I haven’t seen before.’”