Texas Farm & Ranch, vol 89 by Farm and Ranch Publishing, L.L.C.

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T HE S OURCE F OR D ISCERNING B UYERS &

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From the Publishers of

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Texas Farm & Ranch VOLUME 89 Fall 201 8 - P U B L I S H E D B Y-

28615 Interstate 10 West Boerne, TX 78006 800-580-7330 PUBLISHER

David B. Dunham N AT I O N A L S A L E S M A N AG E R

Katy Franklin 866-401-7664 Katy@FarmandRanch.com EDITOR

Susie Fluckiger DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL MEDIA & C O M M U N I CAT I O N S

Courtney Loving P R O D U C T I O N M A NAG E R

Karen J. Little SUBSCRIPTIONS

866-726-2448 cloving@FarmandRanch.com E-MAIL & ONLINE

info@FarmandRanch.com FarmandRanch.com

FROM THE PUBLISHER A

s I write this, autumn is just a distant dream of cool air, the opening of hunting seasons, and hope of finally putting this long, hot summer in the rear view mirror. We haven’t let the heat slow us down here at Farm & Ranch, and we’re pleased to bring you this, the fall edition of Texas Farm & Ranch. In addition to some great new listings from our broker friends, we’ve included Sam Gwynne’s classic Texas Monthly story about the business operations of the King Ranch, as viewed through a 150 years or so of their fabled history. In addition to his magazine writing, Sam is also the author of the best-selling epic, Empire of the Summer Moon, a riveting account of the Texas frontier in the nineteenth century, and an exploration of how the Comanche nation prevented the westward expansion of the U.S. and northward expansion of the Spain and Mexico for more than 200 years.

We’re pleased to report that the re-design of our website, farmandranch.com, continues to attract thousands of visits from potential buyers of the amazing properties we list, and we’ve attracted a strong and responsive following on our Facebook and Instagram accounts. Many of our brokers are using our social media posts to bring attention to their listings. If you’d like to hear more, shoot an e-mail to our national sales manager, Katy Franklin, who can be reached at katy@farmandranch.com. We hope you enjoy the issue, and keep those letters and e-mails coming, as we love hearing from y’all.

©Copyright 2018, Farm & Ranch Publishing, L.L.C. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. Texas Farm & Ranch is published four times per year by Farm & Ranch Publishing, L.L.C., 28615 IH-10 West, Boerne, Texas 78006. Information provided to Farm & Ranch Publishing, L.L.C. is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. The publisher will not be responsible for any omissions, errors, typographical mistakes or misinformation within this publication. Measurements and figures are approximate. Properties are subject to errors, omissions, price change or prior sale. Printed in the U.S.A.

BROKEN SPUR RANCH Page 109 4

Volume 68 Farm&Ranch West

David B. Dunham Publisher/Farm & Ranch Vice-President, Development/Texas Monthly ddunham@farmandranch.com

Cover Ranch

NOVEM RANCH

Stransky Properties page 22

contents Featured Editorial 32 v THE NEXT FRONTIER

By S. C. Gwynne

Broker Spotlight 78 v SHELDON GROTHAUS

By Melissa Hemken

Farm & Ranch Selects 38 v RANCHO AGUA GRANDE

Listed by Hood Real Estate Inc.

40 v SANDSTONE MOUNTAIN RANCH

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42 v RANCHO ESTRELLA

52 v ROBIN’S ROCK RANCH

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44 v LUCKY A RANCH

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Listed by Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Killough Properties

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128 v FAULKNER RANCH

48 v SUSSEX FARM

Reference 19 v BROKER INDEX 20 v PROPERTY INDEX & MAP

50 v WOLF CREEK RANCH

Listed by Texas Ranches For Sale

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THE BEST INVESTMENT ON EARTH IS EARTH ITSELF. EITHER BUYING OR SELLING RANCHES & ACREAGE, PLEASE CONTACT VIC NIXON.

YEARS OF SELLING THE TEXAS HILL COUNTRY 830-997-2187 info@nixonrealestate.com texashillcountryhuntingranches.com fredericksburgtxhomesites.com nixonrealestate.com Residential • Recreation • Farm Development • Commercial Gated Subdivisions • Hunting Tracts • B & B’s • Rentals • Ranches

VIC NIXON, BROKER

broker index The Anderson Team Real Estate, a division of Ramsey Realty Group...........151 nicolesellstexas.com Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Killough Properties......................................96 KilloughProperties.com Bluebird Real Estate..................................152 crestedbuttecollection.com Bravo Commercial Realty..........................130 BravoCommercialRealty.com Campbell A. Patton Ranch Investments....103 CPSouthTexas@aol.com Carpenter Real Estate...............................122 jwcarpenter.com Circle T Realty............................................114 circle-t-realty.com Creekside Rural Investments, Inc.............142 creeksiderural.com Dullnig Ranch Sales...................................104 DullnigRanches.com The duPerier Texas Land Man, LLC...................................88 TexasLandMan.com The Graves Group.....................................149 thegravesgroup.com

Hall and Hall...............................................132 hallandhall.com Homeland Properties................................143 HomeLandProperties.com Hood Real Estate Inc...................................38 HoodRealEstateInc.com King Land & Water....................................110 KingLandWater.com Kuper Sotheby's International Realty.......134 KuperRealty.com Land InvesTex, LLC....................................138 landinvestex.com Markham Realty.........................................146 markhamrealty.com Meek Ranch Sales......................................125 meekranchsales.com

Republic Ranches........................................58 RepublicRanches.com Stransky Properties.......................... Cover, 22 stranskyproperties.com Texas Best Ranches, LLC.............................68 TexasBestRanches.com Texas Land Men, Inc..................................118 TexasLandMen.com Texas Ranch Brokerage.............................144 texasranchbrokerage.com Texas Ranch Brokers LLC..........................140 txranchbrokers.com Texas Ranch Sales, L.L.C.............................78 texasranchsales.info

Nixon Real Estate......................................147 nixonrealestate.com

Texas Ranches For Sale.............................128 TexasRanchesForSale.com

Ranch Marketing Associates.....................150 rmabrokers.com

TX Real Estate People LLC.......................145 txrealestatepeople.com

RE/MAX Opportunities.............................151 fortbendtexas.com Reata Ranch Realty, LLC............................136 reataranchrealty.com

HOUSTON AREA GAME-FENCED OUTDOORSMAN'S PARADISE Page 71

Real Estate Advisory Team of Fredericksburg.......................................148 ReAdvisoryTeam.com

RESORT-STYLE LUXURY WITH AMAZING VIEWS

Page 149

FarmAndRanch.com

property index Acres± County

CENTRAL

Page

3............. Lavaca................ 139 10........... Lampasas........... 144 11........... Lampasas........... 144 12........... Comal................ 149 14........... DeWitt............... 139 31........... Wilson.................. 95 34........... Uvalde................ 100 46........... Karnes................ 139 53........... Coryell................ 140 55........... Lampasas........... 144 66........... Karnes................ 139 97........... Travis.................... 31 100......... Medina............... 121 104......... Leon................... 116 112......... McLennan.......... 111 136......... Leon................... 116 165......... Bexar.................. 138 165......... Grimes............... 146 166......... Medina............... 138 184......... Robertson.......... 133 192......... Wilson................ 134 232......... Washington....... 140 260......... Guadalupe........... 77 310......... Karnes.................. 92 324......... McCulloch......... 111 381......... Medina............... 113 385......... Travis.................. 111 388......... Grimes................. 44

Acres± County

Page Acres± County

403......... Lee..................... 145 467......... Fayette................. 91 486......... Coryell................ 140 503......... Guadalupe........... 70 532......... Leon................... 115 550......... Brazos.................. 60 600......... Milam................. 102 723......... Uvalde................ 101 769......... Uvalde................ 101 1,000...... Bastrop................ 65 1,040...... Kinney................ 127 1,150...... Lee....................... 66 1,365...... Leon................... 115 1,382...... Medina................. 85 1,541...... Uvalde................ 125 1,835...... Uvalde................ 101 2,096...... Grimes................. 62 2,280...... Uvalde.................. 80 2,543...... Medina................. 65 2,830...... Concho.............. 111 11,889.... Kinney.................. 94 17,132.... Uvalde.................. 38

HILL COUNTRY 10........... Hays..................... 77 10........... Kerr..................... 120 12........... Kerr....................... 95 16........... Bandera............. 101 18........... Kendall............... 148 28........... Gillespie............. 147 30........... Kendall............... 149 42........... Kerr..................... 149 45........... Gillespie............. 148 50........... Kendall............... 149 52........... Gillespie............. 148 61........... Gillespie............. 148 65........... Gillespie............... 50 72........... Llano.................... 93 81........... Comal.................. 75 82........... Kerr....................... 52 82........... Gillespie............. 148 83........... Gillespie............. 137 85........... Gillespie............... 57 85........... Kimble................ 137 85........... Kerr..................... 121 86........... Bandera............. 100 86........... Bandera............. 139 98........... Kerr..................... 106 100......... Bandera............. 120 108......... Kerr....................... 56 116......... Gillespie............. 147 120......... Kendall................. 30 121......... Bandera............. 125 126......... Kimble................ 126 146......... Kerr....................... 48 152......... Kerr..................... 119 187......... Bandera............. 119 213......... Gillespie............. 147 214......... Bandera............... 77 220......... Bandera............... 28 225......... Kerr....................... 94

20 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

Page Acres± County

250......... Gillespie............. 148 277......... Bandera............... 93 287......... Kerr....................... 29 304......... Bandera............. 108 305......... Kerr....................... 26 316......... Llano.................. 137 317......... Bandera............... 73 327......... Bandera............... 98 327......... Bandera............... 77 330......... Kerr....................... 82 339......... Bandera............... 74 361......... Kerr..................... 119 363......... Burnet................ 118 395......... Burnet................ 137 411......... Kendall................. 30 420......... Burnet................ 141 450......... Kerr....................... 92 461......... Real...................... 99 481......... Kendall............... 109 500......... Bandera............... 98 552......... Kerr....................... 28 554......... Gillespie............... 55 645......... Kendall................. 91 730......... Gillespie............... 90 734......... Gillespie............... 76 734......... Bandera............... 89 750......... Bandera............. 134 754......... Real...................... 54 777......... Kerr..................... 109 808......... Kerr....................... 76 809......... Burnet................ 140 858......... Kerr..................... 118 882......... Kendall............... 135 902......... Kerr....................... 88 921......... Menard................ 90 925......... Kendall................. 90 1,000...... Bandera............. 125 1,013...... Medina................. 93 1,073...... Edwards............... 66 1,093...... Mason................ 133 1,100...... Kendall............... 109 1,118...... Llano.................. 136 1,180...... Uvalde................ 126 1,200...... Uvalde................ 108 1,225...... Kendall............... 133 1,330...... Bandera............. 108 1,348...... Kerr..................... 106 1,446...... Kerr..................... 106 1,530...... Edwards............. 126 1,626...... Burnet................ 141 1,900...... Bandera............. 135 1,972...... Kerr..................... 105 2,000...... Medina................. 88 2,000...... Blanco................ 104 2,408...... Kerr....................... 84 2,416...... Kimble.................. 94 2,724...... Bandera............... 96 2,728...... Llano.................... 40 4,040...... Mason.................. 89 4,540...... Kerr..................... 128 5,510...... Kerr..................... 106 10,318.... Edwards............... 58

METROPLEX

Page Acres± County

730......... Grayson................ 67 1,807...... Wise..................... 63

NORTHEAST 68........... Franklin.............. 151 123......... Henderson........... 95 139......... Anderson........... 146 164......... Anderson........... 146 520......... Anderson............. 66 1,775...... Henderson......... 114 1,775...... Henderson......... 133 2,009...... Henderson......... 117

Page

498......... Walker................ 146 570......... Orange................. 64 894......... Walker.................. 71

WEST 762......... Coke................... 130 872......... Val Verde.............. 57 911......... Val Verde............ 102 960......... Coke................... 131 995......... Coke................... 131 1,192...... Terrell................. 112 1,650...... Tom Green........... 86 2,963...... Hudspeth........... 110 4,432...... Webb................. 113

NORTHWEST

6,004...... Pecos.................. 113

494......... Taylor.................... 74

7,296...... Terrell................. 112

SOUTH

7,336...... Val Verde.............. 68

160......... Atascosa............ 120 293......... Zavala................... 75 432......... Duval.................. 102 439......... Duval.................. 144 446......... Victoria................. 92 502......... Frio....................... 91 560......... La Salle............... 121 583......... Atascosa............ 118 653......... Bee....................... 67 839......... Jim Wells........... 144 1,000...... Frio....................... 22 1,026...... Frio..................... 107 1,032...... Duval.................... 31 1,082...... Zavala................. 107 1,169...... Uvalde................ 108 1,185...... Starr...................... 29 1,323...... Calhoun............... 64 1,339...... McMullen........... 107 1,877...... Zavala................. 107 2,278...... Bee..................... 125 2,405...... Zavala................... 87 3,100...... Hidalgo.............. 103 4,624...... Webb................... 46 5,175...... Hidalgo.............. 109 6,200...... Kenedy............... 103 7,268...... Maverick.............. 27 8,100...... Jim Hogg............. 42

SOUTHEAST 42........... Jackson.............. 145 55........... Matagorda......... 127 113......... Tyler...................... 67 123......... Angelina............ 143 130......... Jefferson............ 139 181......... Walker................ 146 262......... Walker................ 143 298......... Fort Bend........... 151 306......... Walker................ 143 323......... Walker................ 143 328......... Grimes............... 146

6,600...... Val Verde.............. 72

8,300...... Val Verde............ 112 10,322.... Hudspeth........... 110 12,177.... Pecos.................. 110 13,600.... Presidio.............. 123 14,421.... Culberson.......... 124 22,124.... Jeff Davis........... 122 22,972.... Terrell................. 112 32,000.... Hudspeth........... 110

Outside the Region

CALIFORNIA

26,600.... Mendocino........ 132

COLORADO 35........... Gunnison........... 152 35........... Gunnison............. 64 111......... Boulder.............. 132 700......... Jefferson............ 132 812......... Jefferson............ 133 1,046...... Routt.................. 132 3,247...... San Miguel........ 132

MISSOURI 1,401...... Hancock............... 65

NEBRASKA 27,482.... Keith................... 132

NEW MEXICO 6,151...... Rio Arriba............. 61

WYOMING 13,700.... Campbell........... 133

International

COSTA RICA 518..................................... 150

CENTRAL

09 Austin 2 192 Bastrop 159 Bell 205 Bexar 125 Bosque 195 Brazos 194 Burleson 191 Caldwell 223 Colorado 189 Comal 139 Concho 144 Coryell 221 De Witt 160 Falls 208 Fayette 147 Freestone 207 Gonzales 196 Grimes 206 Guadalupe 124 Hamilton 220 Karnes 202 Kinney 143 Lampasas 222 Lavaca 193 Lee 161 Leon 146 Limestone 178 Madison 140 McCulloch 145 McLennan 204 Medina 155 Menard 176 Milam 141 Mills 177 Robertson 142 San Saba 174 Travis 203 Uvalde 210 Waller 254 Washington 223 Wharton 175 Williamson 219 Wilson

HIGH PLAINS

87 Bandera 1 173 Blanco 158 Burnet 184 Edwards 172 Gillespie 190 Hays 188 Kendall 186 Kerr 171 Kimble 157 Llano 156 Mason 185 Real

METROPLEX

6 Collin 6 48 Cooke 85 Dallas 65 Denton 104 Ellis 100 Erath 50 Fannin 49 Grayson 126 Hill 101 Hood 67 Hunt 103 Johnson 105 Kaufman 127 Navarro 82 Palo Pinto 83 Parker 86 Rockwall 102 Somervell 84 Tarrant 64 Wise

NORTHEAST

148 Anderson 53 Bowie 89 Camp 73 Cass 129 Cherokee 68 Delta 70 Franklin 108 Gregg 109 Harrison 128 Henderson 69 Hopkins 162 Houston 51 Lamar 91 Marion 72 Morris 149 Nacogdoches 131 Panola 88 Rains 52 Red River 130 Rusk 150 Shelby 107 Smith 71 Titus 90 Upshur 106 Van Zandt 88 Wood

NORTHWEST

5 Archer 4 44 Baylor 122 Brown 98 Callahan 46 Clay 121 Coleman 123 Comanche 33 Cottle 99 Eastland 78 Fisher 34 Foard 27 Hardeman 60 Haskell 63 Jack 79 Jones 43 Knox 95 Mitchell 47 Montague 96 Nolan 120 Runnels 77 Scurry 80 Shackelford 81 Stephens 59 Stonewall 97 Taylor 61 Throckmorton 36 Wichita 35 Wilbarger 62 Young

SOUTH

43 Aransas 2 218 Atascosa 232 Bee 248 Brooks 245 Calhoun 253 Cameron 228 Dimmit 238 Duval 217 Frio 233 Goliad 251 Hidalgo 247 Jim Hogg 239 Jim Wells 249 Kenedy 240 Kleberg 229 La Salle 231 Live Oak 215 Maverick 230 McMullen 241 Nueces 244 Refugio 242 San Patricio 250 Starr 234 Victoria 237 Webb 252 Willacy 246 Zapata 216 Zavala

far mandra nc h.com

SOUTHEAST

63 Angelina 1 226 Brazoria 213 Chambers 225 Fort Bend 227 Galveston 200 Hardin 212 Harris 235 Jackson 182 Jasper 214 Jefferson 199 Liberty 236 Matagorda 211 Montgomery 183 Newton 201 Orange 180 Polk 165 Sabine 164 San Augustine 198 San Jacinto 179 Trinity 181 Tyler 197 Walker

27 30

33 34

52 53

68 55

113

2 Andrews 9 167 Brewster 119 Coke 134 Crane 153 Crockett 112 Culberson 115 Ector 110 El Paso 117 Glasscock 94 Howard 111 Hudspeth 137 Irion 151 Jeff Davis 113 Loving 93 Martin 116 Midland 152 Pecos 166 Presidio 136 Reagan 132 Reeves 154 Schleicher 118 Sterling 74 Sutton 168 Terrell 138 Tom Green 135 Upton 169 Val Verde 133 Ward 114 Winkler

114 133

112

116

117

135

136

118

100

137

138

139 155

74 168

127

171

169

185 202

203

216

187

191

228

233

243

SOUTH

242 238

237

239

241

240

247

248

250 251

249

252 253

183

200

212

SOUTHEAST214 213

235

226

227

236

245

244

232 231

246

234

199

225 224

230

182

201 210

222

221 220

218

211

223 207

217

196

208

206

205 204

181

198

254 209

189

180

197

165

163

179

193 192

190

188

229

195 194

174 173

219 215

176

164

178

CENTRAL

175

150

149 162

161 177

131

NORTHEAST

146 160

158 157 172

186

184

130

129 148

144

109

108

107

126

159

HILL COUNTRY

106

73 91

147

143

156

153

104

145

140

128

125

122

121

86 105

70 71 72 89

103

141

154 152

167

102

123

120

101

142

151

METROPLEX 80

NORTHWEST

119

124 134

132

166

115

WEST

HIGH PLAINS

110 111

map

8 Armstrong 1 28 Bailey 76 Borden 24 Briscoe 13 Carson 22 Castro 26 Childress 37 Cochran 20 Collingsworth 40 Crosby 1 Dallam 75 Dawson 16 Deaf Smith 41 Dickens 19 Donley 31 Floyd 74 Gaines 57 Garza 14 Gray 30 Hale 25 Hall 3 Hansford 6 Hartley 10 Hemphill 38 Hockley 8 Hutchinson 58 Kent 42 King 29 Lamb 5 Lipscomb 39 Lubbock 56 Lynn 7 Moore 32 Motley 4 Ochiltree 11 Oldham 21 Parmer 12 Potter 17 Randall 9 Roberts 2 Sherman 23 Swisher 55 Terry 15 Wheeler 54 Yoakum

HILL COUNTRY

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COVER

RANCH

22 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

ovem (Latin word for “to the 9’s”) Ranch is just that! It is a highly improved and manicured, extremely well-watered, high-fenced, turnkey ranch being offered for sale with everything you need to entertain your family or numerous clients. It is all native brush and drives way bigger than the actual acreage. This ranch has been owned by the same family for 15 years and they have never stopped adding to the details, year after year, to make every aspect of this ranch refined, fun and easy for all of their family outings.

South Texas v Frio County v Pearsall

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HISTORY—1918: The Daughters of The American Revolution and State of Texas place historic granite markers every five miles, marking the trails of El Camino Real, the Native American footpaths followed by the Spanish, French, and then Anglo settlers of Texas. One hundred years later, one of those massive granite markers, weathered by sun, sand and wind, still stands at Frio County’s Novem Ranch. El Camino Real (also called the King’s Highway or Royal Road) passed through the ranch’s 1,000 acres, one of the original routes of trade, and to discovery. The ranch is still a treasure for discovery, with opportunities for the stewardship of the ranch’s many natural resources—land, water, native brush and wildlife. New owners of the Novem Ranch will be continuing a tradition of stewardship by the current owners who have cared for the ranch for nearly two decades. Each year of ownership improvements were added to this high-fenced, turnkey property. Recreational ranching for family, friends and clients is easy to enjoy and share at this well-watered and manicured property. IMPROVEMENTS: Improvements on this ranch leave nothing else to be considered. They include a 10,000-square-foot, tenbedroom, twelve-bath main lodge complete with an indoor gaming area. A grand outdoor entertainment area overlooks the lake and a two-bedroom, two-bath foreman’s house. Commercial grade equipment for making sausage comes with a smokehouse. Also included are a horse barn, dog kennels, equipment barns, 14 deer pens, five-acre soft release pen, one-bedroom guide cabin, ten deer blinds with corn and protein feeders, 30 quail riser sprinklers for water and quail feeders, numerous quail strips, three water wells, four irrigation pivots, six constant level ponds, three-phase electricity, fuel storage tanks, two feed bins, two water storage tanks, and a shooting range. WATER: This is an incredibly well-watered ranch with two Carrizo wells and one domestic well. The Carrizo wells are equipped with 50 hp motors and do approximately 350 gpm. There is really not any area of the ranch that can’t get water. The main lake adjoining the lodge is a 7.5-acre, 25-foot deep, lined constant level lake and large enough to enjoy with your jet ski or just to swim around. Not only does it have four different pivot irrigation systems to irrigate the fields, it also has pipe 24 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

run underground all over the ranch to keep the six ponds/lakes full and four-inch pipe ran to most of the larger senderos with risers to connect to so you can use reels to water the entire sendero. There are also 30+ quail risers which they use as sprinklers for the quail to water and have cover. An additional eight water troughs are also scattered throughout the ranch. Improvements around the house have two large water storage tanks to ensure you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t run out of water. HUNTING: Hunting on the ranch is extremely exciting because you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what might walk out! From a trophy-class whitetail buck to axis, blackbuck, rams, Scimitar Oryx, addax, fallow, Gemsbok Oryx, redstag, javelina or hogs. There are ten

Atascosa blinds set up across the ranch to hunt from, all with feeder stations and water close by. Quail hunting is also first class and they have every necessary element for the quail to continue to thrive with plenty of feeders and water stations specifically for them spread perfectly across the ranch. Turkey also thrive on the ranch because of the large native brush and abundant water. FISHING: If you like to fish then this is also another aspect of the entertainment of this ranch. The owners stocked every tank with 6to 10-pound bass back in 2013 and continue to make sure the level of bait fish is sufficient to keep them growing. They also have piped water to every tank to ensure a constant oxygen and water level.

EQUIPMENT TO BE CONVEYED: A full list of items to be conveyed can be sent upon request, but this ranch will be conveyed with everything you need. For example: two John Deere tractors, four Kawasaki Mules, two ice machines, welding machines, shredders, disc, fuel storage tanks, numerous tools, road grader, lawn mowers, hunting truck, etc. LOCATION: The ranch is located approximately 20 minutes south of Pearsall on CR 3871 which can be accessed either by FM 1582 or Hwy 97. v For more information or to schedule a tour contact Stephen Stransky at 210-254-7700 or stephen@stranskyproperties.com.

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RIVER RIDGE 305 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Kerrville iver Ridge Ranch is on Hwy 173 approximately four miles south of downtown Kerrville, Texas. It consists of 305 acres with Guadalupe River frontage overlooking and adjoining the Comanche Trace Golf Course. The main house on top of the hill is an eight-bedroom, six-bath home that has spectacular views of downtown Kerrville and the entire ranch itself. The property is divided into seven pipe-fenced pastures with over 160 acres of coastal grass for horses or cattle. Other improvements include three homes, two horse barns, two hay barns, an equipment barn and a workshop all easily accessible by the paved roads within the ranch. Wildlife includes whitetail deer, axis and blackbuck.

210-254-7700 â&#x20AC;˘ stephen@stranskyproperties.com â&#x20AC;˘ stranskyproperties.com 26 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

ROSITA CREEK RANCH 7,268 ACRES

South Texas v Maverick County v Eagle Pass

osita Creek, located in Maverick County, is surrounded by road frontage on Highway 57, Highway 277 and Loop 480 overlooking Eagle Pass, Texas. This 7,268-acre, high-fenced ranch is a true sportsman’s paradise today, but has the potential to be a great investment for future development given its proximity to the city. It is easily accessible with its own 6,200-foot paved runway and hangar. The ranch has been managed for years under MLDP level III permitting and has great whitetail deer along with other typical South Texas species, but also great waterfowl hunting and fishing on the four massive lakes with the biggest being 225± acres. There are several other dammed up tributaries that create great water throughout the ranch for all wildlife. The ranch has over five miles of paved roads to easily navigate the entire premises. Other improvements include a 9,100-square-foot main lodge overlooking the 225-acre lake, lighted tennis court, 6,000-squarefoot hunter’s lodge, workers’ houses, horse facilities, blinds, feeders, walk-in cooler, pipe cattle working pens and city water.

Stephen Stransky 210-254-7700

stephen@stranskyproperties.com stranskyproperties.com FarmAndRanch.com

WINN TORTUGA RANCH 552 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Camp Verde

inn Tortuga Ranch, located on Highway 173 approximately seven miles south of Kerrville and three miles north of Camp Verde. It consists of 552 acres that are mostly high-fenced, and have some of the best trophy whitetail deer hunting you can find along with some exotics which are protein fed year-round. Both sides of Turtle Creek run through the north side of the property which allow for great swimming and fishing. The main lodge has a pool and outdoor entertainment cabana with great views. The property also has three additional homes, a 20-acre soft-release deer pen, four-stall horse barn, workshop and three water wells. This ranch is being offered turnkey.

ak Tree Ranch is 220 acres that has been utilized as a thoroughbred and quarter horse racing farm sitting just south of Bandera, Texas, with approximately one 220 ACRES mile of frontage on Hwy 16. This ranch is Texas Hill Country v Bandera County v Bandera well equipped for a first-class horse farm with over 30 stalls, 19 large turnouts/pastures, two horse walkers, covered round pen, and wash rack. Other amenities include three houses, office, barn office, numerous storage sheds, hay barn, and a large pavilion.

OAK TREE RANCH

210-254-7700 â&#x20AC;˘ stephen@stranskyproperties.com â&#x20AC;˘ stranskyproperties.com 28 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

CAMP VERDE RANCH 287 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Camp Verde

amp Verde Ranch consists of 287 high-fenced acres located in the heart of Camp Verde, at the intersection of Hwy 173 and FM 480, and only 10 miles south of Kerrville. Both sides of Verde Creek and Mico Creek run through the ranch with Mico Creek dammed up creating a great fishing tank and two water falls on the other side. Verde Creek offers a 15-foot swimming hole, perfect for rope swinging from the cypress trees. The property has 240 feet of elevation changes from the coastal fields and creeks to the top of Cedar Ridge which overlooks the entire Camp Verde Valley. Other improvements include 80Âą acres of coastal grass, a 1,300-foot rifle range, paved roads, blinds, feeders and three water tanks. Wildlife includes whitetail deer, red stag, axis and blackbuck.

MONTERREY RANCH 1,185 ACRES

South Texas v Starr County

onterrey Ranch consist of approximately 1,185 acres located in Starr County, Texas, about one hour southwest of Hebbronville, off of FM 2686 and three miles down an easement road, making it very secluded and private. The ranch has been in the same family now for over 60 years and its primary use has been for cattle and hunting. The ranch is 100 percent high fenced with about eight separate low-fence pastures within the high fence. There are two ponds on the property, with one 18 feet deep, and three water wells that average about 900 feet in depth. Other improvements include a good set of cattle working pens and an old camp with three trailer houses. Several strips have also been cut on the ranch making it ideal for quail hunting and providing great buffel grass for the cattle.

Stephen Stransky 210-254-7700

stephen@stranskyproperties.com stranskyproperties.com FarmAndRanch.com

EICHLER RANCH - 120± ACRES Texas Hill Country v Kendall County v Boerne ichler Ranch is 120 high-fenced acres perfectly located just north of Boerne a few miles from the Welfare Exit. The property consist of both 360-degree views of the Texas Hill Country and bottom land soil great for horses and cattle. Sitting at the top of the highest point with paved access right to the front door is a 5,081-square-foot white rock home with incredible views in every direction and surrounded by a manicured and irrigated massive yard. The home is a two-story, five-bedroom, three and one-half-bath home with three fireplaces, a huge back porch, and yard great for entertaining. There are two ponds and a spring that have water during normal rain fall.

GREAT INVESTMENT! Texas Hill Country v Kendall County v Boerne hese 411 acres are sitting at the Welfare Exit on Interstate 10 West, with over 2,000 feet of frontage. It is just six miles from downtown Boerne in Kendall County, one of the fastest growing counties in Texas. The property has incredible 360-degree views, with elevation changes of over 300 feet from the tops of the hills down to the fields on both sides of Zinke Creek, which cuts through the property. This would make a great ranch to enjoy with the family and an even better investment to sell when Boerne reaches your doorstep in the near future.

210-254-7700 • stephen@stranskyproperties.com • stranskyproperties.com 30 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

CAUDLE RANCH 1,032Âą ACRES

South Texas v Duval County v Freer

audle Ranch is located 11 miles south of Freer, Texas and has about one mile of frontage on Hwy 16 with two separate entrances. This ranch can be bought as a whole or in separate parcels of 616 acres or 416 acres. Both ranches have a house and all necessary items to immediately enjoy your stay. The north portion of the ranch is low fenced and has big neighbors on every side. The south portion is high fenced and has been game managed for six years. These ranches together allow for the best of both aspects of hunting whether your choice is free-range or game-managed hunting in South Texas. There are also three water wells, blinds, feeders, equipment, a game storage cooler, and many other extras that can convey with the sale.

RED SKY RANCH 97 ACRES

Central Texas v Travis County v Lago Vista

ed Sky Ranch is approximately 97 wildlife-exempt acres fronting on the west end of Lake Travis with over 1,500 feet of your own private lake frontage and end-of-the-road privacy. This ranch sits directly in the bend of the lake providing incredible views towards Austin and Marble Falls. Across from the ranch is Muleshoe Bend Park which ensures that you will always be looking at a pristine park landscape. Improvements include a 3,000Âą square-foot home with four bedrooms and three-and-a-half baths, a storage shed, paved walkway to the lake alongside a cascading waterfall, and a covered two-stall boat dock with electricity and storage. The ranch is only about eight miles west of Lago Vista off of RM 1431 fronting on Muleshoe Bend Trail.

Stephen Stransky 210-254-7700

stephen@stranskyproperties.com stranskyproperties.com FarmAndRanch.com

THE NEXT

It is a fine, sunny mid-April morning in South Texas. The weather has been unusually cool and rainy, and the spacious, pooltable-flat wedge of land between the Nueces River and the Mexican border—which the Spanish once called El Desierto de los Muertos—today looks as green as Ireland. I am in a pickup, bouncing through a pasture on the 237,348-acre Norias division of the King Ranch, one of four massive chunks of land that make up the 825,000-acre (1,300-square-mile) spread. The truck belongs to Dave DeLaney, a rangy 51-year-old who runs the ranch’s cattle operation. With roughly 43,500 head, it is the nation’s largest. DeLaney is giving me the grand tour, which will ultimately take the better part of two days. As a reporter, my presence here is highly unusual, to say the least. The King Ranch has always been a deeply private place, instinctively hostile to outsiders, a group that has included, over the decades, Comanches, border raiders, horse and cattle thieves, Union soldiers, government road builders, and nosy journalists. The fact that I am getting a multiday tour from a full-bird vice-president like DeLaney is unheard of in recent times. As far as I can tell only a handful of reporters have ever been allowed full access to the ranch. Harper’s Magazine sent writers in 1892 and 1907; Fortune sent one in 1933; Time in 1947; and texas monthly in 1980 (in the fifties, artist and historian Tom Lea was invited to write the ranch’s only authorized history). By the grace of some inscrutable collective sentiment

32 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

on the part of Captain Richard King’s heirs, I am the most recent member of this small, select company, here to try and make sense of a 154-year-old family business that has somehow managed to haul itself into the twentyfirst century without being busted up, sold off, or sacrificed to commercial development. I am not sure why they have agreed to let me in, but the fact is, they have, and I am not arguing about it. I am keeping my eyes open. What is most striking about the place, not surprisingly, is its tremendous scale—nearly unimaginable for those of us who live in places where real estate is calibrated in fractions of city blocks. The pasture we are in, for example, encompasses 30,000 acres—or 47 square miles. The live oak grove (or motte, as they call it here) we just drove through comprises 60,000 acres.

i l l u s t r a t i o n s b y S T EV E S T A N K I E W I C Z

FRONTIER The state’s (and maybe the world’s) most famous 825,000 acres would seem to be on a collision course with the twenty-first century, when giant spreads are routinely chopped up, there’s no money to be made in cattle, and the younger generation frequently bolts the family business. But the heirs of Captain Richard King are smarter than that. They have skillfully avoided ruin and preserved their history by embracing the future.

b y S. C. G W Y N N E photographs by kurt markus

And the land is not only vast. It is also beautiful. Though beauty is not a quality generally associated with South Texas, Norias is one of the loveliest pieces of coastal real estate I’ve ever seen, a place of swaying bluestem grasses; lush, wide-open coastal plain; rolling bone-white sand dunes; and rain-detonated explosions of daisies, coreopsis, and dayflowers. Animals are everywhere we look: scores of wild turkeys, some of them in mating dances; white-tailed deer and bobwhite quail in almost every meadow; ducks; javelinas; feral hogs; brilliantly colored scissor-tailed flycatchers; and red-winged blackbirds. Beyond the size and beauty of the physical Above: King Ranch cowboy Andy Avelar roping a cow in a coastal pasture. Right: The four divisions of the King Ranch, which total 825,000 acres.

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environment, there is the weight of history. The King Ranch was the first ranch in Texas, the cornerstone of the cattle business in the West, one of the originators of the great cattle drives to the Kansas railheads and later of the fenced pastures that killed the drives off. At the time of his death, in 1885, founder Richard King owned half a million acres and was the wealthiest man in Texas. His grandson Robert J. Kleberg Jr. built the business into a 15-million-acre global empire, with ranches spread from Argentina to Australia. Kleberg invented the Santa Gertrudis, the first American cattle breed and the first new breed anywhere in one hundred years; he bred the first registered American quarter horse and the Thoroughbred stallion Assault, which won the Triple Crown in 1946. If that wasn’t enough, Kleberg also invented the root plow and the cattle prod, eradicated Texas tick fever, and arranged the largest oil lease ever on private land. All this history lives on, pervasive as the mesquite and huisache trees. I can feel it in the vast muscular land and see it in the glorious Main House, with its battlements, multichromatic terra-cotta tiles, Tiffany-designed furniture and art glass, Italian marble stairs, and teak floors. Drifting along the ranch’s two thousand miles of asphalt, caliche, and dirt roads, I can’t help feeling a certain sense of timelessness, as though nothing on this splendid Rhode Island–size ranch has really changed since the days when Captain King’s vaqueros rounded up tens of thousands of cattle for the northern trail drives. But those are appearances only, mirages of the South Texas heat. The truth is that the King Ranch is not at all what it once was. As a business, it is profoundly and irreversibly changed from the time when Kleberg would receive potentates and movie stars on the Main House porch and sit like a Middle Eastern pasha in his reviewing stand, gazing at million-dollar horses. Fifty-six years of enlightened despotism had left the ranch singularly dependent on him, and when he died, in 1974, the machinery of empire immediately began to creak and then to fail. Battles of succession led to wars of secession. Family members forced the ranch to buy them out, causing it to incur massive debt; lawsuits fol-

34 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

Top: The Main House, built by Robert J. Kleberg Sr. in 1915, sits on the site of Richard King’s original dwelling on the ranch—a tiny jacal of mud and sticks. Above: Kineños stopping by a windmill tank on the Laureles division.

T I M E C O V E R : G E T T Y I M A G E S ; FA M I LY P H O T O S : C O U R T E S Y O F B R I G H T S K Y P R E S S A N D H E L E N K L E B E R G G R O V E S , F R O M B O B A N D H E L E N K L E B E R G , O F K I N G R A N C H

lowed, then the remaining heirs grabbed most of the oil royalties that had been floating the operation for forty years. Drained of most of its oil money, the business staggered forward under the burden of its archaic, nearly feudal cradle-to-grave welfare system for the hundreds of workers and their families who resided on the King Ranch. Had things gone only slightly differently, these forces might have easily led to the breakup of the King Ranch, as they have for thousands of other family-owned outfits. But this did not happen. Instead came sweeping change, driven by an entirely new concept of the ranch. What Captain King founded was a simple cattle operation. Then it became a cattle and oil business. As the King Ranch struggled to survive, it came to be seen as a business, to be sure, but also as a legacy, something to be shielded, protected, and preserved. The result is that over the past quarter century its owners have, laboriously and at considerable risk, built an elaborate financial carapace around the 825,000 acres of the home ranches in South Texas. Ironically, in order to protect the four divisions of this acreage (Santa Gertrudis, Laureles, Norias, and Encino), the King Ranch has been forced to branch out into new enterprises that are antithetical to everything the ranch once held holy. The business is now built around commercial hunting leases, which let thousands of outsiders into the private kingdom, and farming, long considered by ranch folk as a pedestrian, second-class business and pointedly banned by Kleberg. With 36,000 acres of Florida citrus groves, the King Ranch is the leading citrus grower in America. It is also one of the nation’s ten-biggest sugarcane producers. It owns huge sod, cotton, and milo farms in Texas and Florida. Buffered from the cruel volatility of the markets, the ranch lives on, working cattle and sustaining its old romance. But today the King Ranch exists in the form of a large and diversified agribusiness conglomerate, carefully designed to prevent the sacred acres from ever being sold. Along the way it has become something the previous generations could never have foreseen or imagined. “If Captain King sat down with us today, he’d say, ‘Well, how are things going?’ ” said Helen Kleberg Groves, known as Helenita, Kleberg’s only child and one of the matriarchs of the family. “And we’d say, ‘They are going fine. We don’t have that many cattle or horses anymore. It is hard to make any money at ranching. We’ve got hunting leases and citrus groves and sod and cane farms.’ He would think we had lost our minds.”

IN FACT, THE CHANGES OF THE PAST thirty years are not

entirely unprecedented. For all of its sepia-toned majesty, the King Ranch was never a stranger to crushing debt or the threat of liquidation. You can think of its history as a chain of ingenious adaptations. Time and time again, gigantic and apparently intractable financial entanglements were

This page, clockwise from top left: Richard M. Kleberg Sr. (“Mr. Dick”), who served seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, riding at the ranch; Robert J. Kleberg Jr. (“Mr. Bob”), First Lady Mamie Eisenhower, and President Dwight Eisenhower at Belmont Park in the late fifties; Mr. Bob’s wife, Helen C. Kleberg, with a hunting car on the Norias division, 1942; King Ranch Kineños with the traditional riderless horse at the memorial service for Richard M. Kleberg Jr. (“Mr. Richie”), in 1979; the December 15, 1947, issue of Time, which featured a long cover story on Mr. Bob.

somehow, miraculously, solved by the right people who showed up at just the right time. The first such crisis came in 1885, following the death of Captain King. The captain left his widow, Henrietta, half a million acres of land and half a million dollars of debt. This was a tremendous sum at the time. To make matters worse, only a few weeks after his death, the great cattle boom of the 1880’s collapsed. Right on its heels came one of the worst droughts of the century, culminating in the Great Die-up of 1891 and 1892. Riding to the rescue was a buttoned-down lawyer and lifelong non-rancher named Robert J. Kleberg Sr., who had married Captain King’s daughter Alice in 1886 and was shortly thereafter put in charge of the ranch by Henrietta. Robert Kleberg Sr. sharpened his pencil and went to work, and his strict sense of economy likely saved the enterprise from ruin. In 1892, at the height of the drought, he took such extreme measures as shipping 12,000 head of cattle to the Indian territory to find grass. Despite Robert E. Lee’s famous injunction to his friend Captain King to “buy land and never sell,” Robert Kleberg Sr. sold small portions

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C A P TA I N R I C H A R D K I N G

H E N R I E T TA M A R I A K I N G ( AT W O O D )

( 1856 –1918) Her heirs received half of Norias East. A por-

tion of this land was sold to Alice King Kleberg; the remainder became the Sauz Ranch.

( 1 9 1 8 –1 9 9 4 )

RICHARD MIFFLIN KLEBERG JR. “MR. RICHIE”

( 1916 – 1979 )

WILLIAM BLAKE “ D U B ” YA R B O R O U G H

( 1864– 1883 )

He died at age nineteen without heirs.

Her sole heir received half of Norias East. This land was later sold to Alice King Kleberg.

H E N R I E T TA R O S A KLEBERG (LARKIN) (ARMSTRONG)

ALICE GERTRUDIS KLEBERG ( EAST )

( 1893 – 1997 )

( 1889–1969 )

U.S. congressman from 1931 to 1945

K AT H E R I N E KLEBERG

ROBERT EDWARD LEE KING

ELLA MORSE KING ( W E LT O N ) ( 1858–1900 )

RICHARD MIFFLIN KLEBERG SR. “ M R . D I C K ” (1887 – 1955)

(1824 – 1885)

In a 1954 three-part deal, she sold her share of the King Ranch in exchange for the Santa Fe Ranch, which had been conveyed from the heirs of Richard King II to the King Ranch in exchange for 10 percent of its oil royalties.

ALICE GERTRUDIS KING KLEBERG (REYNOLDS)

(1 9 2 8 – 2 0 0 0)

She sold her shares of the King Ranch in 1977 for $35 million.

( 1 9 1 4 – 2006 )

Former vice president in charge of oil operations

S A L LY S E A R C Y KLEBERG

( 1 9 4 4 –)

She served on the board as a shareholders’ representative for six years.

IDA LARKIN STEPHEN “TIO” K L E B E R G ( 1 9 4 6 –) Former vice president in charge of cattle and agriculture; current board member

JANELL GERALD

(1948–)

of the ranch here and there as needed. He had his Kineños—literally “King’s men,” the ranch’s cowboys—skin thousands of cattle that had starved and sell the hides. His relentless search for water finally paid off in 1899 in the form of gushing artesian wells that changed the destiny of the ranch. In the end, he not only paid the Captain’s debt but also managed to double the size of the ranch. The ranch’s second crisis came in the years after Henrietta’s death, in 1925. That was also the year that Robert Kleberg Sr. suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. By then, 29-year-old Robert Kleberg Jr., known to the family as Mr. Bob, had taken over the day-to-day affairs of the ranch (Robert Kleberg Sr.’s other son, Richard, known as Mr. Dick, would soon be elected to the first of seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives). Again, the business found itself in debt, this time owing $1.5 million. But there were new complications: Massive estate taxes were owed, and there was the matter of settling up inheritances among the various children of Captain King’s heirs, which wasn’t going to be cheap either. It seemed, for a time, that the only way out would be to sell a large portion of the ranch, which was then roughly one million acres. At the darkest hour, faced with more than $3 million in debt and taxes owed, Mr. Bob arranged with Humble Oil what was then the biggest private oil lease in history. The 1933 contract paid the ranch one eighth of all the revenue from wells drilled on the property. The deal was simple and ingenious: In exchange for drilling rights, Humble would lend the King Ranch $3.5 million, which Mr. Bob would use to liquidate the debt. The oil royalties, which started flowing a few weeks before Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland caused the price of oil to spike, soon paid off the loan. Henrietta’s death also triggered the divvying up of her estate, a complicated affair that took until 1935 to resolve. Of her five children, only Alice King Kleberg was still alive. The children of her son Richard King II got the 147,000-acre Santa Fe Ranch (also known as Norias West), along with lands in West Texas and other assets. Her other son, Robert King, had died at nineteen without heirs. The sole heir of her daughter Ella King Welton got a 161,895-acre portion of Norias East, which she sold to Alice. The heirs

36 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

( 1919 – )

H E N R I E T TA LARKIN

JIM CLEMENT

(1918 – 1994)

He ran the King Ranch from 1974 to 1987.

JAMEY CLEMENT

(1916–1986 ) JOHN ARMSTRONG

(1919-2003)

He ran the foreign ranches from 1974 to 1987.

( 1954 – )

Current chairman of the board

of her daughter Henrietta King Atwood received more of the Norias East acres; one of them sold her portion to Alice, while the other two fought what Tom Lea called “a rancorous and prolonged litigation” that was not concluded until 1950. Alice and her five children (Henrietta, Alice, Sarah, Mr. Dick, and Mr. Bob) inherited the core properties of the Santa Gertrudis and Laureles divisions, which, added to the Norias lands acquired from the other heirs, constitutes the bulk of what is known today as the King Ranch. The roots of the ranch’s most recent crisis also lie in death: Mr. Bob’s passing in 1974 ended 56 years of autocratic control, seat-of-the-pants management, and medieval accounting systems. He had not just been the dominant rancher of his era but one of its most prominent figures. His jaunty, Stetson-framed face appeared on the cover of Time in 1947. He had lived a life entirely befitting the lord of the greatest cattle kingdom on earth. He circled the globe in his private jet, often in the company of strikingly beautiful young women (his beloved wife, Helen, died in 1963), visiting his ranches in Spain, Morocco, Australia, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Florida, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania (his Cuban ranch was confiscated by Fidel Castro in 1960). Like his grandfather Captain King, he was both an indefatigable worker and a hard drinker, a man who liked his vintage Bordeaux, rare single-malt Scotches, and for breakfast, the occasional leche colorado, a combination of bourbon, milk, and honey. He kept a large suite at the Pierre Hotel, in New York, and often dined in the company of New York’s power elite at Club 21. He was one of the most successful Thoroughbred breeders in America and spent considerable time at the racetrack. At the ranch he entertained kings, presidents, and celebrities, from Will Rogers to Bing Crosby. Such larger-than-life behavior was not always good for the ranch in South Texas. The terrible drought of the fifties wrought long-term disaster on its pastures, and Mr. Bob was often not around to address the mounting problems. By the seventies the home ranches were struggling to make money (at one point, in 1971, there were only 25,000 cattle on the four divisions), and the foreign and other domestic ranches, vast and impressive though they were, hardly contributed anything to the bottom line.

H E N R I E T TA C H A M B E R L A I N

RICHARD KING II

(1832 – 1925 )

ALICE GERTRUDIS K I N G ( 1862– 1944 )

(1860– 1922)

His heirs received the Santa Fe Ranch, also known as Norias West.

ROBERT JUSTUS KLEBERG SR.

(1853-1932)

R O B E RRTOJBUESRTTUJSUK ST LE UB S EKRLGE B JR E .R G J R . “ M R . B“ O MBR”. B O B ”

SARAH SPOHN KLEBERG ( J O H N S O N ) ( S H E LT O N )

(1898– 1942)

( 1896 (–1896 1974–) 1974 )

He ran the HeKing ran the Ranch King from Ranch 1918 from to 1974. 1918 to 1974.

H E L E NH E C LAEMNP C BA E LMLP(B1902– E L L ( 1902– 1963 ) 1963 ) H E L E NH E KLI N EN G K ILN EG B EKRLGE B E R G ( A L E X(AANL D EX ER A)N(D GERRO) V( G E SR)O V E S ) “ H E L E“NHI E TA L E” N I TA ”

B E LT O N “ B ” KLEBERG JOHNSON

( 1929– 2001 )

( 1927– ( 1927– ) )

JOHN ALEXANDER

( 1954 – )

Current board member

He sold his shares of the King Ranch in 1977 for $70 million.

B O B B Y S H E LT O N

( 1935– 1994 )

He sold his shares of the King Ranch in 1977 for unspecified land and assets.

CAROLINE ALEXANDER (FORGASON)

( 1956 –)

N O N - FA M I LY C H A I R M E N , P R E S I D E N T S , A N D C E O S : D A R W I N S M I T H , president and chairman (1988–1989) R O G E R J A R V I S , acting president and CEO (1989–1990), president and CEO (1990–1994) L E R O Y D E N M A N J R . , chairman (1989–1995) A B E Z A L E Z N I K , chairman (1995–2000) J A C K H U N T, president and CEO (1995–present)

Only Argentina and Australia shipped profits home. By the time of Mr. Bob’s death, in 1974, it was clear that the success of the King Ranch was in some ways an illusion. Its real money came from oil. Oil funded Mr. Bob’s foreign acquisitions and his expensive hobbies (his horses cost the ranch $1 million a year) and carried the home ranches through the drought years. The worst problem was not so much scant cattle revenue as nonexistent management. “The minus in the system was that, from the middle 1950s onward, [Mr. Bob] traveled a great deal,” wrote longtime assistant John Cypher in his 1995 memoir, Bob Kleberg and the King Ranch: A Worldwide Sea of Grass. “When he was away from the ranch, except for work done by rote, things came to a standstill.” Even worse, at the time of his death, Mr. Bob had failed to make a clear plan of succession.

A FEW MONTHS AFTER MR. BOB DIED, a board meeting took place at the Main House to determine who would assume control of the ranch’s operations. The man Mr. Bob had always intended to succeed him, Mr. Dick’s only son, Richard M. Kleberg Jr., known as Mr. Richie, was sick with emphysema. That left the sons of Mr. Bob’s sister Sarah, Bobby Shelton and Belton “B” Kleberg Johnson, whom Mr. Bob had raised following their parents’ deaths. The family knew this was a critical decision, though they could not have foreseen how deep and immediate its effects would be. At the meeting Shelton and Johnson made passionate cases for why they should be elected to run the ranch, but they both ended up losing. The board instead chose the sons-in-law of Mr. Bob’s sister Henrietta. Jim Clement, a Princetoneducated Easterner who had married Henrietta’s daughter Ida, became the chairman, and John Armstrong, the son of another South Texas ranching family who had married Henrietta’s other daughter, Henrietta, was named president. Clement had worked for the ranch since 1947. No one wanted another Mr. Bob, and choosing competent managers who were not blood kin seemed the right thing to do. It did not come without consequences. Having failed to win the top job, Johnson and Shelton asked to sell their shares and leave the ranch.

Among the Kleberg heirs, this was an emotionally wrenching event. Until then, only one of them had ever sold out of the ranch. In 1954 Mr. Bob’s sister Alice Kleberg East, who preferred to ranch her own land rather than be part of a corporation, decided she wanted her share of the acres. Mr. Bob refused, as he would throughout his lifetime, to break up the home ranches. Instead, he engineered a brilliant three-way swap: In exchange for 10 percent of the King Ranch oil royalties, he bought the adjacent 147,000-acre Santa Fe Ranch from the heirs of Richard King II, who had inherited it as part of the 1935 settlement; then he swapped that land for his sister’s shares. (Though they no longer own the ranch, the Kings have prospered, in part due to the flow of oil lease money.) But in 1977 there was no such easy solution. Though Shelton’s buyout was settled with land in Florida and other assets that did not directly affect the home ranches, Johnson received $70 million in cash. Following this, yet another disaffected stockholder, Mr. Dick’s daughter Alice Kleberg Reynolds, came forward to request a buyout for $35 million. (Shelton and Johnson both later sued for additional oil royalties.) The ranch did not have all that money. It had to borrow $100 million, which meant that, for the first time since 1933, the home ranches were mortgaged—to the hilt. These buyouts and the debt they incurred were just the beginning of a crisis that would roll through the seventies and eighties. The departure of the three heirs had the unfortunate effect of sparking a shareholder revolt over the ranch’s oil money. The dissatisfaction was rooted in the ranch’s tangled financial history. Under the lease agreement with Humble Oil (later to become Exxon and then Exxon Mobil), 3,700 oil and gas wells have been drilled since 1939, and the majority of them produced. Initially, the royalty money the ranch received amounted to one eighth of the production of the wells. Then in 1958, in exchange for the right to build a natural gas plant on the property, Humble increased the ranch’s share to one sixth of production. Eleven years later, Fortune reported that the total oil and gas revenue from the King Ranch leases was $120 million, making the King Ranch’s share $20 million, or fifteen times what it made running cattle. ( C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 15 4 )

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RANCHO AGUA GRANDE 17,132Â± ACRES

UVALDE & KINNEY COUNTIES

AVAILABLE FOR

$100,000,000

he 17,132-acre Rancho Agua Grande, located 25 miles northwest of Uvalde, is one of largest live-water ranches for sale in Texas. Year-round Live Oak Creek, fed by more than 30 springs, bisects the ranch from north to south for about seven miles. The ranch is home to Boiling Mountain, the highest peak in Uvalde County, and Salmon Peak, the highest point in Kinney County. Because three ecoregions converge on the

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Central Texas v Uvalde & Kinney Counties v Uvalde ranch, the vegetation is diverse. Wildlife gathers to drink at Live Oak Creek making it easy to view some of the more than 40 species of exotics that roam the ranch. Native game includes whitetail, turkey, dove and limited quail. Rancho Agua Grande is considered one of the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s premier hunting destinations. More than 50 miles of high-fence encircle the perimeter. To see Rancho Agua Grande, contact Howard W. Hood at 830-739-3815. Available for $100 million. v

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SANDSTONE MOUNTAIN RANCH 2,728± ACRES

LLANO COUNTY

AVAILABLE FOR

$31,500,000

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he 2,728± acre game-fenced Sandstone Mountain Ranch near Llano is an elite Texas property dedicated to exceptional wildlife and fine living. A concerted fiveyear plan of restoration and improvement has lifted the property to the pinnacle. Benefiting from more than 30 years of management, Sandstone has yielded whitetail bucks from 150 inches to 210 inches. An array of exotics including scimitar-horned oryx, zebra, axis and fallow thrive alongside other native species such as dove, turkey and waterfowl. While the land makes a statement, the water makes the ranch, with more than six stocked lakes ranging from 5 to 30 acres. With over 80 acres of surface water, the ranch also fronts the Llano River for more than half a mile. The 4,000± square-foot hunter’s lodge wraps hunting clients in rugged luxury. The main residential compound has four structures—the old lodge (3,570± square feet), the main house (2,650± square feet), cabin (850± square feet), and man cave (1,600 square feet)—all built from native stone and log veneer. Each building is situated to provide a stunning view of the Sandstone Mountain with a 20-acre lake nestled at its base. All outbuildings have either been completely refurbished or built within the past five years including the big barn (90x100), which is the working heart, the big shop (60x150) with eight bay doors, three-bay mechanics shop (40x50) with walk-down oil change pit, and a climate-controlled RV/bus barn (20x65). Call Howard W. Hood at 830-739-3815. Available for $31.5 million. v

Texas Hill Country v Llano County v Llano

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RANCHO ESTRELLA 8,100± ACRES

JIM HOGG & STARR COUNTIES

AVAILABLE FOR

$30,000,000

he 8,100± acre Rancho Estrella, located 42 miles southwest of Hebbronville, provides incredible hunting and superlative privacy. Rancho Estrella, which has been managed for wildlife for almost 30 years, is divided into four pastures and completely highfenced. Wildlife includes whitetail deer, bobwhite and scaled quail, Rio Grande turkeys, javelina, dove and feral hogs as well as a full complement of desirable exotics. The well-managed brush country habitat, also suitable for cattle, is supplemented with protein feeders and food plots. Rancho Estrella has nine water wells, four stock tanks, and more than 30 wildlife waterers. The ranch has two separate living compounds each featuring a main lodge, apartments and casitas. The four-bedroom, four-bath owner’s home is located in Brush Pasture compound. The ranch has been a hunting destination and a corporate retreat and could easily be a commercial hunting operation. Contact Howard W. Hood at 830-739-3815 to schedule a showing. Available for $30 million. v

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South Texas v Jim Hogg & Starr Counties v Hebbronville

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LUCKY A RANCH 388Â±

ACRES

GRIMES COUNTY

AVAILABLE FOR

$7,500,000

Central Texas v Grimes County v Navasota

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ucky A Ranch, located six miles east of Navasota, is 388± acres of thoughtfully customized perfection about 72 miles from Houston. Four-bar pipe fences are prominent. The pastures are improved, with mixed Bahia grass, Coastal Bermuda and mature trees. About 30 percent of the ranch is wooded providing native wildlife habitat. Every pasture has either a lake, stock tank or water trough to provide for livestock and wildlife. The ranch has two spring-fed lakes each five acres or larger, stocked with Florida bass, crappie and blue gills. There are also three spring-fed stock tanks, several springs, and three wells. The turnkey ranch has been a purebred 200-head, cow-calf operation, but could be a horse farm or a country getaway with income generating potential. A fenced lane transects the property so livestock can be moved easily to the lighted and covered central working facility. Most ranch equipment will transfer with the sale. The 5,000± square-foot house exemplifies one-of-a-kind rustic elegance where even the windowsills are granite in the three-bedroom (plus a flex room and office), three-and-a-half-bathroom house. Abundant granite and hand-built, custom wood work featuring light-stained ash make a strong design statement. The wood and granite are offset by natural light, soaring ceilings, open design, neutral color palette, and handcrafted antler chandeliers. The all-electric kitchen, with its custom cabinetry and large walk-in pantry, features Wolf and Subzero appliances. Front and back porches, encompassing 1,625-squarefeet, overlook professionally landscaped grounds. A 24x40 covered patio is outfitted with a wood-burning fireplace, a six-foot Bull barbeque pit, granite bar and nine-foot granite-topped table as well a sink, ceiling fans and hand-crafted cedar ceiling. An attached, oversized threecar garage can accommodate three Ford F-350 pickups. There are seven metal outbuildings including: a hay barn (40x100-foot with a 30-foot lean-to), a combination equipment/hay barn (150x125 with a 20-foot unpaved lean-to provide covered storage for heavy equipment), feed room/storage building (25x80), RV storage building (45x50 with water, sewer and electrical hook-ups inside), air-conditioned workshop (22x30), an air-conditioned, insulated “flex” building (40x25 with a 14-foot rollup door and 36-inch walk-in door that can be used as climatecontrolled storage or a game room), and a “three-sided” storage building (45x50 attached to the back of the flex building.) All are constructed on concrete pads that are at least six inches and reinforced for heavy-duty use. All hay and ranch equipment can be stored beneath a roof. Contact Howard W. Hood at 830-739-3815. Available for $7.5 million. v

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JACALON RANCH 4,624± ACRES

WEBB & ZAPATA COUNTIES

AVAILABLE FOR

$1,450/ACRE

he 4,624± acre Jacalon Ranch, located near Hebbronville, is home to exceptional hunting with abundant whitetails (managed under a MLD Level III permit), quail (both bobs and blues), dove and waterfowl. Jacalon Ranch brings together the Coastal Plains’ red sand, brush motts and savannah grasslands and South Texas’ rolling hills and flatlands. Thanks to the Bordas Escarpment, the ranch also offers stunning views. Water is plentiful with seven stock tanks, several creeks and four wells. A windmill pulls from a well at 200 feet. Two newly drilled wells hit drinking-quality water at 400 feet, offer 4,500 gallons

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South Texas v Webb & Zapata Counties v Laredo

of storage and flow at 10–15± gallons per minute each. The fourth well extends 1,050 feet deep and flows at a rate of 40± gallons per minute to sustain wildlife and livestock. FM 649 provides road frontage access. The two-story Jacalon Ranch Lodge, beautifully appointed with Spanish and southwestern furniture and décor, boasts eleven suites, each with a private bath. Designed for a crowd, the lodge includes a modern kitchen, a large dining room and bar area, utility room, full bath in the common area, and modern telecommunications. Guests can enjoy a fire pit and outdoor seating area. An 8,000-gallon rain catchment helps meet water needs. The ranch has a private/restricted 3,900-foot turf runway (TE89). Jim Hogg County Airport is 20 minutes away and Laredo International Airport 40 minutes. To experience the Jacalon Ranch, contact Howard W. Hood at 830-739-3815. Available for $1,450/acre. v FarmAndRanch.com

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SUSSEX FARM 146±

ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Comfort

KERR

COUNTY AVAILABLE FOR

$3,800,000

ussex Farm provides a glimpse of the English countryside in the easily accessible heart of the Texas Hill Country. The 146±-acre farm, located in Kerr County just five minutes from downtown Comfort and 30 minutes from the amenities of La Cantera and The Rim in northwest San Antonio, got its name from the mix of fields, mature woods and live water that remind the current owners of their childhood home in Sussex County, England. The aquamarine waters of Cypress Creek, which eventually feed into the Guadalupe River, meander through the farm for about three-quarters of a mile. Towering cypress trees line the banks, crystalline water ripples over moss-covered rocks and pools beckon passersby to stop and splash. Live water is a magnet for wildlife. Sussex Farm is home to whitetail deer, Axis, blackbuck antelope and wild turkey. Located on the Central Flyway, Sussex Farm is also a popular rest stop for an astounding number of migratory birds during their annual spring and fall flights. The farm is low fenced with the exception of its northern boundary. The landscape features the changes in elevation—bluffs, meadows and creek bottoms—that make the Hill Country spectacular. Rising about 30 feet over Cypress Creek, flat-topped bluffs are home to 85± acres of productive Coastal hay meadows irrigated by a pivot system; the hay operation is the basis of the farm’s agriculture tax valuation. Sussex Farms has water rights out of Cypress Creek, which is outfitted with a submersible pump to feed the irrigation system.

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The infrastructure is in place to support another pivot system if desired. The farm also has two water wells, one to supply the house and one the corrals. Sussex Farm, once used as a purebred Longhorn farm, could easily accommodate cattle again or be converted to a superior equestrian estate. The farm infrastructure includes a set of metal working pens as well as a chute and scale. The original red wooden barn lends a touch of the past and a 60x40 metal barn that is enclosed on three sides provides plentiful storage. The paved road follows Cypress Creek from the entrance on Gaddis Bluff Road to the 3,000±-square-foot farmhouse. The three-bedroom, three-bath limestone and stucco house with porches is reminiscent of the area’s German farmhouses and is as perfectly suited to the landscape as the heritage live oak trees that shade it. Porches invite sitting with family and friends to enjoy the early morning and late afternoon breeze. The home’s interior is Hill Country comfortable with touches such as limestone walls, a limestone fireplace and mesquite floors in the main body of house that make it a Texas original. Huge windows throughout ensure the space is light-drenched and welcoming. The backyard and garden are enclosed by a six-foot fence to keep wildlife from partaking in a landscape buffet. Multiple gates provide easy access for necessary maintenance equipment. Sussex Farm is an opportunity to experience the beauty and natural magic that comes with live water, ancient trees and superlative country living with easy access to everywhere. To experience Sussex Farm for yourself, contact Howard W. Hood 830-739-3815. Listed for $3.8 million. v

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WOLF CREEK RANCH 65±

ACRES

GILLESPIE COUNTY

AVAILABLE FOR

$3,500,000

ronting State Hwy 16 between Kerrville and Fredericksburg, Wolf Creek Ranch offers a private, livewater oasis on 65± acres that includes rolling hills, bottom lands and dense patches of hardwoods. Blackbuck antelope, axis deer and whitetails call the high-fenced ranch home. Wolf Creek burbles through the ranch for about 750 feet providing access from both banks. Hardwoods shade the watercourse and custom concrete creekside patio. The pipe fence-lined drive delivers you to the comfortable luxury of a 7,500± square-foot Mediterranean-inspired villa with Spanish tile. The villa juxtaposes the solidity of finely crafted wood, stone and stucco against an open floor plan, soaring ceilings and large light-filled windows. The well-appointed home includes six bedrooms, five full baths, two half baths and seven fireplaces. The master suite, recently remodeled and upgraded, leaves no need unmet with two walk-in closets as well as an expansive master bath featuring a walk-in shower, a

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Texas Hill Country v Gillespie County v Fredericksburg

gorgeous bathtub and his-and-her vanities. The huge kitchen is designed for use and style. A balcony extending across the back of the villa overlooks the oasis featuring the swimming pool and hot tub. The nearby garage accommodates three cars and includes a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment. Wolf Creek Ranch offers all the amenities of Hill Country living on a perfect scale. To experience Wolf Creek Ranch for yourself, contact Howard W. Hood at 830-739-3815. Available for $3.5 million. v

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ROBIN’S ROCK RANCH 82.44± ACRES

KERR

COUNTY AVAILABLE FOR

$2,495,000

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Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Kerrville

estled in the beautiful heart of the Texas Hill Country, Robin’s Rock Ranch is located less than 10 minutes from Kerrville and an hour from San Antonio. The ranch is perched on one of the highest elevations in Kerr County creating magnificent views of the Hill Country terrain. While the majority of Robin’s Rock Ranch is manicured, it retains its wild spirit. Several natural springs with numerous dam-building sites meander through the canyon and provide water for the abundant whitetail deer, turkey and dove. The ranch’s perimeter is encircled by an 8-foot, game-proof fence. Family and guests will enjoy the ease and security of the electric gate and keypad that are the working core of the custom rock entrance, conveniently located 3.4 miles from I-10 and 4.5 miles from Kerrville’s city limits. The 4,150-square-foot custom-built rock home boasts four bedrooms and three-anda-half baths strategically arranged to enhance the open concept design. The soaring ceilings, whitewashed pine walls, neutral color palette and abundant light create an airy environment with solid focal points like the custom chandeliers, massive rock fireplace and natural architectural features of rock and wood interspersed throughout. The beautifully appointed home includes a dream kitchen with an island and granite countertops; plentiful, spacious closets; an expansive office with a hunting closet and built-in gun cabinet; and a four-car carport with drive through. The ultimate destination for outdoor entertaining is just steps away. The combination of a selfcleaning blue lagoon pool, Jacuzzi and 26x26 cabana with an outdoor kitchen, full bath, rock fireplace, huge barbecue pit, cozy fire pit, surround-sound stereo system and stunning vistas

guarantee that every gathering will be memorable. Other amenities include a 60x60 insulated, metal barn with water, electricity and a 21x17 apartment with granite countertops and built-ins that can house guests or an employee; a 20x60 extended carport for RV storage; and 20x33 concrete dog kennel as well as two fenced yards. An insulated well house protects a 500-foot Trinity water well with a 50-gallon/minute output. There is also a 3,000-gallon storage tank. To experience the manicured wildness and convenience that is Robinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rock Ranch, call Conner W. Hood at 830-928-2317 for a private showing. The owner is a licensed real estate broker. The ranch is available for $2.495 million. v

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DOUBLE J RANCH 754

ACRES

REAL

COUNTY AVAILABLE FOR

$5,950,000

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Texas Hill Country v Real County v Leakey

he 754-acre, high-fenced Double J Ranch in Real County is a Colorado-like property in the Texas Hill Country. Located on Hwy 337 between Leakey and Vanderpool, the ranch is about 10 minutes from Lost Maples State Park. Dramatic elevation changes, majestic views, crystalline springs and two lakes, one of which is newly constructed and 33-feet deep at the dam, define the landscape. Improvements are nestled in a deep canyon providing complete privacy. Call the three-bedroom, two-bath log cabin and a four-bedroom, two-bath guest lodge home. Entertain in the 19.2x19-foot outdoor kitchen and stunning 52.75x31.75-foot swimming pool, hot tub and fireplace. Wildlife ranging from whitetail deer and turkeys to aoudad and axis abound. The large barn is outfitted with a walk-in cooler. The ranch is ideally suited as a corporate retreat, family getaway or hunting destination. Contact Howard W. Hood at 830-739-3815 to see the Double J, priced at $5.95 million.

DOUBLE B RANCH AND RESORT 554±

ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Gillespie County v Fredericksburg

he 554±-acre Double B Ranch and Resort, located just 20 minutes from Fredericksburg and 15 minutes from Kerrville, is the best-priced live-water property available in Gillespie County. Three yearround, spring-fed, live-water creeks crisscross the ranch. Double B currently hosts special events and commercial hunts for native, exotic and super African exotics. The ranch includes a 12-stall horse barn. The 10,000-square-foot lodge sleeps up to 45 guests. Beaux Hickey’s, a 5,600-square-foot pavilion, accommodates up to 250 guests. The three-story main house offers 6,000± square-feet of living space. The Ranch House is a three-bedroom, twobath home. Three cabins provide additional accommodations. Contact Howard W. Hood at 830-739-3815 to see Double B Ranch and Resort, available for $5.95 million.

GILLESPIE COUNTY

AVAILABLE FOR

$5,950,000

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FLOWING RIVER RANCH 108±

ACRES

KERR

COUNTY PRICE REDUCTION

$3,750,000

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Hunt

he Flowing River Ranch, located about 10 minutes south of Hunt in Kerr County, offers the rare opportunity to purchase 108± acres of undeveloped land on the Guadalupe River’s south fork. The south fork, known for its high water quality and stunning scenery, courses through the ranch for about 1,200 feet, giving the owner private access. The property fronts Highway 39. The ranch, with gently rolling terrain shaded by mature post oaks and live oaks, offers a selection of potential building sites. The native vegetation and plentiful water attract wildlife. To experience Flowing River Ranch, contact Howard W. Hood at 830-739-3815. Available for $3.75 million.

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LAKE AMISTAD RANCH West Texas v Val Verde County v Del Rio

icturesque Lake Amistad Ranch, with four miles of lake frontage, is the ultimate recreational water property. Delight in hunting wild game or hiking in the hills of this scenic 872.6± acre property, located only 25 minutes north of Del Rio. Native game include whitetail deer, turkey, quail, dove, and javelina. A four-bedroom, three-bath stucco home with wood-burning fireplace provides true Texas comfort. Other amenities include a barn, one water well, one tank, and perimeter fencing. This property is versatile and well-suited for development, a corporate retreat, recreational camp or a private getaway. Contact Howard W. Hood at 830-739-3815. Available for $2.6 million.

872±

ACRES AVAILABLE FOR

$2,600,000

DOUBLE D RANCH Texas Hill Country v Gillespie County

15 miles from Kerrville & Fredericksburg

ouble D Ranch, located in Gillespie County 15 miles north of Kerrville and almost equidistant to Fredericksburg, sits at the intersection of privacy and convenience. The 85acre ranch is a blend of contoured pastures with mixed coastal and native grasses and live oak mottes interspersed with other native trees and brush. Blackbuck antelope, whitetail deer, turkey and a variety of smaller animals call it home. The three-bedroom main house, encompassing 2,500± square-feet, is built from native limestone and appointed for family and friends. The dining room seats 16. It has two full baths and a half bath. The living room features vaulted ceilings and a limestone fireplace. The porch is situated so days end with a striking view of legendary Hill Country sunsets. The 2,100± square-foot native limestone guesthouse features four bedrooms with adjoining baths. A shared living area featuring a wood stove inspires camaraderie. The guesthouse porch also provides sunset views and easy access to a landscaped outdoor gathering area. Double D, which is high-fenced on two sides, is outfitted with a barn, working pens and a shop to accommodate a small scale livestock operation. Thanks to three wells, one on a windmill and two with submergible pumps, water is plentiful, and up to 10,000 gallons can be stored. The ranch infrastructure includes a diesel generator large enough to power both houses as well as on-site fuel storage with 500-gallon tanks for diesel, gasoline and propane. Call Conner W. Hood at 830-928-2317 to see the Double D Ranch, available for $1.25 million.

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ACRES AVAILABLE FOR

$1,250,000

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PIÑON RANCH 10,318 + Acres Kinney & Edwards Counties, Brackettville, TX $15,900,000 Located on the southern edge of the Edwards Plateau just before the hills give way to the South Texas Plains, Piñon Ranch’s 10,318+/- acres are a fusion of the Hill Country and South Texas. Dramatic topography, unspoiled vistas, and diverse plant species – including a rare proliferation of extraordinary piñon pine trees – make this recreational paradise unique in its class of elite Texas ranches. Owned and operated for decades by the the same family, Piñon epitomizes the larger-than-life Texas ranch culture. The ranch features towering cliffs, hidden caves, countless miles of jeep trails, Native American artifacts, and clear night skies that stretch beyond the imagination. The year-round big game hunting opportunities will occupy your dreams by night, then challenge your wit and stamina by day. This describes the experience that awaits you at Piñon.

58 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

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Dallas

Hondo

Houston

San Antonio

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MYERS LAND & CATTLE 550 + Acres Brazos County, Navasota, TX $8,250,000 Myers Ranch is a true gentlemenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cattle ranch located just 12 miles south of College Station. The ranch is well set up to continue running as a high end cattle operation, or can be used as a fantastic recreational ranch or investment for future development. The property boasts a classic ranch home overlooking a 20 acre fishing lake, several more large lakes, over 2 miles of Navasota River frontage and almost a mile of frontage on Hwy. 6 between Navasota and College Station.

60 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

EL SUENO DEL CORAZON-HUNT RANCH 6,151 + Acres Rio Arriba County, Abiquiu, NM $5,949,250 Republic Ranches is honored to offer this iconic ranch, rich in history and incredible beauty, located just 45 minutes north of Santa Fe. El Sueno Del Corazon – Dream of the Heart – is a tranquil piece of paradise that begins in the lush Chama river bottom and climbs into the rugged, majestic crimson mountain range leading to the Santa Fe National Forest. This sprawling 6,151 acre ranch dates back to the early 1700’s when Spanish colonists first settled in the Chama Valley. Republic Ranches, LLC 210-416-2737

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Houston

San Antonio

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CIRCLE E RANCH 2,096 + Acres Grimes County, Bedias, TX $16,000,000 The Historic Circle E Ranch is a high fenced hunting ranch located in one of the most sought after areas near Houston and College Station. The ranch is one of the more unique properties in the area, and is a perfect combination for the outdoorsman, conservationist and cowman alike. The ranch consists of 2,096 manicured acres with a water feature around every corner. There are fertile coastal fields mixed in with thick brush ideal cover for whitetails and exotics.

62 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

SHOOP RANCH 1,807 + Acres Wise & Denton Counties, New Fairfield, TX $16,700,000 The Shoop Ranch is a remarkable property with live water and a lot of character just north of Fort Worth. It is a large predevelopment opportunity with a prime location in the heart of one of the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fastest growing economies over the next five years. The Shoop Ranch is north of the Alliance Airport and between Decatur and Denton. Whether it is an immediate development play or a strategic hold for the near future is up to the land investor.

Austin

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Corpus Christi

Dallas

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Houston

San Antonio

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JAG FARM & RANCH 1,323 + Acres Calhoun & Victoria Counties, Port Lavaca, TX $4,392,360 The excellent waterfowl hunting, saltwater fishing, hogs, deer, and dove, combined with rich blackland rowcrop ground and good pastures make the JAG Farm & Ranch an opportunity to own a fantastic combination recreational property/working farm and ranch with unique diversity and income potential.

RIVER HOUSE AT DANNI RANCH

PRICE REDUCED!

35 + Acres Gunnison County, Crested Butte, CO $3,595,500 The River House on Danni Ranch is a hidden treasure possessing all the beauty and majesty that Colorado has to offer; a recreational wonderland throughout all seasons of the year. In the summer, step outside the door of the magnificent log home to relish in world-class fishing on the East River or saddle your horse to ride out your gate through millions of acres of the surrounding Gunnison National Forest. Colisted with Bluebird Real Estate.

SEVEN LAKES RANCH 570 + Acres Orange County, Mauriceville, TX $2,495,000 The ranch is located less than 2 hours from Houston and less than 35 minutes from Beaumont. Seven Lakes Ranch is named for the seven lakes that have been built in the central portion of the ranch. These lakes were originally used as catfish ponds and are now stocked with bass, brim and catfish. The 518 acre ranch is well suited for cattle and wildlife.

GRAVELLY CREEK RANCH

PRICE REDUCED!

1,000 + Acres Bastrop County, Smithville, TX $5,750,000 This ranch in the Lost Pines offers great topography, spring-fed water holes, wildlife, and the mix of loblolly pines and hardwoods unique to this small area of Central Texas. Convenient to Houston and Austin, this ranch makes for an excellent and relaxing getaway, with existing income potential.

HICKORY CREEK FARM

PRICE REDUCED!

1,401 + Acres Hancock County, Caesar, MS $4,903,500 Beautiful classic gentlemen’s southern ranch located less than an hour north of New Orleans. The ranch is a terrific mix of towering pines and hardwoods, creek bottoms, agricultural lands and open grasslands. Traditionally operated as a quail hunting ranch, the ranch also boasts great whitetail deer, turkey, dove, waterfowl and bass fishing.

VALDINA RANCH NORTH 2,543 + Acres Medina County, D’Hanis, TX $5,531,025 The Valdina Ranch is the house pasture of the historic Valdina Farms, located in the sought after transition country, where the hill country meets south Texas.Valdina Farms was an 18,000-acre ranch established in the early 1900’s by Mr. E.F. Woodward.

Austin

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Dallas

Hondo

Houston

San Antonio

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BLUE RANCH 1,150+ Acres Lee County, Blue, TX $6,900,000 Blue Ranch is a breathtaking property ideal for a family hunting / grazing ranch and/or investment as a potential future development 45 minutes from Austin. This amazing 1,150 acre ranch consists of rolling coastal fields, fertile alluvial bottoms with exceptional hardwood forests along with superior elevation perfect for viewing central Texas sunsets.

CIRCLE S HUNTING RANCH 520 + Acres Anderson County, Palestine, TX $3,475,000 This stunning hilltop ranch is one of a kind. It is high-fenced, infused with superior whitetails, and wooded with a mix of hardwoods and pine plantations.The manicured ranch boasts two complementary ranch style homes with far-reaching views sitting on top of the 650â&#x20AC;&#x2122; high peak, and it is located just southeast of Palestine.

PRICE REDUCED!

MAIL TRAIL CREEK RANCH 1,073 + Acres Edwards County, Rocksprings, TX $1,850,925 MOTIVATED SELLER! Mail Trail Creek Ranch is an ideal hunting property located in western Edwards county. With stunning views, large oak trees, and high density game, this property is sure to grab the outdoor enthusiasts attention. The ranch is rich with history, once being part of a of a an outfit encompassing some 80,000 acres.

HICKORY HILL RANCH 113 + Acres Tyler County, Woodville, TX $1,400,000 Hickory Hill Ranch is a stunning, turnkey ranch located just east of Woodville with three homes and multiple barns. This ranch offers one of a kind seclusion, but still close to city for amenities. With the 17 +/- acre lake it is a perfect setup for corporate retreats, family gatherings, or recreation.

CHOCTAW PRESERVE RANCH 730+ Acres Grayson & Fannin Counties, Denison, TX $4,300,000 Choctaw Preserve is a 730 acre turn-key multi-use ranch located just one hour north of Dallas. This high-fenced ranch offers extensive first class lodging accommodations, horse barns, a large covered arena, over 40 acres of surface water, excellent pasture and convenient access to the Red River.

COYOTE 3 RANCH 653 + Acres Bee County, Skidmore, TX $2,285,500 The Coyote 3 Ranch is approximately 653 acres of incredible native habitat that includes a mixture of good brush, a couple of open areas, and huge oak trees. Seasonal wet weather Olmos Creek bisects the ranch from west to east. The creek carries a lot of water and is lined with huge over-hanging oak trees, which is a very unusual feature to have in South Texas.

Austin

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Dallas

Hondo

Houston

San Antonio

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TEXAS BEST! GAME-FENCED READY-TO-GO OUTDOORSMAN’S DREAM PLACE! 7,336± ACRES - $600,000 PRICE DROP! TIME TO BUY!

West Texas v Val Verde & Terrell Counties v Pumpville

ocated near Pumpville, Texas, this hilltop compound has nine bedrooms, six full bathrooms, a main gathering area, fireplace, wet bar, fire pit, miscellaneous barns, workshop, game cleaning area, covered shooting area, foreman’s house, grain bins, and 3,000 acres. The high-fenced big whitetail area includes exotics. Another 4,000 acres is low fenced, with four water wells piping water all over ranch. The ranch has MLD Level 3 hunting permits for October 1 through February 28. Whitetail breeder deer in pens, also two new 50-acre mule deer pens, blinds, feeders, tons of ranch equipment, no oil field noise, traffic, or producing wells making this an opportunity for twice the land and half the price compared to most South Texas places! Way too much info to list; look at texasbestranches.com for details of this raw opportunity! Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013. v

Jeff@TexasBestRanches.com 68 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

TEXAS

SELECT

Jeff Soele â&#x20AC;¢ 210-705-4013 FarmAndRanch.com

TEXAS BEST! LIVE-WATER, HILLTOP - GAME CHANGER! 503Âą ACRES - WOW! $500,000 PRICE REDUCTION!

Central Texas v Guadalupe county v Sequin

ocated minutes to Sequin, Texas, and only 30 minutes to San Antonio! Fabulous two-story, hilltop rock mansion with cooper roof. Approximately 8,000+ square-feet (excluding all porches) include five luxurious bedrooms, five full baths, two half baths, gourmet kitchen, office, elevator, massive high ceiling in the living fireplace area, game room, and exercise room. The master, with fireplace, tub, walk-thru shower, and sauna, is a must-see. Also featured is a four-car garage with workshop, two bedrooms and a bathroom, a guest house, managerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house, pool/entertaining area, three water wells, community water, equipment barn, hay barn, RV barn, cattle pens, both sides running mill creek, four stock tanks, one fishing lake, paved electric and gate access. Great deer, turkey, wild hogs, and duck hunting plus fishing. Improved grasses great for horses, cattle, or hay production! Way too many amenities to list! Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013.

Jeff@TexasBestRanches.com 70 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

TEXAS BEST! HOUSTON AREA, GAME-FENCED, TURNKEY, READY-TO-GO OUTDOORSMAN’S PARADISE! 894± ACRES - RARE! $1,000,000 PRICE REDUCTION!

Southeast Texas v Walker County v Huntsville

hese 894± acres in Walker County are minutes to Huntsville and only 45 minutes to Houston. Hunting, fishing, cattle, exotics, boating, horses or waterfowl—this fabulous place can do it all! The lakeside lodge is resort-style and quality minded with 7,500± square-feet, six bedrooms, six baths, patio is climate controlled with outdoor cook area and motorized shades. The land has lush wooded areas with many open areas and food plots. Exotics such as red deer, buffalo, water buffalo, water buck, zebra, impala, gemsbok, lechwe, axis, sitka, fallow, blackbuck, transcaspian urail, mouflon, Catalina goat, aoudad, scimitar oryx, and giant scientific whitetail out in the pasture! There is a large covered barn with workshop, carport, equipment area with six horse stalls, walk-in cooler, office, tack room and bathroom. What makes this place so special is the water! Three stocked lakes all ready to go for the outdoorsman, family or company/corporate group! There are also two water wells that supply the whole ranch. You will look a long time to find a better ranch! Location, paved access, great lodge, fabulous exotics and year-round entertainment for the whole family or business. Tons of depreciable assets and write-offs! Equipment list can be provided upon request. Remember…turnkey and ready to go! Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013.

Jeff Soele • 210-705-4013 FarmAndRanch.com

LAKE AMISTAD DEVIL’S RIVER

6,600± ACRES

West Texas v Val Verde County v Del Rio

inutes to Del Rio, paved access electric gate entry, end of road, hilltop two-bedroom, two-bath ranch house, three-bedroom, one-bath rock guest house, nice barn, three water wells, great road system, water on three sides, approximately 20± miles of Devils River and Lake Amistad boundary. No conservation easements. Wow and awesome and truly one-of-a-kind opportunity! Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013.

Jeff@TexasBestRanches.com 72 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

RARE FIND, BEST LIVE-WATER AND CYPRESS TREES!

317± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Bandera County v Medina

± acre lake, two spring-fed creeks, approximately 7,000± square-foot one-story rock home, guest house, greenhouse, barns, lots of wildlife and much more! Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013.

Jeff Soele • 210-705-4013 FarmAndRanch.com

TEXAS BEST! LIVE WATER- MEDINA RIVER! - 339± ACRES Texas Hill Country v Bandera County v Bandera inutes to Bandera and only 45 minutes to San Antonio! Tons of river, great usable land, end-of-road privacy, rock ranch home, pool, tennis court, several cabins, barns, won’t last! Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013.

TEXAS BEST! GAME-FENCED TURNKEY READY TO GO OUTDOORSMAN’S PARADISE! $500,000 PRICE REDUCTION-WOW!

Central Texas v Taylor County v Winters

94± acres, hilltop seven-bedroom, twobath lodge, three-bedroom, two-bath manager’s house, equipment barn, horse barn, dog kennels, storm shelter, game cleaning area. Two nice fishing lakes, several small dove hunting tanks, community water, nice balance of food plots to wooded area, electric gate entry, MLD-level 3, hunting from October 1 through February 28, 30 minutes to Abilene, Texas, airport commercial flights! Great bird hunting, big deer, blackbuck antelope, Russian boar, and fabulous fishing! Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013.

Jeff@TexasBestRanches.com 74 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

TEXAS BEST! LIVE-WATER HILL COUNTRY ESTATE

NEAR NEW BRAUNFELS AND MINUTES TO SAN ANTONIO OR CANYON LAKE! 81 ACRES Texas Hill Country v Comal County v New Braunfels

omal County 81± acres, majestic creek-side Hill Country Tuscany four-bedroom, five-bath home that is a must-see. It features a bright and open gourmet kitchen, three-car garage, one-bedroom, one-bath guest suite, custom workshop with seven overhead doors, nice RV/equipment barn, and manicured country club-style landscaping and grounds. Then add both sides of a crystal clear, rock bottom dammed-up creek with majestic limestone bluffs and rock formations! It offers great porches with infinity edge pool, spa and outdoor cooking cabana—truly Texas Best for the quality minded to enjoy the best! Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013.

SOUTH TEXAS BEST-LIVE WATER-NUECES RIVER! 293± ACRES

South Texas v Zavala County v Crystal City

his property is located near Crystal City with approximately one mile of sought after Nueces River. It has a nice fishing lake, two ranch houses, well, electricity, paved access, and giant trees. This is fabulous wildlife habitat for deer, turkey, hogs, plus great fishing! Rare and unique; priced to sell! Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013.

Jeff Soele • 210-705-4013 FarmAndRanch.com

TEXAS BEST! FREDERICKSBURG AREA - LIVE WATER RARE FIND! 734± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Gillespie County v Fredericksburg

ocated just minutes to sought after historic Fredericksburg! WOW! WATER! Gorgeous large creek and spring-fed crystal clear stocked lake, both sides of many running springs and creeks, paved access, end of paved road electric gate entry, game-fenced, windmill, underground electric, big whitetail, great fishing, awesome rock formations, big hilltops, nice valleys and great ranch roads! Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013.

TEXAS BEST! CAMP VERDE AREA - LIVE WATER! 808± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Kerrville

inutes to Kerrville, Camp Verde, Bandera, and only one hour to San Antonio! The property is game fenced, electric, paved access, and has an awesome spring-fed fishing lake. Both sides of crystal clear creek, two other dammed and gunited spring-fed smaller lakes. Chip and seal ranch roads, water well, Ranch King hunting blinds, outback feeders, and several species of exotic animals! Big neighbors! Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013.

Jeff@TexasBestRanches.com 76 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

TEXAS BEST! BIG FISHING LAKE ARROWHEAD HEAVEN! - 260± ACRES Central Texas v Guadalupe County v Seguin

inutes to Sequin and only 45 minutes to San Antonio or Austin! Historic Capote Springs is here with tons of history, paved electric access, giant oak and pecan trees. Included are one 327± ACRES big lake, a smaller lake, several springs, cozy ranch house, nice barns, out buildings, two sets cattle pens, pipe horse paddocks, Texas Hill Country v Bandera County v Pipe Creek inutes to San Antonio, paved access, great trees, big and many Indian mound areas. There are tons of deer, turkey, wild hilltops, and fabulous crystal clear rock bottom Medina River! hogs, and great Carrizo sub-surface water. Great for cattle, horses, hay production, hunting and fishing! Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013. Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013.

TEXAS BEST! MEDINA RIVER RARE OPPORTUNITY

TEXAS BEST! LIVE-WATER PARADISE! PRICE DROP - MAKE OFFER! - 214± ACRES Texas Hill Country v Bandera & Uvalde Counties v Bandera oth sides of two crystal-clear, rock bottom creeks, six dams, three-bedroom, two-bath ranch home, two cabins, and much more! This one won’t last! Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013.

TUSCANY MASTERPIECE ON BLANCO RIVER 10± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Hays County v Wimberley inutes to Wimberley. Approximately 11,000± square-foot air conditioned, approximately 22,000± square-foot under roof and porches, four-bedrooms, five and one-half baths, two gourmet kitchens, six ﬁreplaces, two pools and more! Call Jeff Soele, 210-705-4013.

Jeff Soele • 210-705-4013 FarmAndRanch.com

FEATURED BROKER

Sheldon Grothaus By Melissa Hemken

We all dream. For many, dreams are of a specific type of house or certain stretch of land. The Texas Hill Country is the landscape of Sheldon Grothaus’ dream. His white-tail deer and beef cattle ranch that sits south of Hondo, Texas is also base for his realty businesses, Texas Ranch Sales and Texas Ranch Developers. As a ranch broker, Sheldon visits ranches across the state, but he has yet to find one that suits him better than his current ranch. “Every time you see a ranch that’s really special,” Sheldon says, “you get different ideas. But I’ve seen so many great places; I don’t know that there is a perfect place. “Because there is so much variety, it’s hard to put a little bit of everything into a single place. I’ve seen a lot of really nice ranches that are the dream of their owner.” Sheldon has specialized in farm and ranch sales for 21 years, and knows how to find ranches that match his clients’ dreams. His Texas Ranch Sales brokerage operates statewide to successfully match sellers and buyers. Sheldon’s land asset improvement company, Texas Ranch Developers, is an extension of his expertise in wildlife management, ranch lands, and property investment. 78 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

“We don’t just buy and sell ranches,” Sheldon explains of Texas Ranch Developers, “we rehabilitate neglected ranches or polish ranches that need some work to achieve their potential.” To do this, Sheldon and his team improve grass forages, upgrade buildings and fences, augment water features, and/or improve whitetail deer genetics. These enhancements are good investments and do increase a buyer’s interest in the property. But the next generation is the main reason behind Sheldon’s effort. “For me, Texas is all about the rich, cultural heritage handed down ever since my grandparents came to this state to capitalize on its promise of a better life for their family,” Sheldon says. “That promise still exists today. The legacy can be claimed and built on a foundation of hard work and determination. It is our landscape. “Every individual who buys or sells a ranch with us, deserves—and gets— our complete attention. When a person or family writes their land history, it is important and highly personal.”

Favorite Place:

Favorite Colleague:

“My favorite place to be is, of course, “My wife, who is a partner at Texas the Texas Hill Country, because of its Ranch Sales.” topography, wildlife, water resources, and friendly people. My favorite Scariest realty showing: restaurant is my wife’s kitchen.” “I was showing a ranch in a helicopter and the guy I was showing the ranch to was the helicopter pilot. We were flying over a lake and almost crashed in the lake. Luckily, the co-pilot was the potential buyer’s instructor and he got us out of the bind. That was a tough morning, but it worked out. The guy ended up buying the ranch.”

Most Unlikely Client:

“One of my clients that I never would have thought would want to buy a ranch is Tim Duncan. When Tim Duncan retired from playing basketball with the San Antonio Spurs, he contacted me to buy a ranch. I was able to find him one, and we became good friends.”

TEXAS RANCH SALES, L.L.C. FarmAndRanch.com

Blue Mountain Ranch

Uvalde, Texas

2,280Â± Acres

Uvalde

county

Located between Uvalde and Knippa, Texas this awesome high-fenced 2,280Âą acre ranch offers incredible commercial hunting opportunities. A 5,000Âą square foot main lodge provides plenty of accommodations for guests, along with entertaining and relaxation areas. Genetically improved Whitetail, along with numerous native and exotic species are in abundance on the Blue Mountain Ranch. This incredible turn-key property has so many possibilities to offer.

INFO@TEXASRANCHSALESLLC.COM

830.741.8906

TEXASRANCHSALESLLC.COM

Bear Creek Ranch

Kerrville, Texas

330Â±

Acres

Kerr

county

Luxurious, private, and secluded while providing a paradise to the outdoorsman and access to local amenities, the 330Âą acre Bear Creek Ranch is an exceptionally rare Hill Country find. In the highly sought-after area on the banks of the crystal-clear Guadalupe River between Kerrville and Ingram, Texas, the live water ranch contains a little of everything the Hill Country has to offer. High elevations provide picturesque views overlooking the gorgeous river. Native wildlife species are abundant in this area of the Hill Country, and the property currently has a wildlife exemption. Electricity and one water well are already on the property, and opportunities to improve are limitless.

INFO@TEXASRANCHSALESLLC.COM

830.741.8906

TEXASRANCHSALESLLC.COM

Branch Ranch

Located approximately 30 minutes west of Kerrville, Texas sits this 2,408Âą acre game-fenced recreational, hunting, and cattle ranch. This beautiful property has been highly improved with a recently remodeled 6BR/5.5BA 2-story main home, a guest home, three hunter/guest cabins, caretakers home, and more. Gentle rolling hills covered in native grasses make up the north half of the ranch and lead to steep canyons on the southern edge, which provide spectacular views overlooking the rugged terrain of the Sabinal and Frio River Canyons.

Kerrville, Texas

2,408Âą Acres

Kerr

county

INFO@TEXASRANCHSALESLLC.COM

830.741.8906

Incredible ranch located just 5 miles north of D’Hanis, Texas in Medina County. The Cedar Creek Ranch boasts a beautiful rolling terrain and million dollar views from the higher elevations. Giant Live Oaks and mature Cedars freckle the entire landscape. With a hunting lodge, guest suite, barns, walk in cooler, and shooting range, this is the perfect ranch for family hunting or to lease out. The majority of the furniture and equipment on this ranch will convey with the sale. This incredible ranch offers an awesome opportunity to own a beautiful, ready-to-go hunting and recreational ranch.

Cedar Creek Ranch

d’Hanis, Texas

1,382± Acres

Medina

county

TEXASRANCHSALESLLC.COM

Divided Find Ranch

Outside of San Angelo, Texas, in Tom Green County the Divided Find Ranch is an exceptional West Texas hunting and recreational retreat. The property features a three-bedroom and two-bathroom main home, a guest house, main lodge, foreman’s house, guest cabins, metal barn, pavilion, sports bar and commercial kitchen. This property will provide you and your guests with a warm and relaxing environment within the combination of elegant ranch decor and rich Texas flair. Additionally, there is full-service deer breeding facility and deer pens. The northern 14± acres gives access to the Middle Concho River. Native and exotic wildlife is in abundance on the ranch. San Angelo Claybird Association adjoins the property, providing sporting opportunities on the 200± acre facility.

san angelo, Texas

1,650± Acres

Tom Green county

INFO@TEXASRANCHSALESLLC.COM

830.741.8906

Located outside of Crystal City, Texas in Zavala County, this beautiful turn-key ranch offers superior hunting and character galore, with its gently rolling terrain, plentiful wet-weather creeks, arrowhead hunting opportunities, and gorgeous views! An approximate 2,300 square-foot open concept two-story home sits at a high elevation offering incredible views overlooking the ranch. Superior genetic Whitetail have been released on the property, and the ranch is currently operated under a Level 3 MLD permit. Numerous blinds and feeders are strategically placed across the property. The La Brasada Ranch has many memories to offer to any outdoor and hunting enthusiasts and explorers.

La Brasada Ranch

CrysTal CiTy, Texas

2,405Âą Acres

Zavala

county

TEXASRANCHSALESLLC.COM

his highly picturesque property lies between Tarpley and Hondo making it 2,000Âą ACRES a very easy commute to San Texas Hill Country v Medina County v Tarpley Antonio. Scenic vistas are accessed high on mountain tops via concrete roads offering breathtaking views of the surrounding landscape. Ranch Improvements include a large centrally located lodge, three guest houses, multiple garages, and carport areas to store ranch toys. There are also several barns located on this beautiful ranch. The main lodge was truly designed for entertaining large groups, both inside and out. One could entertain guests around the beautiful swimming pool or on the shotgun shooting range. The ranch has excellent water features consisting of 10-plus native springs, two spring-fed creeks and 14 earthen tanks. Ground water is supplied by eight water wells and over 10 miles of three-inch water lines. In addition to all of this, the ranch offers a small runway which could be improved. The ranch is game fenced and includes a breeding facility. Wildlife is abundant on the property including many super exotics including elk, eland, kuland, oryx, axis and black buck. Turkey roam the property and wing shooting can be good seasonally. This is a one-of-a-kind property and turnkey operation that is ready for a new buyer.

PROVIDENCE SPRINGS RANCH

EAGLE RIDGE RANCH 902 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Camp Verde

ive water abounds on the 902-acre high-fenced Eagle Ridge Ranch located in Camp Verde, Texas. One mile of spring-fed Falls Creek meanders through the property shaping the landscape for centuries and providing endless opportunities. Numerous springs originate on the ranch providing water source for several stocked ponds and lakes. Five concrete dams are constructed across Falls Creek and two earthen dams create a three- and eight-acre spring-fed lake respectively which provide spectacular water features enjoyed by both wildlife and recreationalists alike. With 200-feet elevation changes, this ranch offers all the natural vegetation and topographical beauty the Hill Country has to offer. Paved ranch roads provide all weather access. Improvements include a four-bedroom, four-bath home, guest house, phenomenal party house, garage, swimming pool, and tennis/basketball court. A second guest house is perched in the hills providing great views of the lakes below and a true feel of seclusion. Other improvements include three barns, game cleaning area with walk-in cooler, two boat houses, and four water wells. Wildlife species include whitetail, axis deer, black buck antelope, Sika deer, Fallow deer, quail, turkey, dove, geese, and ducks.

88 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

ock Head Ranch, located just 20 miles southwest of Mason, Texas, offers all the attributes appreciated by ranchers and wildlife enthusiasts alike. This 4,040-acre high-fenced ranch is comprised of fertile fields, gently rolling topography, and breathtaking views atop 300-foot plateaus. Edwards Draw meanders through the property in a northerly direction shaping the landscape for centuries while providing numerous springs and watering holes for wildlife use and aquatic recreation. The ranch is cross fenced into seven pastures, including a 350-acre high-fenced exotic pasture. Intensively managed for whitetail deer over the past 18 years, wildlife abounds on the Rock Head Ranch. Other game 4,040 ACRES species include axis deer, fallow deer, Texas Hill Country v Mason & Kimble Counties v Mason aoudad, black buck antelope, feral hogs, doves, turkey, and bobwhite quail. Water is available throughout the ranch via seven earthen stock tanks, numerous springs, and six water wells. Improvements include a six-bedroom, four-and-one-half-bath, 4,309-square-foot lodge. The lodge offers spacious room for entertaining guests and family while provide expansive views overlooking fertile valleys and majestic hilltops. Other improvements include a 1,120-square-foot threebedroom guest cabin, smoke house, deer cleaning shed with walk-in cooler, five barns, bunkhouse, horse barn with feed and tack room, pipe cattle pens, roping arena, and gun range with covered shooting shed. The property offers 32 deer blinds, 14 protein feeders, and 32 corn feeders.

ROCK HEAD RANCH

OPUS RANCH 734 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Bandera County v Medina ocated between Kerrville and Medina, this Hill Country gem has it all! Opus Ranch is nestled in majestic hills with 30-mile views. In addition to the scenic hills, the property offers several deep valleys with live running water.

Trip duPerier, Broker 830-755-5205 â&#x20AC;˘ TexasLandMan.com FarmAndRanch.com

BROKEN O

925 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kendall County v Boerne

his is an opportunity to own a piece of the Historic 711 Ranch located on Ranger Creek Road in Kendall County. Minutes from downtown Boerne, these 925± acres were the guts of the original 12,000-acre 711 Ranch. The 925 acres offer breathtaking views and worldclass water improvements. Three large lakes and several miles of live running water set the property apart from others on the market. The ranch offers numerous building sites with 20mile views across the Texas Hill Country landscape. Native wildlife along with a large herd of elk roam the panoramic landscapes high ridges and fertile valleys. Many springs and a large waterfall are centrally located on the property. There is not a stronger water property on the market this close to San Antonio.

his picturesque retreat in the northwest portion of the Texas Hill Country really does have it all. The 921±-acre Peg Leg Ranch on the banks of the San Saba River in Menard County, Texas, offers unbeatable hunting, beautiful river frontage, outdoor and water recreation galore, rich, irrigated pastures, and luxury lodging, all on this historically important parcel of land that is ready to enjoy on day one. The ranch is accessed off Texas Hwy 29 between the Menard and Mason. The elaborate stone and iron entrance from the highway opens to a paved, tree-lined road that meanders to the main lodge. Topography of the ranch ranges from hilltops with live oaks and dense brush down to the river with its pecan bottoms and pastures.

PEG LEG RANCH 921 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Menard County v Menard

HEADWATERS RANCH 730± ACRES

Texas Hill Country Gillespie County v Kerrville xtraordinary land, great location, amazing water, minimal structural improvements, abundant potential. Spring Branch Creek traverses the ranch with one spring-fed lake and numerous sites for additional water features. Ranch access by county road frontage and paved private road. High fenced with native wildlife. Just minutes from Kerrville and Fredericksburg. Build your corporate lodge, year-round estate, or weekend cabin with creek front and Hill Country views. Development potential.

90 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

TURKEY KNOB RANCH

645 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kendall County v Boerne

ocated just minutes from quaint Boerne, Texas, this 645-acre paradise lies in one of the most desired areas in the Texas Hill Country. This property offers an excellent road system which navigates through majestic hills and valleys. The ranch offers many unique building sites with 20 mile views across the Hill Country landscape. The ranch has three lakes and the headwaters of a major creek system. Three valleys located on the property have the potential for additional water features. This property is largely unimproved with the potential for being developed into a true Texas showplace. Located near city conveniences but very private and secluded, this is an outstanding opportunity to own a piece of the Hill Country’s best!

MOORE RANCH 502 ACRES

South Texas v Frio County v Moore his is truly a one-of-a kind property that has unlimited possibilities. Moore Water Plant releases between 10,000 and 70,000 gallons of clean water per day that traverses through the ranch creating unparalleled water potential. This water is a key component in the wildlife habitat and brush diversity. This ranch hosts an abundance of wildlife and has numerous ranching and recreational possibilities. The layout and location of this property make it an excellent choice for a weekend get-a-way or home site for any potential buyer.

BUCKNER CREEK RANCH 467± ACRES

Central Texas v Fayette County v Muldoon

uckner Creek Ranch is a one-of-a-kind ranch with stunning Fayette County hardwoods and terrain. The ranch is very well watered with over 3,600 feet of Buckner Creek and several clear water ponds stocked with bass. Buckner Creek Ranch is highly improved with a brand new ranch-style home and many other new improvements maintained in excellent condition. Buckner Creek Ranch is offered as a turnkey ranch; all the hard work has been done and awaits the new owner to enjoy. Call for price.

Trip duPerier, Broker 830-755-5205 • TexasLandMan.com FarmAndRanch.com

PRISON CANYON RANCH 450 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr Co. v Camp Verde he 450-acre Prison Canyon Ranch is located in the heart of Camp Verde, Texas. Water abounds on this spectacular Hill Country ranch. Cypress-lined Verde Creek flows through the north side of the ranch for three-quarters a mile and a 24-acre springfed lake with boat house offers year-round recreation. Improvements include a fourbedroom, four-bath home, a second home that is three-bedroom, three-bath, a two-story trophy building and two equipment barns. The ranch is high fenced on 3 sides and includes a pecan orchard and coastal Bermuda pasture.

ild is the only word that truly captures the essence of the 434.21-acre Lost River Ranch. Dropping into the property, one feels like they are going back in time to an undiscovered world full of bizarre plants and trees, delightful birds, and mysterious animals. 446 ACRES Water pervades in the form of ponds, South Texas v Victoria County v Victoria lakes, sloughs, and of course, the forestshrouded Guadalupe River that cradles the land in its undulating coils for almost two extraordinary miles. The Lost River Ranch is waiting to be explored, fished, hunted, and enjoyed. It is located just 15 minutes south of Victoria with a water well, electricity and concrete RV 434Âą ACRES pad in place. The ranch is shown by South Texas v Victoria County appointment only. Seller may divide.

LOST RIVER RANCH

SAN ANTONIO RIVER RANCH 310 ACRES

Central Texas v Karnes Co. v Falls City his 310-acre high-fenced ranch, located just four miles east of Falls City, offers spectacular views, deep soils, diverse habitat, majestic trees, and bountiful water. Gently rolling topography provides a unique canvas as the terrain funnels itself into nearly half a mile of San Antonio River. An abundance of hardwood tree species and underbrush dominate this fertile river bottom providing a diverse habitat for wildlife. Improvements include a newly remodeled four-bedroom home, three water wells, four large ponds with piers, barns and soft release pen.

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TARPLEY 277 ACRES

Texas Hill Country Bandera County v Tarpley ocated just 45 minutes from San Antonio, these 277 acres sit between Bandera and Tarpley. The 277 acres consists of majestic hills and tranquil valleys. With highway frontage, the ranch is high fenced on three sides. A good road system allows access around the property and easy access to a centrally located pond, barn and water well. Electricity is available on the property and there are numerous excellent building sites. Additional acreage is available.

D’HANIS RANCH 1,013 ACRES

Central Texas v Medina County v D’Hanis true sportsman’s paradise, this 1,013-acre ranch, located just 10 miles southwest of D’Hanis, Texas, offers all the attributes to create your dream ranch. Located in the transition zone where the Hill Country and South Texas meet, the property offers all the best aspects of both regions. The gently rolling terrain is scattered with large oaks, mesquite and an array of highly nutritious brush species. Four earthen stock tanks were strategically constructed on the ranch to insure effortless accessibility by domestic livestock and wildlife while providing excellent aquatic recreation for the outdoor enthusiast.

HORSESHOE BAY 72 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Llano County v Horseshoe Bay

his is an amazing opportunity to acquire your own special piece of wild Texas only minutes from the world-class golf resorts at Horseshoe Bay, as well as all of the recreational opportunities offered on constant-level Lake LBJ. Ranches of this caliber in such a high-profile location are few and far between, and they will not be available for long!

Trip duPerier, Broker 830-755-5205 • TexasLandMan.com FarmAndRanch.com

DOS ANGELES RANCH 11,889 ACRES

Central Texas Kinney County v Bracketville he life blood of the ranch is provided by three miles of beautiful Pinto Creek which meanders through the property and has three concrete dams strategically placed along the creek. Improvements include a spectacular, 6,500-square-foot stucco lodge overlooking the creek and a swimming pool including plenty of room for outdoor entertainment. This 11,889-acre ranch has been high fenced since 1984.

est Bear Creek meanders through the ranch for approximately 15,000 feet, carving through the limestone hills, creating amazing vantage points, providing seasonal water, and depositing deep pools of water along the northeast corner of the ranch. The riparian area of this creek, which is a tributary to the North Llano River, is undisturbed and natural, creating an ecosystem rich in various species of flora and fauna that inhabit this land. Interesting rock formations, caves, and cliffs are found along the creek, and in other areas, the bed widens out, providing several interesting and beautiful landscapes along its path.

C&N RANCH 2,416± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kimble County v Junction

7 SPRINGS RANCH

225 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Hunt

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agnificence exists here on 225± acres with woven waterways, luxury living and majestic Hill Country views. A few miles from the Hunt Store and hidden at the end of a paved county road begin this impressive ranch. Surface water from seven springs is improved into several features including an approximately three-acre lake and two man-made waterfalls. “Party barn” or reception hall is complete with stage lights, sound system and countless details. Seemingly atop the entire county and nestled into the edge of one of the ridges lies the custom home, guest quarters, office and barn.

n addition to the main home, a second foreman’s home is located along the county road on the west side of the property. Paddocks, barns and arenas provide the infrastructure for equine operations, giving the ranch exceptional potential for horseback rides, steer roping and other pursuits. A 17acre deep-water lake is the centerpiece of this property, spanning more than 500 feet in width and 1,000 feet in length. Towering native hardwood trees line the banks on the 123 ACRES east side of the lake, and lush bright green pastures surround the waterway offering Northeast Texas v Henderson County v Athens spectacular views of the surrounding land and wildlife. A covered dock with two boat lifts plus an entertainment deck on the west side of the water, provide enjoyment and access to the water. Located just eight miles from Athens and under an hour-and-a-half from downtown Dallas.

QUAIL VALLEY RANCH

CROSS CREEK RANCH 31 ACRES

Central Texas Wilson County v La Vernia ross Creek Ranch is La Vernia’s finest luxury estate. These 31 acres have been manicured in every way imaginable and are now available. A stunning 3,300-square-foot home is complete, ready to move into and features three bedrooms and two and one-half baths. Pool, outdoor patios and a three-acre clear water pond with large bass are truly great and ready to enjoy. No details have been overlooked.

PANTHER CREEK ESTATES 12 TO 21 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Hunt

he Guadalupe River between The Mystic and Panther Crossings is a deep, wide and clear area of the Guadalupe not far from the headwaters of the South Fork itself. This area of the river offers fishing, kayaking, swimming, snorkeling and absolutely gorgeous scenery. Rarely do opportunities arise to own waterfront property in this closely held and highly sought after address.

Trip duPerier, Broker 830-755-5205 • TexasLandMan.com FarmAndRanch.com

TEXAS

SELECT

SECO SPRINGS RANCH 2,724 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Bandera County v Utopia/Tarpley

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ruly one of the crown jewels of the Texas Hill Country and arguably the most scenic livewater ranch available in today’s market, Seco Springs offers a buyer the rare opportunity to own a fabulous large ranch just over an hour from San Antonio. Located at the headwaters of beautiful Seco Valley, one the most private and scenic areas of Bandera County, Seco Springs Ranch offers county road access, end-of-the-road privacy, large neighbors and the near perfect mix of hills, spring-fed valleys and incredible hardwood lined canyons. The highlight of ranch is the 4,000+ feet of beautiful Seco Creek that flows through the property and two sections of the creek have been dammed up creating fabulous deep spring-fed lakes that provide incredible fishing and year-round recreational entertainment. The ranch offers more than 15 miles of great roads, all newer game fencing, 14 blinds and feeders, a fantastic five-bedroom lodge, foreman’s house, multiple guest cabins, equipment barns, working pens and three water wells. Hunting on the ranch is fantastic with axis, whitetail, black buck, fallow, turkey, wild hogs and numerous aoudad. $14,171,960. Won’t last; call Morris, 210-415-9850.

Morris Killough, Broker 210-415-9850 KilloughProperties.com

©2017 BHH Affiliates, LLC. An independently owned and operated franchisee of BHH Affiliates, LLC. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices symbol are registered service marks of HomeServices of America, Inc.® Equal Housing Opportunity.

FarmAndRanch.com

YELLOW ROSE RANCH 500 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Bandera County v Tarpley

ellow Rose Ranch is one the most unique live-water ranches available in the Texas Hill Country. The ranch offers paved access, two separate electric entrances, multiple lakes, multiple homes, fantastic road system and up to 5,000+ feet of lake frontage and flowing creek. The ranch and infrastructure are being offered with various housing scenarios that would make it perfect for use as a turnkey hunting/fishing ranch, family or corporate retreat. Hunting on the ranch is exceptional with only management deer being harvested the last several years. Hunting stations are positioned throughout the ranch to maximize safety and include six bulk game feeders, six automatic corn feeders and six blinds. Wildlife includes excellent whitetail, hogs, hundreds of wild turkey, axis, fallow and aoudad. The commercial or private recreational potential is unlimited—hiking, hunting, fishing, bird watching, camping, artifact hunting, kayaking, tubing, swimming and canoeing. Pricing starts at $3,950,000. Call Morris for more details, 210-415-9850.

SILVER CREEK CANYON RANCH 327 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Bandera County v Vanderpool

idden away just minutes from FM 337, and just a few miles east of Vanderpool, Silver Creek Canyon Ranch is truly one of the most beautiful live-water ranches available in today’s market. Willow Springs Creek flows for more than a half mile through the ranch and offers both sides of the crystal clear spring-fed creek, beautiful waterfalls, rapids, relaxing shallow pools and an absolutely awesome fiveacre lake. This hidden jewel offers one of the most incredible settings anywhere in the Texas Hill Country with a charming cowboy-style hacienda situated right along the banks of the fabulous spring-fed lake. $2,600,000. Call Morris, 210-415-9850.

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CAPATAZ RANCH

461 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Real Co. v Barksdale his incredible new listing offers 1.3 miles of both sides of crystal clear Bull Head Creek with long deep green holes, waterfalls, rapids, multiple natural dams, and fabulous homesites along the bluffs above the creek. The ranch also offers spring-fed New Creek, huge pecan bottoms, hardwood-lined hills with towering limestone bluffs, cypress trees, a very comfortable ranch-style home, equipment barn/shop, extensive limestone fencing, and irrigation canal. It is loaded with native and exotic game. This is without a doubt one of the finest livewater and recreational ranches available in the Hill Country. Won’t last, $3,950,000. Call Morris Killough, 210-415-9850.

Morris Killough, Broker 210-415-9850 KilloughProperties.com

FarmAndRanch.com

FABULOUS LIVE WATER 34 ACRES

Central Texas v Uvalde County v Utopia

his exceptional live-water property is located just walking distance from Utopia on the fabulous Cypress-lined Sabinal River and is just minutes from Garner State Park. This rare offering is possibly the most select and beautiful live-water tract available this area of the Hill Country, and certainly on the Sabinal River. Offering huge Cypress trees, a wooden dock and more than 400 foot of beautiful Sabinal River frontage and access to 1,500 feet of deep water provide an endless amount of recreation with swimming, tubing, kayaking, canoeing, and fishing. The property is all usable land with fantastic homesites with huge oaks and pecans. The tract is loaded with axis, whitetail and turkey. Won’t last. $1,695,000. Call Morris, 210-415-9850.

ocated in one of the most scenic areas of Texas between Vanderpool and Medina, this 86-acre Jackson Creek tract is one of the most unique live-water properties available in the Hill Country. The tract offers an 1800’s era log cabin, county road frontage, electric and phone, 3,000+ feet on both sides of crystal clear live-water, deep tillable soils suitable for vineyard or orchards, beautiful hardwoodlined limestone bluffs, several varieties of huge healthy oaks, multiple dam sites and fantastic homesites along the creek. This tract may be divided. Won’t last, call for pricing. Call Morris Killough, Owner-Broker at 210-415-9850.

JACKSON CREEK RANCH 86 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Bandera County v Medina

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LOST MAPLES WINERY AT POLVADO VINEYARDS

estled along the banks of the beautiful Sabinal River in one of the most scenic and sought after areas of the Texas Hill Country. 16± ACRES Award-winning Lost Maples Winery is available to qualified buyers that Texas Hill Country v Bandera County v Vanderpool would like a turnkey and operating vineyard and winery. This fabulous vineyard and winery was started in 2009 and has grown into one of the most popular destination vineyards in the state. The setting alone is incredible with 1,200 feet of Sabinal River frontage surrounded by majestic hills and beautiful hardwood-lined canyons. The owners have meticulously taken years of experience in the Polvado Vineyard business and transformed the facility into an upscale vineyard, winery and wine tasting destination. The property has two separate electric entrances with paved roads, and improvements include a 2,400+ squarefoot custom-engineered state-of-the-art winery building with an elegant tasting room, fermentation room, storage and shipping room, lavish bathrooms, outdoor timber pavilion, rain water collection system and an abundant parking area surrounded and shaded by huge oak trees. Other improvements include an event center with indoor and outdoor recreation areas, a beautifully done villa that accommodates overnight guests, fabulous outdoor kitchen and barbeque pavilion, Trinity water well, equipment building with shop area, beautiful stocked fishing pond and manicured park-like area along the river with small dam and swimming hole. The tract offers more than 1,400 producing grape plants that offer a variety of grapes for this award-winning facility. Call Morris for more information and more business specifics, 210-415-9850.

FRIO RIVER RANCH

723± ACRES (HUNTING, LIVE-WATER) Central Texas v Uvalde County v Uvalde

RIO BLANCO RANCH - SABINAL - 769 ACRES Central Texas v Uvalde County v Sabinal

his exceptional Rio Blanco Creek Ranch has been strictly managed for at least the last 10 years. This includes introducing new genetics that have proven very successful with pasture raised deer that have scored up to 196 inches. Exotics include a great heard of axis (mostly bucks) and Scimitar Oryx. The headquarters sits on the majestic banks of Blanco Creek with a quaint three-bedroom, two-bath home with rock fire place and patio with fire pit. Also included are a two-bedroom guest quarters, screened in cleaning station with walk-in cooler, a two-bay shop, large Pila, five-bulk feed stations with food plots and two deer pens about 2.5 acres each. Blanco Creek offers multiple deep pools and great fishing, waterfowl and dove 3 hunting. From hunting giant whitetail or axis, to fishing or swimming, unreal dove and quail hunting, and countless other activities, this gem of a ranch will not last long! Give Scott a call, 830-591-9509.

ocated just east of Uvalde, this new ranch offers a 688-acre gamefenced pasture with fabulous heavy South Texas hunting habitat, multiple food plots and fields, a well-managed deer herd with 200+ inch bucks, exceptional axis deer and an abundance of turkey, plus quail and dove. An Edwards water well tested at 90 gallons-per-minute that provides water to large stocked lake, a smaller pond and numerous water stations scattered throughout the ranch. The fishing in the cypress-lined river and stocked lakes is exceptional and it is very rare to find such a fabulous hunting ranch anywhere in South Texas that provides this additional recreational opportunity and value. The owner has placed numerous high-end hunting blinds and feeders on the ranch that will convey with sell of property and seller will convey owned mineral rights. $4,518,750. Call Chuck Herndon, 830-261-1802 or Morris Killough, 210-415-9850.

ocated just south of Camp Wood, the sale of JHW Ranch includes this 1,745-acre ranch and a 90-acre tract situated on Lake Nueces. Most of the ranch is easily accessible by two-wheel drive vehicle. A single tour of the 12 miles of road system is like a safari, offering a buyer fantastic views of the Nueces River Valley, hills, beautiful limestone bluffs, several seasonal creeks with small waterfalls, crystal clear water holes, centuries old Indian campgrounds, multiple spring-fed 1,835± ACRES canyons loaded with wildlife and a half Central Texas v Uvalde County v Campwood dozen valleys and canyons encircled with huge hardwoods, limestone bluffs and outcroppings and magnificent Morris Killough, Broker peaks that provide breathtaking views for miles. The hunting is fantastic with whitetail, hogs, 210-415-9850 • KilloughProperties.com turkey, axis, aoudad, sika, fallow, black buck, bobcat and other varmints. Priced to sell, ©2017 BHH Affiliates, LLC. An independently owned and operated franchisee of BHH Affiliates, LLC. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices symbol are registered service marks of $6,500,000. Call Morris, 210-415-9850 or Scott, 830-591-9509. HomeServices of America, Inc.® Equal Housing Opportunity.

JHW RANCH

FarmAndRanch.com 101

SOLEDAD RANCH 432 ACRES

South Texas v Duval County v Freer

ARTAZA RANCH 911 ACRES

West Texas v Val Verde County v Comstock ocated 10 miles north of Comstock, this turnkey ranch is completely game fenced, has a five-acre soft release pen, a deep, strong well that provides water to five tanks, a comfortable three-bedroom, twobath mobile home that will accommodate up to 12 guests, storage building, skinning shed with hoist and walk-in cooler, 1,000-pound ice maker and two 20-foot rail containers. Equipment that the seller is willing to convey include a 85 HP New Holland tractor with bucket and shredder, six protein feeders, ten corn feeders, ten excellent blinds, six quail feeders, and four through feeders. The whitetail herd has been improved throughout the years with superior genetics and has been intensely managed for the last ten years to maintain a quality and trophy herd. The ranch is currently under a MLDP Level 3 P&W permit. The ranch has a herd of some 30-40 axis deer, along with bobwhite and blue quail, turkey, hogs and dove. $989,000. Won’t last; call Morris Killough, 210-415-9850 or Scott Saunders, 830-591-9509.

Morris Killough, Broker 210-415-9850 KilloughProperties.com

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ocated just southeast of Freer, Soledad Ranch is an exceptional turnkey ranch and offers fabulous South Texas deer habitat, all game fencing, three breeder deer pens, a shallow water well, 12,000-gallon pila and a small pond. Also included is a great little 16x24 cabin with loft, kitchen, dining area, bathroom, covered tiled patio and outdoor shower, plus a storage cabin, covered concrete work area with electric hoist, game cleaning area, lighting and camera system. A 40-foot railway container has been modified into a lighted storage, work shop and solar power plant to provide power for tools and equipment. Sellers have been engaged in a high quality breeding operation for three years and have released numerous bucks onto the ranch. Hunting on the ranch is exceptional with only management deer harvested the last several years. The ranch offers numerous high-end blinds and feeders selectively placed throughout the ranch. Rosita Creek and smaller watersheds transverse the ranch offering the potential for numerous lake or pond sites. $1,375,000. Call Morris, 210-415-9850.

GLASER RANCH 600 ACRES

Central Texas v Milam County v Buckholts

he 600-acre Glaser Ranch is located in the heart of Central Texas just 30 minutes from Temple, and about an hour to Austin, Waco and College Station. The property has almost a mile of frontage on paved FM 1915, and over half a mile of frontage on gravel County Road 150. The ranch offers three rural water meters, a 3,000-square-foot four-bedroom, two and a half bath, brick home, swimming pool, 1,900-feet grass runway listed by the FAA as 06TA, and 50x50 hangar, a nice set of covered working pens and two other sets of smaller pens, fencing and cross fencing. Water is abundant on this property with 18 stock tanks ranging in size with the largest two being about 4.5 acres in size. The property also joins an approximately 13-acre water shed conservation lake. Wildlife on the property consist of whitetail deer, hogs, turkey, and incredible dove and duck hunting. Call Jason Garrett at 512-417-9938 to schedule your showing.

BENTSEN - RINCON RANCH 3,100± ACRES

South Texas v Hidalgo & Starr Counties v McAllen ncredibly productive cattle ranch with an ocean of buffel grass, and additional income from long-term wind-turbine lease, telecom tower and grain storage facilities. The ranch is only 39 miles from McAllen in the Rio Grande Valley’s top ranching area. Parts of the ranch are manicured for quail and deer habitat. This is part of Lloyd Bentsen Sr.’s historic Rincon Ranch, known for its rich soils and long growing season. 1,200 acres are mineral classified. Three miles of highway frontage.

THE HEART OF THE “KING RANCH CORRIDOR” MOTT COUNTRY 6,200± ACRES

South Texas v Kenedy County v Falfurrias his is the quail-hunting ranch of a lifetime! Strategically located in the “King Ranch Corridor” and South Texas’ finest mesquite mott, natural sandy savanna ranchland. The ranch is 14 miles inside the King Ranch on a deeded easement and also adjoins the massive Santa Fe East Ranch. Arguably, this is South Texas best natural bird dog hunting/quail country. Plentiful water from good wells, many natural ponds, and miles of water lines to quail/game waterings. The ranch has not been deer or nilgai hunted by the current owner for almost 20 years as the owner was only interested in quail hunting. Obviously the ranch boasts superb deer, nilgai, turkey, dove, and quail populations. This is a one-of-a-kind dream ranch in an incredibly unique location. Improvements include a modest quail camp facility with five bedrooms, manager’s residence, barns, and dogs’ kennels. The ranch is in Kenedy County on the Brooks County line with jet airstrip access in nearby Falfurrias, Texas. Price available from broker on request.

Campbell A. Patton RANCH INVESTMENTS

956-605-6737

CPSouthTexas@aol.com FarmAndRanch.com 103

RAFTER 7 RANCH 2,000± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Blanco County v Johnson City

wned and operated by the same family since the 1900s, here is a rare opportunity to own a property of substantial size near Henly, with great proximity to Austin or San Antonio. This ranch traverses from lush creek bottom land to beautiful hilltops, scattered with large hardwood trees throughout. The ranch has 1,200± acres north of Hwy 290, with 800± acres south of Hwy 290 that include the old main ranch house circa 1870, two other homes, a barn and seasonal Yeager Creek. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700.

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TEXANA SPRINGS RANCH

1,972± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Hunt

exana Springs Ranch offers the finest of the Texas Hill Country—never ending views, scenic rolling to rugged topography, sparkling live water, great improvements, and superb management! The headwaters of Bear Creek combine with the north fork of the Guadalupe River for some of the most impressive live water seen in a Hill Country ranch. Owned and operated by the same family for more than 30 years. The ranch has two main homes, foreman’s home, vacation home, and bunkhouse offering excellent accommodations for any needs. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700.

Robert Dullnig, Broker Associate 6606 N. New Braunfels • San Antonio, TX 78209

210-213-9700

DullnigRanches.com • KuperRealty.com

FarmAndRanch.com 105

EDELSTEIN RANCH 1,446 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Hunt truly unique and historic offering in beautiful Hunt, this long-time family ranch has been owned and operated by the same family since 1927. Not only historic, but truly rare in size for this desirable area, with 1± mile of the crystal clear Guadalupe River plus several springs. Rustic main home, two guest houses, foreman’s house, studio apartment bath, and several old barns complete the improvements. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700.

WHITE OAK SPRINGS RANCH 1,348± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Hunt

truly unique and historic offering near beautiful Hunt. This long-time family ranch has been owned and operated by the same family since 1927. Not only historic, but truly rare in size for this desirable area and featuring a portion of Guadalupe River plus springs.

GUADALUPE RIVER RANCH 98± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Hunt ustic and picturesque, the headquarters of this rare property includes an original homesite with views and access to the Guadalupe River for water activities, as well 5,510 ACRES as relaxation with tranquility and privacy. Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Mountain Home Improvements include a two-bedroom home with fireplace and screened porch, outdoor his offering is for a large portion of the original, historic Y.O. Ranch. The rolling hills and rock cooking terrace, and two guesthouses of limestone peaks are studded with live oak, post oak, cedar and mesquite trees. Aoudad Hill two-bedrooms each. Minutes from Hunt provides strong sweeping views across four counties. Gentle, open pastureland is covered with General Store. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700. native grasses, and is home to abundant native wildlife. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700.

YO4 RANCH

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choice opportunity to own a truly wild, lowfence hunting ranch in a desirable area. Excellent brush, rolling terrain, good tanks, and both Olmos Creek and Gato Creek drainages make this all-natural hunting ranch unique. Headquarters include a handsome lodge overlooking a 3± acre lake, a second home, and large stone barn with quarters. There are large numbers of whitetail deer, turkey, quail, dove, javelina, and hogs, plus fishing and waterfowl hunting on the tanks. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700.

BLACK HILL RANCH 1,877± ACRES

South Texas v Zavala County v Uvalde

rare find, as this property is not only located in the best of the South Texas brush country, it is in a prime, and very private location for some of the top trophy whitetail deer, quail and turkey hunting in the entire country. Offered as a turnkey property, it includes 20 Atascosa blinds and protein and spin-cast feeders, enabling new owners to be set up for serious hunting right away. Wildlife and water are plentiful, and there are also several great locations with long grandiose views. Jordan Shipley, 325-998-4548.

FROZEN ACRES RANCH 1,339± ACRES

South Texas v McMullen County v Tilden

ell-maintained and operated hunting and recreational ranch located minutes from the town of Uvalde. Excellent brush diversity, nice surface water, superior whitetail deer herd, and good improvements make the Cobb Ranch a truly special place. Features include a handsome home, metal barn, high fenced perimeter, blinds and feeders. Record whitetail deer plus turkey, quail, dove, javelina, hogs as well as bass fishing in two of the three tanks. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700.

COBB RANCH 1,082± ACRES

South Texas v Zavala County v Uvalde

his superb, ready-to-go ranch has it all—big deer, lots of quail, dove and turkey, great browse, and excellent water, all conveniently between Pearsall and Dilley off IH 35 South. Owners have established excellent management to improve habitat to maximize game populations. Quality improvements include an excellent road system and it is totally game-fenced with four water wells, four tanks, plus food plots. Minerals. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700.

T9E RANCH 1,026± ACRES

South Texas v Frio County v Pearsall

Robert Dullnig, Broker Associate 6606 N. New Braunfels • San Antonio, TX 78209

210-213-9700

DullnigRanches.com • KuperRealty.com

FarmAndRanch.com 107

ncompassing the finest qualities that the Hill Country has to offer—superb water, expansive views, endless recreational pursuits, along with ultimate privacy and seclusion— the ranch is in the western part of Bandera County, with a portion in Real County. Highfenced, it is offered as a turnkey operation with an impressive, fully furnished residence combining American Indian accents with utmost luxury, and a full complement of ranch equipment. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700.

CREEK RANCH 1,330 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Bandera & Real Counties v Vanderpool

VARA RANCH

1,200± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Uvalde County v Concan his truly scenic property has 1,200± feet of the flowing Frio River, one of the largest ranches available in the scenic Frio River Canyon. Year-round adventures include hunting to fishing, to swimming, and water activities. There are three charming small homes and fencing/cross-fencing. Abundant wildlife includes whitetail deer, axis, Aoudad, turkey, javelina and hogs plus the Frio River offers bass and cat fishing. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700.

LIVE OAK RANCH 1,169± ACRES

South Texas v Uvalde County v Uvalde

njoy some of the most spectacular live water the Hill Country has to offer, with 2,200± feet of the deep, crystal clear Sabinal River lined with age-old cypress trees, along with both sides of spring-fed Blackjack Creek. Minutes north of Utopia, the ranch has attractive improvements to relax and enjoy the outdoors year-around. This rare offering is an ideal family getaway, corporate retreat, commercial enterprise or permanent residence. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700.

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his “Hill Country meets South Texas” ranch offers excellent brush, large oak trees, and panoramic views. Well watered, this hunting ranch is stocked with high quality native and exotic wildlife. Impressive headquarters includes three homes, metal barn, exotic game pens, and high-fenced perimeter/crossfencing. Seven water wells are on the property plus two tanks, one with bass fishing. Recordsetting whitetail deer, turkey, javelina, quail and dove, plus a valuable exotic herd including black buck, axis, gemsbok, addax, waterbuck, Myala, Kudu, Impala, wildebeest, springbok, Oryx and sable. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700.

WHITETAIL SPRINGS RANCH 304± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Bandera County v Utopia

ARROWHEAD RANCH

first-class, turnkey historic ranch offers everything you want in a hunting ranch and more—fine improvements, good distribution of water, great habitat and superb wildlife. The headquarters features a main home, foreman’s home, barns, covered gun range, skeet range, RV site with pavilion, and private airstrip. This unique ranch is only 35± miles from McAllen for city amenities. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700.

5,175± ACRES

South Texas v Hidalgo & Starr Counties v McAllen

ere is an opportunity to own a ranch that has been in the same family since the 1800s. This ranch is one of the remaining large parcels of the Hillingdon Ranch, originally spanning 13,000± acres between Comfort and Fredericksburg. The cedar has been managed for years, allowing the hardwoods and grasses to flourish. The terrain is a good mixture of high hills with spectacular views and creek bottoms with springs and deeper soils. Offered in its entirety or in two 550± acre pastures. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700.

COYOTE SPRING RANCH 1,100± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kendall County v Comfort

his renown turnkey ranch has outstanding awards for TGR Ranch of the Year, Outfitter of the Year, #1 Big Buck contest entries 2012-2014, #1 High Fence Deer in Texas 2016-2017, Biggest High Fence Deer in Texas, and five-time Trophy Game Records of the World Ranch of the Year. The amazing wildlife is inclusive in addition to an exquisite lodge with pool and spa. Features include five water wells, 11 tanks/ponds, barn, cleaning facilities, kennels, blinds, feeders and ranch vehicles. Also available separately, the 359± acre BSR East Pastures, cross fenced into two pastures with two wells and six ponds. Marc Sherron, 830-739-0919.

BROKEN SPUR RANCH 777± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Mountain Home

BOWDEN SPRINGS RANCH 481± ACRES

his beautifully manicured Hill Country ranch is near historic Kendalia, only 35± miles from San Antonio. The tasteful improvements are move-in ready and the land has been impressively maintained. There are spectacular views and grand oak trees throughout the ranch, plus a great road system is in place making it easy to get around. A great family retreat and/or permanent residence. Robert Dullnig, 210-213-9700.

Texas Hill Country v Kendall County v Boerne

Robert Dullnig, Broker Associate 6606 N. New Braunfels • San Antonio, TX 78209

210-213-9700

DullnigRanches.com • KuperRealty.com

FarmAndRanch.com 109

he historic Circle Ranch located high in the Diablo Mountains of far West Texas has had only three owners since Obadiah Bounds pioneered the ranch in 1879. He ran the O brand, giving rise to the ranch’s name. Circle Ranch is as unique as it gets, with four distinct geographic regions or habitat providences combined into one ownership. Chihuahuan Desert, Canyonlands, high grasslands, and rolling hills are balanced equally in acreage, providing for a diversity of habitats, plants, animals, and natural beauty. $59,200,000. View on Web.

CIRCLE RANCH 32,000 ACRES

West Texas v Hudspeth County v Van Horn

his is a turnkey opportunity to move right into a world-class hunting and recreation ranch. A custom entertaining lodge with a variety of outbuilding nestled at the foot of Hog Back Mountain is as private and scenic as it gets. There are 42 miles of roads and new water and hunting infrastructure where you can start day one enjoying the amazing amenities this ranch has to offer. The neighborhood 10,322 ACRES around Diamond Eagle Ranch is rich in history as this was Chief Victorio’s and his MescaleroWest Texas v Hudspeth County v Sierra Blanca Warm Spring Mimbres Apaches’ raiding ground where Buffalo Soldiers fought to protect the Overland Trail just a few miles north of the ranch entrance. $9,031,750. View on web.

DIAMOND EAGLE RANCH

agle Piñon Ranch has elevations ranging from 4,600 feet to 5,800 feet and is a series of canyons, peaks and valleys creating a rugged yet accessible terrain. The higher elevations of the Eagle are to the north at 7,400 feet. Rio Grande Valley is to the south, with the Mexico mountains beyond. There is a lush grassland matrix with brush, cacti and piñon trees. There is a series of 4x4 roads leading to the various features on the ranch. An excellent well and a new hunting lodge with six private rooms, each with a private bath, make this a comfortable and functional hideaway. $2,518,550. View on web.

EAGLE PIÑON RANCH 2,963 ACRES

West Texas v Hudspeth County v Allamoore

ALPINE HIGH RANCH

12,177± ACRES

West Texas v Pecos County v Fort Stockton

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lpine High Ranch is part of the historic Townsend Ranch; it is a highly active oil/gas area. There are 3,098 acres of mineral classified state minerals and 2,269.88 net fee minerals. Rarely do you get a chance to own producing minerals. Also, the ranch lies over a tremendous freshwater aquifer. It has a diverse landscape with deep bottom soils along Coyanosa Draw, broad gravelly flats, and limestone hills with commanding views of many of the area mountains. The ranch has several improvements including a metal barn, working pens, wind and solar wells. $8,341,656. View on Web.

ord-Lightner Ranch was once called the Ford-Henderson Ranch which is a combination of Central Rolling Red Plains fields and Edwards Plateau limestone hills. Reubes Creek runs west to east through the north part of the ranch which has semipermeant pools with large mesquite and oak lined wooded banks. Elevations range from 1,875 feet to 2,000 feet with excellent long views from the hills on the south looking north over the fields and pastures on the ranch. $6,226,000. View on web.

FORD-LIGHTNER RANCH 2,830± ACRES

Central Texas v Concho & McCulloch Counties v Brady

FORD RANCH FARM 324± ACRES

Central Texas v McCulloch County v Brady

ord Ranch Farm was a cotton farm, evidenced by the abandoned historical headquarters with old barns, houses, and outbuildings. The farm offers improved grasses and operated as a hay meadow. The southern beginning of the vast Rolling Plains north of the Edwards Plateau. There are two tree-lined creeks meandering through the property. These draws run in wet months and have a few pools that persist in the dry months creating excellent livestock and wildlife waters. $810,000. View on web.

SUNRISE STABLES 112 ACRES

Central Texas v McLennan Co. v Moody

unrise Stables is a quiet and peaceful Central Texas horseman’s paradise. World-class horse facilities and a charming home set in a landscape of rolling hills create a private sanctuary with a convenient location, making access to local amenities and the rest of the state a breeze. Vast improved pastures with tree-lined borders offer room for cattle, horses and recreation. $1,200,000. View on web.

YATES RANCH 385 ACRES

Central Texas v Travis County v Austin

nly 15 minutes from downtown Austin, Yates Ranch is a marriage of rich Texas ranching heritage with an array of unique natural resources in a protected, quiet world all its own. Saltlick is just minutes away, and the amazing restaurants of Austin are a mere short ride down MoPac Boulevard. You can immerse yourself in the culture of music, food, art, nature, and outdoor recreation that makes Austin one of the most popular cities in the U.S. Here, nature balances with activity, livestock with big city lights, and people with solitude. $7,200,000. View on web.

James King, Agent Tammy King, Broker Harrison King, Agent 432-426-2024 info@KingLandWater.com KingLandWater.com

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he main drainage cutting through the ranch is Prairie Canyon, named for the rich natural grasslands that once dominated this region. In fact, lesser prairie chickens were native to this ranch and the last one was seen in the 1980s, evidence of a rich mix of grassland and brush. Prehistoric people 22,972 ACRES lived in these limestone shelters and a black bear pictograph can be clearly seen there West Texas v Terrell County v Dryden today. The area is a recreation mecca for both whitetail and mule deer hunting or just prowling the canyons in search of adventure. This is a working ranch leased to a neighboring heritage landowner who keeps up the roads and water infrastructure. $7,695,620. View on web.

PRAIRIE CANYON RANCH

rairie Creek Ranch abounds with hunting and recreation opportunities. The area is a mecca for both whitetail and mule deer hunting or just prowling the canyons in search of adventure. This is a working ranch leased to a neighboring heritage landowner who keeps up the roads and water infrastructure over the entire property. This is not only plateau country with dissected canyons, but also an extensive landscape of rolling hills, valleys and long canyons, creating very scenic and amazingly beautiful views. With topography reaching around 2,000 feet, there are many potential building sites with distant vistas of ranch features. $399,320. View on web.

PRAIRIE CREEK RANCH 1,192 ACRES

West Texas v Terrell County v Dryden

PECOS CANYON RANCH

8,300 ACRES

West Texas v Val Verde County v Langtry

ecos Canyon Ranch is dominated by the river and canyon lands that drain into it. It is really two ranches, split by the county road, with excellent new fences and entrance gates for privacy and security. The western third has the old headquartersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ruins with two wells, lots of juniper cover with rolling hills and dense vegetation along Harkell Canyon, perfect for mule deer and blue quail hunting. The eastern two-thirds is dominated by huge slick-rock canyons, high Ceniza mesas, and 1.5 miles of the Lower Pecos River. $6,640,000. View on web.

he name of Twin Canyon Ranch comes from two dominate canyons heading east with several hidden side canyons creating secluded private hunting and recreation areas. Broad tops with big valleys create a combination of easy accessible gentle land with deeper soil, limestone bluffs, steep hills, and canyon heads. This creates a perfect mixed-use ranch. This is a working cattle, sheep and goat ranch with great hunting. It has been managed well by the same family for decades. $3,648,000. View on web.

TWIN CANYON RANCH 7,296 ACRES

West Texas v Terrell County v Fort Stockton

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DOS LOMAS 6,004 ACRES

West Texas v Pecos County v Fort Stockton/Ozona

he name derives from two high limestone mountain tops that dominate the views. Dos Lomas has canyons, mountains, caves, and excellent vegetation creating a diversity of habitats and landforms. Three large pastures and two traps with pens and extensive water infrastructure complete this working ranch. The headquarters is simple but functional with a foreman’s house and owner/hunter camp house, outbuilding, barns and working pens that are located at the headquarters. Some minerals and all solar and wind rights will convey. $3,212,140. View on web.

orth Shipp Ranch is the northern pastures of the historic Shipp Ranch, owned and operated by the descendants of Colonel Evan B. Quiros for three generations. Ranching and hunting, resulting from a clear eye on good land management practices, makes this ranch a rare jewel. This is the brush country of South Texas at its best with a diverse mix of mature brush, trees and grasslands located within a pleasant rolling almost Hill County topography on the eastern end, creating long views and excellent wildlife and livestock habitat. $7,534,400. View on web.

NORTH SHIPP RANCH 4,432 ACRES

South Texas v Webb County v Aguilares

BEDINGHAUS RANCH 381 ACRES

Central Texas v Medina County v D’Hanis

ith San Antonio only an hour’s drive away, the Bedinghaus Ranch is easily accessible from all parts of the state. The ranch is a turnkey hunting, cattle, and recreation ranch uniquely located in the transition zone of the Hill Country and South Texas Brush Country. Bedinghaus Ranch offers diverse habitat and terrain under one fence with exceptional improvements that allow for day one use and enjoyment. $2,990,000. View on Web.

James King, Agent Tammy King, Broker Harrison King, Agent 432-426-2024 info@KingLandWater.com KingLandWater.com

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WALNUT CREEK Northeast Texas v Henderson County v Malakoff

pproximately 1,775 acres located just southwest of Malakoff, Texas, south of Cedar Creek Reservoir, and Hwy 31, east of Athens and east of Corsicana. Approximately 50 percent pasture and 50 percent hardwood and brush land, this ranch offers an extensive variety. For the serious cattleman, the improved pastures, hayfields, cross fencing, and fertile soils all contribute to exceptional forage production and AU capacity. For the avid hunter, the upland hills and hardwoods produce exceptional year-round game habitat, while the bottomland groves, senderos, wet-weather pockets, McAllister Slough, Cedar Creek, and Walnut Creek all provide exceptional seasonal habitat. For the outdoor enthusiast, the ranch offers tremendous views from the rolling hills, and endless terrain to explore to see the wildlife and beauty native to East Texas. Enhanced with an unusually mature development of senderos, the ranch can be managed to several co-existing purposes, when combined with the uplands on both the northern and southern reaches of the ranch. With varying elevations of approximately 100 feet, views are amplified and extended to the west looking over the Cedar Creek and Trinity basins. The ranch also offers over ten ponds of various sizes, electricity on site, and one water well. Currently the northern two-thirds of the ranch are fenced, cross fenced, and the pastures are well managed by the grazing tenant. The southern third is entirely wooded, entirely untamed, and features water and topographic features that would benefit from enhancement by the next owner. Walnut Creek particularly has many opportunities to develop wildlife, waterfowl and scenic corridors. Held in institutional ownership, this offering is likely the gem of the sellerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s holdings. With small, but end-of-the-road frontage on Loverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lane, the community of Malakoff is just minutes away, which situates this ranch as feeling remote, yet very accessible. $2,450/acre. torno@circle-t-realty.com â&#x20AC;˘ circle-t-realty.com 114 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

rime Leon County acreage east of Centerville. Opportunities to own a parcel of land this size and quality in this area are extremely rare. The majority of the property is wooded with giant hardwood and pine timber. There are scattered meadows with numerous trails and right of ways that connect them and all are planted in Coastal Bermuda. There are 13 stock tanks and ponds spread evenly across the property providing water for cattle and wildlife. Hardly ever does a place have such potential for raising cattle, hunting or both. The back section of the property has acres and acres of untouched woods teeming with wildlife. The front section has great pasture, cross fencing and a number of operational water wells. Being only 1.5 hours from The Woodlands, this oneof-a-kind property presents the opportunity of a lifetime. Amazing investment potential or land to pass down through the generations; this ranch has it all. $5,118,750.

ZZ TWO RANCH 1,365 ACRES

Central Texas v Leon County v Centerville

LITTLE 4 RANCH Central Texas v Leon County v Flynn

ittle 4 Ranch is comprised of 532.8 acres of prime river bottom hardwood timber flats and rolling hills covered in Coastal Bermuda grass. The ranch is about 60 percent wooded and 40 percent pasture. The ranch offers long frontage on the fabled Navasota River and some incredible hunting opportunities for whitetail deer and ducks. There are two nice ponds for fishing, as well as fishing in the river. Improvements on the ranch include a very nice cabin that has two bedrooms, one bathroom, full kitchen, dining area, and living area. Very nice covered porches on the front and rear offer great views in all directions. There are two deep water wells on the ranch; one at the cabin and the other near an old homesite by the front gate. There is also electric service at both locations. There is a barn, some additional outbuildings, and a decent set of working pens for handling livestock. There is some current oil and gas production on the ranch, but, as a result of this, there are great roads offering access all over the ranch. Ranch adjoins large acreage neighbor and there is a possibility of additional land being available. Offered at $2,500,000.

Steve Torno, Broker 903-388-0292 Tyson Henson, Broker 979-229-8710 Dennis Coffey, Broker 979-777-6523

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one-of-a-kind property of this caliber does not come on the market very often. This is a rare opportunities to own a truly remarkable ranch. 104 acres of pristine rolling hills with breathtaking views comprise this property. Approximately 80 percent is improved Coastal Bermuda pasture with the remaining a mix of giant hardwood trees and piney woods. Water features further the allure of the property. A spring feeds the two-acre lake which drains into North Creek, a year-round, spring-fed creek. Crystal clear water meanders through the ancient red oak trees that line the banks, creating a peaceful feeling that accentuates the country life. The property is fenced and has cross-fences. 104 ACRES Long road frontage with four separate entrances and a portion of black-pipe fence Central Texas v Leon County v Centerville with an automatic gate creates great curb appeal. You are immediately drawn to the 3,100-square-foot farmhouse-style home. Being built in 2006, the home still looks brand new due to the meticulous upkeep of the owners. Inside, the tall ceilings, open concept, and exceptional finishes tie together to create a beautiful home. A large, open kitchen with a huge pantry that can store enough food to feed an army is the central focus of the home. There are four bedrooms, two and one-half baths, two living areas and much more. Upstairs is 988-square-feet of partially finished bonus room with another bathroom. Framing is done and all the electrical and plumbing have been run; it just need sheetrock and flooring. Large front and back porches along with an oversized three-car garage complete this country estate. Other improvements include a 48x30 metal barn on a slab with a 14-foot overhang along one side. There is also a set of Priefert working pens for cattle. $895,000.

LEWIS RANCH

his outdoor paradise of 136 acres truly has it all. Located east of Centerville, in the rolling hills of the Flo community, sits this one-of-a-kind property. Entering the Central Texas v Leon County v Oakwood property, the winding, rolling drive takes you down a hill to a large flat where the main house and majority of the improvements are located. The main house is just over 2,000 square-feet with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and has a large open concept. There is a full-length front porch and a large, screened back porch. There is also a small, one-bed, one-bath cabin with a kitchenette for family overflow. There are multiple outbuildings for storage, including a 25x40 metal shop on a slab. There are multiple RV hookups and a covered outdoor cleaning station for game and fish. The large flat also contains a pecan orchard with over 100 pecan trees producing a thousand pounds of pecans each year. The guest cabin is just up the trail situated in a small opening. With a front porch, 700 square-feet, and nice finishes, this cabin is excellent for having guest but giving them their own space. As you travel the property along the well-maintained roads, you will notice that the abundance of water allows the trees to grow exceptionally large. North Creek runs along the property as well as multiple live springs, which feed the lake. The lake is a fishermanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dream. Meticulous management practices have led to excellent quality fish including hybrid stripers, largemouth bass, crappie, bluegill, blue and channel cats, and more. Endless fishing can be enjoyed by all ages. The property has also been managed for whitetail deer. Good feeding regimes along with selective harvesting have produced quality deer. Excellent cover along with the natural water and continuous food make this property a sanctuary for the deer. Multiple stands and feeders are in place. The property is fully fenced and has black top road frontage on FM 1511 making it convenient to travel to. This property is set up for ultimate enjoyment of all outdoor activities and accommodates large families well.

FULLER RANCH

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ROUND LAKE RANCH

2,009 ACRES

Northeast Texas v Henderson County v Cayuga

ound Lake Ranch is centrally located in southern Henderson County and lies between the towns of Cayuga and Malakoff, Texas. Round Lake Ranch is approximately 2009 acres and consists of about 1000 acres of very fertile native ranch land and Coastal Bermuda pastures with the balance of the land wooded in mature hardwoods of various varieties. This ranch has access along CR 1316 and is a paved road. Trinity River runs along the west border of the ranch, which is where the majority of the wooded land is and provides for some superior wildlife habitat. Located in the center of this wooded section is a large open field that is tillable and would make the ideal spot for planting crops for wing shooting. Round Lake is also located in this area of the ranch and would surely make a fine duck hole during the winter months. Soils range from sandy loam that is typical of the area to the dark loam soils of the fertile river bottom. There is a large productive farm located immediately south of Round Lake Ranch that has the same type of soils on it and there is the same potential for row cropping in the river bottom should that be desirable to the new owner. Near the front of the ranch along CR 1316, there are nice hills that would provide for homesites that would afford long sprawling views of the country side. Round Lake Ranch has something to offer on all fronts and provides a wellbalanced coexistence of both agricultural and recreational land ownership. $4,922,050.

Steve Torno, Broker 903-388-0292 Tyson Henson, Broker 979-229-8710 Dennis Coffey, Broker 979-777-6523

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n the heart of a most coveted Hill Country area, Camp Verde Twin Creeks Ranch possesses abundant surface water including a large lake loaded with fish, the convergence of Fall Creek and Wolf Creek, and one of the most captivating country homes available today. Views are seemingly endless and abundant over the deep ravines from the lofty ridges. Four bedrooms, five and a half baths, four fireplaces, native stone and wood flooring throughout, Thermador, Kitchenaid, 858 ACRES and Sub-Zero appliances, massive exposed Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Camp Verde beam ceilings in the great room with three separate balconies, large wrap-around porches with cedar pillars and countless other features are highlighted in this superior home overlooking the water. Incredible ranch improvements include detached two-car garage with two guest suites upstairs, foreman’s home, horse barn and arena. Call today to view this private yet convenient ranch!

TWIN CREEKS RANCH

SALT BRANCH RANCH

583 ACRES

South Texas v Atascosa County v Jourdanton

RUSTLER’S DEN 363 ACRES

Texas Hill Country Burnet County v Burnet idden in the rolling hills northwest of Burnet, and surrounded by even larger ranches, lies this spectacular first-time offering. Graced by dense and game-filled tree cover, the ranch has been gently transformed to include four miles of new jeep roads, 12 new gorgeous meadows, and three newly reworked wildlife ponds. The views—well, just come see for yourself! Additional beautiful and contiguous property up to 850 acres also available.

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his high-fenced ranch has been managed since 2008 to consistently produce 200-inch typical whitetail deer year after year. Not only does this ranch house whitetail, it also has around 40 black buck, 15 gemsbok, 50 axis, 30 fallow and six ibex! The ranch is very well watered by more than six miles of polyline, piped all over the ranch to many water troughs. A four-acre lake and numerous smaller ponds have been designed to hold large amounts of surface water year-round. Improvements include a two-bedroom, one-bath cabin, five new Atascosa Insulated Blinds, as well as numerous Atascosa heavy duty protein and corn feeders. Ranch has been managed and designed to grow big deer!

361 ACRES IN HUNT TEXAS Texas Hill Country Kerr County v Hunt ocated between Hunt and Ingram, Texas sits a property of 361 acres—a diamond in the rough. Pre development priced and ready for cleanup. Hills and valleys, lots of trees, lots of native and exotic game, plus great views. Please contact for more information.

MEDINA CANYON RANCH 187 ACRES

Texas Hill Country Bandera County v Medina tunning views perched above an extensively landscaped pond. 184 acres with a 4,000-square-foot hillside home. This ranch also features a onebedroom, one-bath cabin, three-stall stable, large metal barn, two ponds, a hilltop pavilion and entertainment area, and lots of privacy. If you are looking for a well-kept, move-in ready ranch with stunning views in a gorgeous setting, you better take a look at this one!

CHERRY SPRING RANCH 152± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Hunt

uxury Hill Country living with bountiful amenities, including incredible entertaining facilities and custom construction. An adobe-style fireplace inside the barn, massive outdoor fireplace and grill, custom stone showers, impressive kitchen island, and a two-sided fireplace are just a few of the many improvements.

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SAN JULIAN CREEK RANCH 100 ACRES

Texas Hill Country Bandera County v Bandera ive water and splendid views describe this unique Hill Country gem. Located just 2.5 miles southeast of Bandera, this 100-acre ranch offers two springs that meander through the property before flowing into San Julian Creek which flanks the western side of the property for 3,300 feet. Beautiful hardwoods canvas the gently rolling landscape.

PLEASANTON RANCH

160 ACRES

South Texas v Atascosa County v Pleasanton

eautiful ranch with fully equipped horse barn and covered riding arena, less than an hour from San Antonio! Enjoy this quiet, private escape from one of the covered porches surrounding the main house. A covered walkway allows access to the four-car garage and a onebedroom, one-bath guest quarters with a kitchen. The four-bedroom, three and one-half bath main house is open and light filled with multiple dining and living spaces including a study and oversized utility room.

ELLERS ARE MOTIVATED—BRING YOUR OFFERS! Rest and relaxation along the banks of Goat Creek are yours 10± ACRES on this 10.9± acre retreat. Located in Texas Hill Country v Kerr County v Kerrville Kerr County, Texas, just minutes from the community of Kerrville, the property fronts Goat Creek Road. Perfect distance from Interstate 10 for easy access yet far enough to capture great peace and quiet. Two homes, recently remarkably remodeled, can serve as a full-time residence, bed and breakfast venue, or quarters for wedding parties. Nicely appointed and move-in ready, these two homes feature elegant and inviting features. The warehouse could serve as your event center, storage for a winery, and more. It comprises of a large open warehouse area, a smaller room for an office, and attached bathroom. From the porches you can take in the serenity of the park-like property, magnificent trees, and the almost 1,300-feet of creek frontage. The water is improved to create a gorgeous swimming area and it’s stocked full of fish. The opportunity is ready for you to incorporate your dreams into the potential of this superior Hill Country property. Contact The duPerier Texas Land Man today to plan your visit.

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GOAT CREEK R&R

PERFECT FOR VINEYARD 85 ACRES

Texas Hill Country Kerr County v Kerriville his land is perfect for a vineyard and winery. 40 acres of high-fenced river bottom along Johnson Creek have the potential to be an excellent vineyard location. More than 1,000-feet of live-water creek frontage. This property has an attractive main home, plus a guest house, large workshop, hay barn, and storage barn.

RENDON RANCH

100 ACRES

Central Texas Medina County v Devine endon Ranch is a beautiful 100-acre high-fenced ranch located less than 30 minutes from downtown San Antonio with everything you need from trophy whitetail deer and exotics to a custom luxury home. Included are two lakes stocked with fish, a three-acre lake located adjacent to the house and an almost one-acre lake located in the back of the property with a covered pavilion, barbecue area and restroom. Both lakes have been managed and provide excellent fishing.

LA SALLE COUNTY 560 ACRES

South Texas v La Salle County v Cotulla ust east of Cotulla on the Nueces River, this property has good brush, surface tanks, ranch house, equipment shed, and good hunting. Some minerals convey.

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EL PASEO DE SAN ANTONIO RANCH 22,124± ACRES

West Texas v Jeff Davis County v Valentine

yatt Ranches desires to sell this acreage and use the proceeds to acquire more acreage closer to their other ranching divisions in South Texas and consummate a Tax Free Exchange. This is a rare opportunity to own one of the finest cow ranches in the Highlands and Davis Mountains of Texas. This is prime Valentine and Marfa grama grass flats, rolling foothills and mountains of the Davis Mountains along the Scenic Loop on Hwy 166 and historic San Antonio Pass. The ranch entrance on Hwy 90 has an attractive gate house, state-of-the-art gate and security system. The headquarters compound has four attractive Spanish-style residences with 360-degree views, a 40x60 structural steel barn on slab with attached equipment sheds, and an overhead feed silo. The ranch is divided into six major pastures and several traps, all well watered by an extensive water system via four solar and electric wells, cisterns and troughs. Shipping corals are centrally located for easy operation with steel circular chutes and shaded work area. The ranch offers hunting for desert mule deer, aoudad sheep, antelope, javelina, predators, dove and scaled blue quail. Some minerals will convey. Located only 30 minutes from McDonald Observatory, Fort Davis and Marfa, Texas and two hours from El Paso. $1,495.00 per acre.

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STRINGFELLOW RANCH 13,600 ACRES

West Texas v Presidio County v Marfa

wn a spectacular high country ranch from 4,000 to 5,180 feetelevation with rolling to rugged mountainous terrain, shallow to deep canyons, scenic volcanic rim rocks, bluffs, and high elevation mesas. This is an ideal ranch for both the cattleman and avid hunter with an abundance of trophy desert mule deer, aoudad sheep, and blue quail. The ranch is watered by six wells, 30 miles of good roads, hunterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s camp house, very nice headquarters home/lodge with large fishing or swimming pond, excellent working and shipping corrals, and five- to seven-acre lake when full.

John W. Carpenter, Broker/Owner

432-837-3325

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CHISPA MOUNTAIN RANCH 14,421 ACRES

West Texas v Culberson County v Van Horn hispa Mountain Ranch is a beautiful ranch located, and easily accessed, only 14 miles south of I-10 and Van Horn, Texas. Chispa Mountain Ranch is one of the very few ranches encompassing almost 90 percent of a scenic volcanic intrusive mountain range. The range offers diversity of terrain and habitat ideal for both livestock and wildlife. The ranch is considered a good combination livestock ranch for crossbred mother cows and yearlings. Hunting is excellent for trophy mule deer, aoudad sheep, blue quail, and dove. Rocky Mountain elk have been introduced to the mountain ranges to the north and east, and elk have been cited numerous times on Chispa with numbers expected to grow. Rewards of ranch ownership are no longer measured by livestock operations, but, more recreational purposes. Chispa Mountain Ranch offers something for everyone that gives pride in ownership. This is an absolutely beautiful, gentle and rugged mountain country with panoramic views. You must see to appreciate.

John W. Carpenter, Broker/Owner

432-837-3325

jw3@jwcarpenter.com â&#x20AC;˘ jwcarpenter.com 124 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

TARPLEY SPRINGS RANCH 1,000 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Bandera Co. v Tarpley ,000 acres with springs at majestic Tarpley in Bandera County. Great views with elevations up to 2,087 feet, private valleys with springs and two ponds, very nice 1,930± square-foot Hill Country classics three-bedroom, two-bath rock home, nice 1,200-square-foot metal building. A very private ranch at a great buy! $3,500,000. Mark Meek, Broker.

MEDIO CREEK RANCH 2,278 ACRES

South Texas v Bee County v Beeville

ne of the most scenic and productive wildlife ranches on the South Texas market today. Medio Creek passes through the ranch for several miles and is lined with giant live oaks. The ranch is extremely well watered with multiple water wells and tanks. There is a great location for the construction of a large lake. Very nice improvements including a rustic 121 ACRES ranch home, barn, deer blinds, and feeders. The ranch is low fenced and surrounded with Texas Hill Country good neighbors working together to grow quality wildlife. This ranch will convey with good Bandera County v Medina ncludes 1,200± feet of gorgeous Medina minerals. A very rare find two hours south of Houston. Contact for price. Joel Meek, Broker. River, towering Cypress trees, great mountaintop views, good hunting and fishing. There is a four-bedroom, two-bath ranch house, barn, fantastic river pavilion, five-acre field, and paved road frontage on FM 2107. A great live-water package! $1,895,000. Mark Meek, Broker.

MEDINA RIVER RANCH

PALOMAVILLE - A DOVE HUNTER’S PARADISE 1,541 ACRES

Central Texas Uvalde County v Sabinal

dove hunter’s paradise! Scenic views, great water, minerals, and loaded with wildlife. Ranchero Creek passes through the ranch and is lined with giant live oaks. There are permanent water holes on the creek and big Indian campgrounds that have never been disturbed. The ranch is high fenced with trophy whitetail and has 20-mile views! Located halfway between Uvalde and Hondo puts this ranch right in the flight zone of the best dove hunting Texas offers! Contact for price. Joel Meek, Broker.

Mark Meek, Broker Joel Meek, Broker 830-257-8881 info@meekranchsales.com meekranchsales.com

FarmAndRanch.com 125

BRUSHY CREEK RANCH 1,180± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Uvalde County v Reagan Wells

estled among the hills and springs in the highly desired area between Concan and Reagan Wells. The panoramic views are some of the most spectacular in all of Texas. The turnkey ranch with a 3,000-square-foot, four-bedroom, two-bath home is situated in a valley surrounded by springs, fields and wild game, waiting for the new owner who desires seclusion and peace in today’s hectic world. Seven live springs provide water throughout five fenced pastures for livestock and game. An abundance of vegetation includes a variety of majestic oaks, mountain laurel, black walnut, and ferns growing among the springs. $2,750,000. Bill Barton, Broker-Associate.

EDWARDS/REAL COUNTY HUNTING RANCH - 1,530 ACRES Texas Hill Country Edwards County v Mountain Home ,530± acres of rolling live oak country in north Real County off Hwy 41. Only 10 minutes west of Garven Store with paved road to improvements, this ranch offers recreation and hunting in a prime location. The land features tillable fields, rolling terrain, and huge oak trees. Improvements consist of a remodeled four-bedroom home, a three-bedroom ranch house, storage and hay barns, and productive water wells throughout the property. Offered at $4,207,500. Marshall Burford, Agent.

HARPER GENTLEMAN’S RANCH 126 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kimble County v Harper

Marshall Burford, Broker Bill Barton, Broker-Associate 830-257-8881 info@meekranchsales.com meekranchsales.com

126 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

26 acres of rolling terrain, gentle enough for the whole family to enjoy, in a location known for great hunting. Harper Gentleman’s Ranch is easily accessible from all parts of the Hill Country, located near Hwy 290 and I-10. The custom ranch home compliments the wellgroomed land, providing one of the best ranch packages available today. With the desirable location, quality improvements, and exotic hunting opportunity, this ranch won’t last long. $789,000. Marshall Burford, Agent.

ROCKING A RANCH 1,040 ACRES

Central Texas v Kinney County v Uvalde superb hunting ranch. A mixture of South Texas brush along with elevation changes creating magnificent views in the diverse Anacacho Mts. Finely manicured hunting stations strategically dispersed throughout the ranch provide forage to attract the abundant wildlife for your outdoor adventures. The Rocking A is considered free-range hunting with approximately half the ranch bordering high-fenced neighbors creating opportunities for a legitimate B&C whitetail. Whitetail in the 170 to 180 range have been taken. Quail and dove hunting is magnificent. A 3,000-squarefoot metal shed covers the living quarters consisting of two mobile homes, one with a 432-square-foot stick-built addition. Electricity is on site and water is provided by a strong well. $1,872,000.

INTRACOASTAL WATERWAY OASIS - 55Âą ACRES Southeast Texas v Matagorda County v Matagorda

ocated on the Intracoastal Waterway five miles east of Matagorda, this 55.1-acre tract with 1,468 feet of waterfront is within sight of the land cut into East Matagorda Bay providing easy access to some of the Texas coastâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s premier bay fishing. A short boat ride through the Matagorda jetties to the Gulf of Mexico offers excellent offshore fishing. If you have ever dreamed of building your own secluded waterfront paradise and want to get away from the overcrowding that has become prevalent along the Texas coast, this is the spot. Imagine your compound with enough room for an airstrip, where you can spend time with family and friends, entertain business associates or just relax while watching sea birds at sunset. Owner financing! $1,500,000.

Bill Barton, Broker-Associate 830-257-8881 info@meekranchsales.com meekranchsales.com

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TEXAS

SELECT

FAULKNER RANCH 4,540Â± Acres | Texas Hill Country | Kerr County | Hunt, TX

Showcasing the best in Live Water, Hunting, Legacy Properties, and Homes on Acreage. 128 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

he historic Faulkner Ranch is one of the finest turnkey ranches in the Texas Hill Country! Located in southwestern Kerr County just west of Hunt, Texas, this 4,540±acre ranch is a haven for both native and exotic wildlife and is easily accessible with frontage on both Hwy 39 and FM 187. With over 13± miles of chip sealed road, the ranch is reachable in every direction. The majority of cedar has been removed from the high-fenced property that has been divided into three game-fenced pastures of 3,473±, 667±, and 400± acres. Plentiful vegetation for wildlife has been enhanced by a rotational grazing program. A variety of oak, walnut, pecan and hackberry trees dot the landscape. The main house, affectionately referred to as “the Big House,” rests on a beautiful 9.5± acre tract. The 5,460± square-foot ranch-style home has four bedrooms, a massive fireplace, wet bar, game room, gorgeous exposed wooden beams and exposed ductwork. It includes an attached garage and two guest apartments. A 1910 school house has been restored to include a bedroom and bath, and a nearby rock pila has been converted into a swimming pool. A foreman’s residence is a four-bedroom, two-bath double-wide manufactured home. A sleeping-quarters barn encompasses 7,500± square-feet within its six bays and includes three manufactured homes with a total of seven bedrooms between them. The 6,250±-square-foot equipment barn houses a walk-in cooler and game processing area. The ranch has been well-managed to provide exceptional habitat for wildlife including whitetail deer, wild turkey, dove, axis deer, fallow deer, blackbuck antelope, red deer, barasingha and feral hogs. A Level III Managed Lands Deer Permit is in place. Groundwater is plentiful with 15 wells outfitted with a mix of solar and electric submersible pumps, piped to tanks and troughs throughout the property. Available for $18,250,000. v

Ken Hoerster - Broker | TexasRanchesForSale.com - Info@TexasRanchesForSale.com - (830) 249-9339 FarmAndRanch.com 129

Three contiguous ranches in Coke County â&#x20AC;&#x201C; total of 2,717 acres.

All high fenced and in turnkey condition. Picturesque views of the rolling countryside. Any or all of these ranches would make the perfect weekend getaway or working cattle operation. Call to set up a tour today!

762 Acre Ranch

his stunning 762 acre ranch is high fenced and stocked with exotic animals including zebra, oryx and antelope. Relax in the 2 bedroom, 1 bath lodge with screened porch, fish in the nearby pond or dip your toes in over 1000 feet Yellow Wolf Creek. Also included on this property are 2 Large barns, 3 water wells (2 solar), 2 cattle troughs and 5 dirt bottom stock tanks. Any owned minerals will convey with the sale. Asking $2,495/ac

995 Acre Ranch

his beautiful 995 acre, high fenced ranch with rolling topography is eager for your personal touch. Some of the acreage is cleared and ready for cultivation or improved grasses. The ranch features three water wells (1 solar) and 2 wooden barns with adjacent cattle pens. Strategically located with frontage on both Highway 208 and Friendship Rd. Any owned minerals will convey with the sale. Asking $1,975/ac

960 Acre Ranch

xperience breathtaking views on this 960 acre high fenced ranch. Perfect for a working cattle operation. The ranch includes a 5 BR, 3 BA manufactured home perched on the highest ridge, 3 water wells (1 Solar), livestock troughs, covered cattle pens, horse barn with tack room and insulated shop. Any owned minerals will convey with the sale. Asking $2,175/ac

Charlie Drennan 325-650-9087 www.BravoCommercialRealty.com Cdrennan@BravoCommercialRealty.com

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LONE PINE RANCH

PARKER RANCH

CANYON CREEK RANCH

COVELO, CALIFORNIA

KEYSTONE, NEBRASKA

PLACERVILLE, COLORADO

Nothing is contrived about this ranch. Purchased by Dean Witter in 1942, this 26,600± acre legacy ranch on the Eel River has been in his family for generations. It is a living vein of California’s ranching history.

The Parker Ranch is north of Keystone with 27,482± deeded, 1,280± acres state lease. 34 different pastures, 100 miles of pipeline plus 35 windmills. Range and cake ranch. Beautiful owners home. Excellent condition.

Located only 25 miles from Telluride and within an hour’s drive of local airports, Canyon Creek Ranch offers 3,247± acres of Colorado mountain ranch land, world-class views, wildlife, and numerous sites to build.

$31,000,000

$24,000,000

REDUCED TO $14,750,000

ELK MEADOW RANCH

SON HI RANCH

ROCKING R - HORSE RANCH

EVERGREEN, COLORADO

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, COLORADO

LYONS, COLORADO

Within the magnificent Evans Ranch, Elk Meadow is near Evergreen west of Denver. Totaling 700± acres, Elk Meadow is adjacent to National Forest. A comfortable family home compliments the property.

Gorgeous views and a Flat Tops Range backdrop complement this 1,046± acre ranch. Bordering national forest, the property offers a beautiful residence, excellent hunting, stocked ponds, creeks, and agricultural operations.

Rocking R - Horse Ranch is a turnkey, professional-grade equestrian property only 16 miles from Boulder. Offering 111± acres, considerable infrastructure, irrigated meadows, water rights, and easy accessibility.

$8,000,000

$7,950,000

$5,800,000

WWW.HALLANDHALL.COM | INFO@HALLANDHALL.COM | 888.260.4470 132 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

AUSTIN LAKES RANCH

CROCKETT RANCH

EL DORADO PRESERVE

BOERNE, TEXAS

RECLUSE, WYOMING

GOLDEN, COLORADO

Austin Lakes Ranch, being 1,225± acres perched high in the hills northwest of Boerne, sizzles with eight nice stocked lakes and beautiful, sprawling homes and outbuildings with premium infrastructure.

This 13,700± contiguous, almost entirely deeded acre ranch near Recluse includes 1,200± acres of meadows, complete set of improvements, and offers some of the best private elk and deer hunting in the state.

Featuring 812± acres of undeveloped mountain land located eight miles from Golden and within 35 minutes of downtown Denver. A combination of meadows, abundant tree cover, diverse topography, and exceptional views.

$14,355,000

$9,300,000

$8,120,000

WALNUT CREEK RANCH

OAK HILLS RANCH

THREE MILE FORKS

MALAKOFF, TEXAS

MASON, TEXAS

FRANKLIN, TEXAS

Walnut Creek Ranch offers great accessibility to Dallas for the serious cattleman, hunter, and every outdoor enthusiast. Rolling improved pastures and rugged untamed wildlife habitat combined in one offering.

Oak Hills Ranch, 1,093± acres in northwest Mason County, offers rolling oak/mesquite country loaded with game and tall grass. Other features are distant views, huge oaks, good soils, well, fences and pens.

Situated on 184± acres, Three Mile Forks boasts the setting and improvements most coveted in the area. Home, bunkhouse, shop, barns, improved pastures, wildlife and wooded areas, all combined in one ranch.

$4,348,750

$3,251,675

$1,600,000

SALES | AUCTIONS | FINANCE | APPRAISALS | MANAGEMENT FarmAndRanch.com 133

l Sueno is approximately 750 acres of gorgeous Hill Country with exceptional views, and excellent water resources. The ranch features live water, a variety of native and exotic wildlife, an excellent road system, 11 miles of perimeter high fencing and gates and abundant hardwoods. The ranch is situated near the intersection of SH-46 and SH-16, and has frontage on both highways. It is 35 miles from the San Antonio Texas Hill Country v Bandera County v Pipe Creek International Airport, and convenient to Boerne, Bandera, Helotes, and San Antonio. The convenient location and ranch terrain with wide level areas, gently sloping plateaus, and premier hilltops offers excellent future development opportunities. Co-listed with Dudley Hays, 210-854-2243.

EL SUENO

AZZARO RANCH Central Texas v Wilson County v Floresville his sprawling 192±-acre ranch has been called home for many years by world renowned Hall of Fame polo player, Mike Azzaro. The property boasts wide open hay fields, horse pastures, large recreational ponds and approximately 75 acres for hunting deer, dove, hogs, and more. The main home is an extravagant creation with more than 5,000 square-feet of custom finishes including a trophy room, wine room, humidor and many entertainment features. Go to Vimeo.com/283035718 for full video. Co-listed with Barrett Houser, 210-364-6184.

210-240-8282 • Rick.Kuper@sothebysrealty.com • KuperRealty.com 134 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

1033 HWY 473 RANCH Texas Hill Country v Kendall County v Kendalia

ith almost one mile fronting on the beautiful Guadalupe River, this 882± acre ranch offers pumping rights for irrigating

the cultivated fields. You or your friends can land their aircraft on the 3,400±-foot paved airstrip, then proceed to the full equestrian facilities or the rolling Hill Country landscape filled with wildlife such as axis deer, blackbuck antelope, native whitetail deer, turkey, dove, hogs and more. Enjoy this wonderful recreational ranch for years to come, knowing that you’ll have a healthy exit strategy, with its 4,000-feet of frontage on FM 473 just outside of Sisterdale, Comfort and Boerne. To see this great property, call Rick Kuper at 210-240-8282 or Charlie Kuper at 210-844-0911. For a video go to https://vimeo.com/275295632

MYRTLE CREEK RANCH 1,900 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Bandera County

C Ranch sits on the headwaters of Myrtle Creek. This panoramic 1,900-acre box canyon ranch offers a unique opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors. Hunt trophy whitetail deer from the rare TC-1 closed-herd breeding program, as well as free range buffalo, turkey, and a

great variety of exotic game. Fish for trophy hybrid Florida large-mouth bass in the expansive seven-acre lake that feeds a five-acre lake. There are nine dammed ponds throughout the numerous large valleys that make up this special box canyon ranch. Drive comfortably around the ranch on 20+ miles of chip sealed and gravel roads that allow access to every hilltop Rick Kuper and valley. Check out more photos and videos 210-240-8282 at myrtlecreekranch.com or call Rick Kuper at 210-240-8282 or Diana Gonzalez at 210-771-3715.

Rick.Kuper@sothebysrealty.com KuperRealty.com

FarmAndRanch.com 135

C5 RANCH 1,118 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Llano County v Llano

5 is located in southeast Llano County at the foot of the Riley Mountains, nestled among the Sandy and Honey Creek watersheds. This distinguished grandfather of a ranch is rich in Llano County history having been the former site of Click, Texas, named after early Llano County settler Malachi Click and his family. The ranch features lengthy portions of both Spring and Barnett Branches whose headwaters originate a short distance upstream in the Riley Mountains. These wet-weather creeks generate an enormous amount of run-off from the mountains during rainfall and have been cleared to reveal hundreds of beautiful century-old oaks. Multiple tanks are present throughout the ranch; the largest of which is a 10-acre, 20-foot deep lake when full. The lake is full of bass and has been the focal point for many family fishing trips with the grandkids. Beautiful uninterrupted 360-degree vistas can be seen from the apex of the ranch. Devil’s Toenail, Lucky Mountain, the Packsaddle Mountains, and Sandy Creek Valley are all just a head turn away. Much thought and care have been taken in transforming this spectacular ranch into the perfect combination of cattle ranch, recreation and hunting. Nearly 10 miles of new fencing have been constructed to create 16 pastures and hundreds of acres of carefully cleared grassland and road creation. Five water wells, 15 cisterns and several miles of piped-underground water allow for an abundant amount of water for livestock and wildlife. In addition to the hundreds of acres of improved grasses and fields, revival of original cattle pens and storage barns, C5 boasts an updated and restored headquarters featuring all the comforts you would expect and more. C5 is located approximately 55 miles from Austin, 19 miles from Llano, and 12 miles from Horseshoe Bay. An owner is only minutes from enjoying the Highland Lake activities from the ranch. Baylor Scott and White/Marble Falls and Horseshoe Bay airport are just a short drive away. If you have been searching for the perfect piece of Texas Hill Country basked in an area of history and lore, C5 Ranch merits your attention. Call Michele, 325-347-4702.

830-992-3045 • Mitch@ReataRanchRealty.com • ReataRanchRealty.com 136 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

BURNET OAKS RANCH 395 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Burnet County v Burnet f you are looking for a place to escape the hustle and bustle of the big city to spend time with family and friends, or a great investment/ development property within the growth of Austin, then this merits your attention. Call Michele “Mitch” Smith, 325-347-4702.

MCCURDY RANCH 83 ACRES

Texas Hill Country Gillespie County v Fredericksburg estled among ancient oaks and pecans on the edge of Fredericksburg city limits sits this truly divine oasis. A spacious ranch home rests in a park-like setting complete with an 1800’s log cabin, impressive horse barn, massive tank, and creek frontage. A rare find with great opportunity. Call Jenny, 830-456-3551.

NEAL RANCH

85-175 ACRE TRACTS

Texas Hill Country v Kimble Co. v Junction nique ranch tracts only come around once in a blue moon. With its breathtaking vistas overlooking the Blue Mountains, Holden Hollow and the Llano River Valley, frontage on Johnson Fork Creek, and abundant wildlife—this one is sure to make your short list. Call Adam, 830-456-3277 or Traeger, 830-992-0374.

LOYAL VALLEY RANCH 316 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Llano County v Llano

ride of ownership is evident upon first glance at this Hill Country gem located in what is known as the “Deer Capital of Texas.” The gently rolling terrain transitions into improved pasture land along with two ponds and a seasonal creek. This is an exceptional combination ranch ready for a proud new owner. Call Adam, 830-456-3277.

Michele “Mitch” Smith, Broker 325-347-4702 cell 830-992-3045 • 325-294-4333 Mitch@ReataRanchRealty.com

FarmAndRanch.com 137

UPPER BALCONES RANCH 165 ACRES

Central Texas v Bexar County v Boerne

eautiful rolling property with seep spring-fed grotto and hilltop building sites just minutes from San Antonio and Boerne. Fields can be used for hay or wildlife food plots. Bottom land area below the hill is highlighted with huge elm and oak trees. Recent selective cedar clearing opens access to these areas and has improved the extensive network of roads. $2,818,000.

MEDINA LAKE RANCH 166 ACRES

Central Texas v Medina County v Mico

igh-fenced, rolling hills overlooking Medina Lake with a large barn and very comfortable open floorplan home. A variety of game, including oryx, roam the ranch in the areas that have been selectively cleared of cedar. Just a short drive from San Antonio to the private serenity of this Hill Country ranch. Owner will also sell 100 acres without the improvements. $1,300,000.

210-901-1000 â&#x20AC;˘ info@landinvestex.com â&#x20AC;˘ landinvestex.com 138 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

YOAKUM HIGHWAY HOME - 3Âą ACRES

CUERO DEVELOPMENT - 14 ACRES Central Texas v DeWitt County v Cuero

Central Texas v Lavaca County v Yoakum

reat frontage on State Hwy 95 with a three-bedroom, three-bath, rime development property at the intersection of Hwy 183 and two-kitchen home. Great for residence, offices or field headquarters. Hwy 77 north of Cuero. Over 675 feet of frontage on Hwy 183 Minutes to Yoakum and the municipal airport. Other improvements and more than 1,000 feet of Hwy 77-A frontage. The property is level include a 350-foot water well, septic and electric. $175,000. and open with high visibility and good traffic counts. Commercial development is established in the area. Will divide. $700,000.

KENEDY HIGHWAY FRONTAGE - 46 ACRES JACKSON CREEK - 86 ACRES Texas Hill Country v Bandera County v Medina

nique Hill Country property with both sides of beautiful Jackson off Scenic Hwy 337 between Vanderpool and Medina. Great views of the surrounding hills and creek. Deer, turkey and other native game and birds are plentiful. Near Vanderpool winery, Medina apple orchards, Lost Maples, Garner Park, Kerrville, about an hour to San Antonio. $1,189,000.

Central Texas v Karnes County v Kenedy

reat location south of Kenedy with frontage on both Hwy 181 and Business Hwy 181 access road. Will divide. $368,000.

WINNIE CATTLE RANCH - 130 ACRES Southeast Texas v Jefferson County v Winnie

KENEDY DEVELOPMENT LAND - 66 ACRES Central Texas v Karnes County v Kenedy

reat access to sewer, water, power, frontage on 181. With oneof-a-kind location ideally suited for a variety of developing options. Will divide. Broker owned. Call for price.

bout 130 acres tucked away on the Jefferson and Chambers County line. Just 30 minutes from Beaumont and 20 minutes from the Gulf Coast. Perfect cattle-grazing land with partial brush cover, water tank, and electricity nearby. $448,500.

Jim Fuchs, Broker

San Antonio, Utopia & Montgomery

210-901-1000

info@landinvestex.com landinvestex.com FarmAndRanch.com 139

REAVIS RIVER RANCH 53± ACRES

Central Texas v Coryell County v Killeen

iverfront, located less than one hour from Austin. Beautiful land that has a multitude of possibilities. There are towering pecan and oak trees along the banks of the Lampasas River and productive soils that are ideal for hay production, food plots or sunflowers for the bird hunter. Hunt for deer, turkey, dove, while the cool, clear waters of the river provide fishing opportunities. This land has been in the same family for more than 100 years. This is a rare chance to own your own riverfront acreage! $457,300.

LAKE TRAVIS RANCH 809± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Burnet County v Marble Falls

his picturesque ranch is now back on the market for sale. From breathtaking views to Lake Travis shoreline frontage, this property has it all. Great development potential or kept intact, the ranch exhibits the upmost of a Highland Lakes/Hill Country perfect spot. Lake Travis frontage is approximately 1,900 feet. This unique property has three interior lakes, grandiose views, and a great location in the Highland Lakes/Hill Country of central Texas. It is one of the largest properties for sale in the area with Lake Travis frontage and access. $11,000,000.

CREEKSIDE RANCH 486 ACRES

Central Texas v Coryell County v Gatesville

pproximately 30 minutes west of Waco, the ranch is easily accessible with over 1.3 miles of paved CR 267 frontage. Much of the cedar has been cleared, leaving a park of live oaks, chinkapin, burr, black jack oak, elm, black walnut, and pecan trees. There are approximately 100 acres of improved pasture. The land has varied terrain with over 150-foot elevation change. Over 1.3 miles, both sides of clear-flowing Coryell Creek winds through the ranch and three concrete dams create tremendous fishing and swimming areas. In addition to the creek, there is a large lake stocked with bass and clear enough for swimming. A very nice two-bedroom, one-bath home makes a great weekend residence. $3,900,000.

WESTERN SKIES RANCH 232± ACRES

Central Texas v Washington Co. v Washington nly a short drive from Brenham, you will discover this scenic 232.6-acre working ranch. Set amid a stunning countryside and large adjoining tracts, there are spectacular long-distant views. Cedar framed ranch-style home with large shady porches to watch spectacular sunsets. Made of a rich sandy loam soil, the ranch is perfect for hay and livestock production. The pastures are all native and improved grasses, extensively fenced and crossed-fenced and with five stocked lakes. $3,500,000.

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pectacular ranch about one hour northwest of Austin. The ranch has over 150 feet in elevation changes and there are big views from numerous locations. Good tree cover consisting of live oak, Spanish oak, pecan, mesquite, and cedar. There is approximately 100 acres of productive river bottom. There is fishing from several ponds, including one around 2.5 acres. An intermittent creek meanders through the property and is an ideal lake site. One mile of Lampasas River frontage provides fishing, kayaking, and swimming 1,626 ACRES opportunities. The ranch is high-fenced and Texas Hill Country v Burnet County v Kempner has been game managed. Seller has added $100,000 of high quality whitetail the last three years. In addition to the deer, there is great dove and turkey hunting. A variety of exotics can be purchased separately. In the river bottom is a multi-acre Indian campground, where arrowheads and artifacts have been found. A four-bedroom, two full and one half bath, limestone house sits on a hill and overlooks the Lampasas River valley. A second home is a neat log home that has four bedrooms and baths. A recently constructed 40x120 metal barn/workshop is fully air conditioned. Other improvements include a metal pole barn, bunkhouse, and working pens. If you are looking for a turnkey ranch with a multitude of uses, come see the Arrowhead Ranch. $8,937,500.

ARROWHEAD RANCH

OLD THOMAS RANCH 420Âą ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Burnet County v Burnet

ld Thomas Ranch can be found just 60 minutes from Austin and features the highest end of authentic Texas ranch lifestyle. Established in 1864 by early Texas pioneers, stewards of this historic Hill Country ranch have lovingly restored its sprawling period ranch house and transformed it with the very best in modern amenities. Sitting on the porch carries the owner and guests to a simpler time, while offering extensive comfort and convenience. The additions of two wonderful guest homes, equipment barn, arena, and multiple other amenities make this ranch one of the finest offerings in Texas. The original owners wisely placed the headquarters at the bottom of a hill to catch the heavier cool air, and next to a flowing spring for water, with massive oaks and pecan trees providing cool shade. Made of huge limestone blocks and adobe brick, the ranch house stays cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Large rooms with high timber beam ceilings accent this antique home. There are three bedrooms and two full baths in the main house, while the two guest homes each have a single bedroom, kitchen, living area and full bath. The main house includes large entry hall, den, spacious dining area, office area, a chiefâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kitchen, separate pantry room, and full utility room. The main house also has numerous porch/patio areas to enjoy the lush native landscaping and screened-in Texas-size patio with outdoor kitchen. One might believe that only in an Austin Historical District could you find this fine of a home. The ranch is located four mile west of Burnet, on top of Back Bone Ridge which overlooks the rugged red granite hills of the Llano uplift and sky-blue Highland Lakes in the distant. Highland Lakes are home to the best Drew Colvin boating, skiing and championship striped bass fishing in all of Texas. Consists of more than 512-755-2078 420 acres of spectacular rolling topography, trees, three natural springs, abundant native drew@txranchbrokers.com game and scenic views. The property is low fenced and sanctuary to an abundance of native wildlife. It is heavily wooded except for pastures and glades of native grasses. There are interior ranch roads suitable for ATVs, hiking and horseback riding. The headquarters and outdoor arena are accessible by an all-weather paved road. This is an exceptional ranch property with a lot of appeal and diverse options for recreation. $4,200,000.

Mike Bacon 512-940-8800

mike@txranchbrokers.com txranchbrokers.com FarmAndRanch.com 141

LAMPASAS RIVER 55± ACRES

Central Texas v Lampasas County v Lampasas

ome see this beautiful riverfront tract located on the Lampasas River just north of Lampasas. It is difficult to find this type of diversity with excellent river frontage, huge trees, fertile soil and scenic rolling hills with views. $429,000. Also 37.11 acres with river frontage available at $318,000.

ADAMSVILLE 10± ACRES

Central Texas Lampasas County v Adamsville eat three-bedroom, two-bath remodeled vintage rock ranch house on 10.71 oak covered acres. Located north of Lampasas $324,000.

LAMPASAS 11± ACRES

Central Texas v Lampasas Co. v Lampasas leven acres available with beautiful Hill Country views and great oaks. Easy access from Austin; not far off Hwy 281. $6,785 per acre with owner financing available. Price will be discounted for cash/ bank financing. More acreage available.

Creekside Rural Investments, Inc 325-223-0173

cri@creeksiderural.com creeksiderural.com ALL PROPERTIES OWNED BY CREEKSIDE AND ITS AFFILIATES.

142 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

ARNOLD FARM 323 ACRES

Southeast Texas v Walker Co. v New Waverly rnold Farm is a rolling, picturesque, hidden, pasture-type property with an abundance of common boundary to the Sam Houston National Forest. Hilltop entrance. Scattered, huge hardwoods with wooded mots along boundary. Welllocated in proximity to Interstate 45 and the Houston metroplex. $2,874,700.

WATSON LAKE 306 ACRES

Southeast Texas v Walker Co. v Huntsville djoins the Sam Houston National Forest! This retreat ranch with managed timber has a ranch-style home with large covered front porch overlooking a lake. There is a guest house also overlooking the lake with a grape vineyard in between the homes. This managed pine timber tract offers future revenue as well as recreation, hunting and fishing. $2,350,000.

DAWSON HILL 262 ACRES

Southeast Texas v Walker Co. v Huntsville elcome home to a rolling East Texas ranch with excellent location between Huntsville and College Station. Fenced and cross-fenced with water, two ponds, portable working pens, underground electric, and approximately 30 percent wooded in pine and scattered oaks. Paved road frontage. $1,570,690.

LUFKIN LOG CABIN 123 ACRES

Southeast Texas v Angelina County v Lufkin

eautiful log home in immaculate condition nestled in the pines of East Texas. Available on 123 acres or on 16 acres. Includes a barn and plenty of space to enjoy nature. $617,500.

Andy Flack, Broker John Paul Lampson, Broker 936-295-2500 office HomeLandProperties.com HomeLandLand.com

FarmAndRanch.com 143

THE BOOTS RANCH 839Âą ACRES

South Texas v Jim Wells County v Orange Grove

he Boots Ranch is a shining example of what hard work, attention to detail, and a great piece of South Texas soil can produce! More than 839 acres of prime grazing, stock tanks and fishing lake, new galvanized cross and perimeter fencing, two sets of cattle pens, two big barns, irrigation water well and domestic well, wet weather creek, great bird and deer hunting featured, and to top it offâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a beautiful ranch home and barndominium! This ranch is ready to move in and use today. $2,515,000.

LA PRESA RANCH 439.81 ACRES

South Texas v Duval County v Freer

Tom W. Davis 361-813-8761

twd@texasranchbrokerage.com texasranchbrokerage.com 144 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

a Presa Ranch is located in a historically trophy buck producing area of South Texas! Managed and owned by renowned biologist and whitetail researcher Dr. Charles DeYoung, this property is in excellent condition and its deer herd has been improved with superior Faith Ranch influenced genetics. New high fencing, great new three-bedroom, two-bath, fully furnished ranch home, beautiful stock tank, top end blinds and feeders, and excellent road system throughout the property. Cattle pens, water well, deep fertile red sandy loam soils, and fantastic views are here at La Presa. Located only one hour west of Corpus Christi, this ranch is completely turnkey and priced to sell! $2,595/acre or $1,141,307.

3 BEAUTIFUL TRACTS Central Texas v Lee County v Austin/Houston

entrally located between Austin and Houston, these three contiguous tracts of land total 403Âą beautiful acres. Buy all three or split them up. FM 1624 frontage. Tract 1: 132.055 acres; Tract 2: 159.547 acres; Tract 3: 110.492 acres. The property offers nice returns on hay production and is meticulously maintained. Lincoln or Lee County water, multiple tanks, improved open land boasting high quality coastal grasses. Perfect for continued hay production, grazing or development. House, barns with electricity, nice roads. Water rights convey. Christen S. Steen, Broker, 512-589-1315, christen.realtor@hotmail.com.

CARANCAHUA RIVERFRONT RANCH Southeast Texas v Jackson County v Palacios

atch redfish, trout, and flounder from the shores of this 42.6 acre coastal hunting property with over 1,000 feet of waterfront. Cruise by boat four miles down the deep, slow waters of the East Carancahua Creek to the legendary Vaes/Carancahua Bay, the northern extension of the Matagorda Bay system. Plenty of wild land game abounds on this heavy-brush ranch including doves, duck, and deer, so enjoy a cast and blast at this true sportsmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hideout. Private road, water available, and electric utility in place will afford you a secluded hunting/fishing retreat to share with your friends and family. Bethany Weigl, REALTOR, 512-585-4321, bethanyweigl@hotmail.com.

txrealestatepeople.com FarmAndRanch.com 145

NEW WAVERLY RANCH - 498 ACRES

HIGH FENCED GAME RANCH - 328± ACRES

Southeast Texas v Walker County v New Waverly

Southeast Texas v Grimes County v Iola

Custom Home • Great Location • Wildlife • Will Divide

Barndominium • Lakes • Pavilion • Equipment Barn

RAVENWOOD RANCH - 181 ACRES

COTTON VALLEY RANCH - 165 ACRES

Southeast Texas v Walker County v Huntsville

Central Texas v Grimes County v Bedias

Excellent Location • Good Pastures • Creek

Pasture • Hay Field • Barn & Working Pens

PALESTINE CATTLE RANCH - 139 ACRES

BENTLEY RANCH - 164 ACRES

Northeast Texas v Anderson County v Palestine

Farmhouse • Livestock and Equipment Barns • Arena • Cattle Pens

Rustic Ranch Home • Barn • Pastures

Selling Quality Texas Properties Since 1970 936-295-5989 contact@markhamrealty.com

MarkhamRealty.com

146 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

BEASLEY RANCH 116 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Gillespie County v Fredericksburg

istoric rock home on acreage near Enchanted Rock. Property has paved county road frontage plus one well/windmill, large trees, lots of brush, and small field for food plot. Good hunting for deer, turkey, hogs, and doves. $850,000.

mazing views from hilltop home with several other hilltop building sites. Large pond and smaller pond with two water wells and several fields with good soil. $1,750,000.

POHL RANCH 213 ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Gillespie County v Fredericksburg

ROBERTSON RANCH 28± ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Gillespie Co. v Harper emote ranch-style home with approximately 3,800 square-feet featuring five bedrooms, three and one-half bathrooms, and two-car garage/workshop. Very treed with good hunting. Extra acreage is available. $594,950.

Vic Nixon, Broker 830-997-2187

info@nixonrealestate.com texashillcountryhuntingranches.com fredericksburgtxhomesites.com nixonrealestate.com

Residential • Recreation • Farm Development • Commercial Gated Subdivisions • Hunting Tracts B & B’s • Rentals • Ranches FarmAndRanch.com 147

GRAPETOWN RETREAT - 18± ACRES Texas Hill Country v Kendall County v Fredericksburg

FRIENDSHIP LANE - 82 ACRES Texas Hill Country v Gillespie County v Fredericksburg

ocated within the city limits of Fredericksburg are 21 acres zoned istoric Doebbler Inn property has hospitality heritage. Current R-2 that feature frontage on Friendship Lane, access to city water owners use the six bedrooms, six and one-half bathrooms to host and sewer, two driveways, and a pond. Terrain varies from level to friends. Main house has two bedrooms, two and one-half bathrooms, sloping to gently rolling. $1,795,000. Additional land, for a total of 82 great room, library, two offices, wine cellar, kitchen with Wolf range and acres, is also available for $4,975,000. soapstone counters. Original is circa 1904 and addition completed in 2003. Large dormitory is upstairs; downstairs is a wine cellar. The rock and wood work throughout, and three inside fireplaces add ambiance - 250± ACRES along with outside fireplace, two-bedroom, two-bath guesthouse beside pool, and patio surround. The old stable near amphitheater/ Texas Hill Country v Gillespie County v Harper stage was restored into cantina and two casitas. The 18.425 acres boasts a one-acre Tempranilla vineyard. $1,995,000.

ROADRUNNER RANCH

AGARITA LANE - 45 ACRES Texas Hill Country v Gillespie County v Fredericksburg

he 250.75-acre Roadrunner Ranch is about nine miles north of Harper in the ultimate wildlife and recreational area of the Texas Hill Country. Whitetail habitat is ideal with tree cover varying from Spanish oak, live oak, cedar elm, and shin oak brush. Terrain ranges from draws to hilltop plateaus. These plateaus sport one of the highest elevations in Gillespie County. The far reaching Hill Country his 45-acre ranch, in the wine corridor near Fredericksburg views are another feature that makes this a special place. The ranch and Luckenbach, features a spacious, custom home with four is perimeter fenced and has an attractive two-bedroom, two-bath bedrooms (one bedroom for office), three baths, an open living room ranch-style home. Call Cullen. $1,295,000. with dining area, wood stove, ample closet and storage space, and great kitchen with island. The ranch is perimeter fenced, with garden and yard, working pens, and a storage barn. Call Charlie. $975,000.

DOSS-CHERRY SPRING AREA - 52± ACRES Texas Hill Country v Gillespie County v Doss

CRABAPPLE CREEK - 61± ACRES Texas Hill Country v Gillespie County v Fredericksburg

pring-fed, Crabapple Creek meanders through this 61.5-acre ranch creating gorgeous setting with swimming holes and his 52.5-acre ranch near Cherry Spring has paved county road fishing spots. Large trees, including pecans, run along the creek frontage, four-bedroom, two-bathroom home on the hilltop plus bank. Ranch has paved county road frontage, an old barn, working a metal shop building. The incredible, far-reaching Hill Country views pens, and old rock fences. $895,000. are mesmerizing. $895,000.

For a private ranch tour, call or e-mail Real Estate Advisory Team.

info@readvisoryteam.com • 830-997-3400 • Readvisoryteam.com 148 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

pproximately 45 minutes north of San Antonio is one of the most beautiful properties in the Texas Hill Country. Situated on 50 acres of prime Hill Country real estate, the palatial 9,900-square-foot custom home by Guy Burnett offers four bedrooms and four full bathrooms, exquisite interiors, summer kitchen, wine cellar and bar. The iconic and timeless architecture is enhanced by magnificent surroundings including a spectacular, awardwinning Zars pool and spa. Access is by paved road with automatic gates. Priced at $3,300,000.

BREATHTAKING LUXURY AT DIAMOND E RANCH Texas Hill Country v Kendall County v Boerne

LANDMARK EQUESTRIAN PROPERTY

Central Texas v Comal County v Fair Oaks Ranch

RESORT-STYLE LUXURY

erfect for horse lovers! More than 12 acres featuring an original windmill and cistern from Ralph Fair Ranch. The 5,400-square-foot home features a bright, open floor plan with spaWITH AMAZING VIEWS cious living areas, fireplace and wet bar, plus chef’s kitchen with adjoining breakfast area overTexas Hill Country v Kerr Co. v Comfort looking the sparkling pool. A game/media room is upstairs. The property also includes a party n the heart of the Texas Hill Country, this threepavilion, pool, spa, firepit and outdoor fireplace for entertaining, and a pecan orchard, as well as bedroom, three-bath masterpiece is nestled a BarnMaster six-stall horse barn and workshop. Level pastures and arena with soft natural footing make this perfect for riding. Easy access to Fair Oaks Ranch trail system. Priced at $1,890,000. among trees on 42 magnificent acres with spectacular views. The home features beamed, vaulted ceilings, hardwood floors and interior and exterior walls constructed from Sisterdale stone. There are two master suites with study areas and luxurious private baths—one with a den and balcony. Adjacent to the main home is a two-bedroom guesthouse plus separate sauna and greenhouse/studio. A rock-ledged River Oaks pool and decorative windmill complete this dream property. Priced at $1,650,000.

AWARD-WINNING CONTEMPORARY DESIGN 30 AG-EXEMPT ACRES

Texas Hill Country v Kendall County v Boerne

his 4,000-square-foot contemporary masterpiece offers exceptional Hill Country living. The home features silver Idaho rock, travertine and wood floors, stone fireplace and chef’s kitchen. Walls of glass showcase spectacular views. Detached studio/guesthouse with adjacent pool and spa backs up to a seasonal creek. Includes a horse barn and grazing pasture plus helipad and helicopter hangar. Priced at $1,375,000.

Denise Graves 210-260-2176

denise@thegravesgroup.com thegravesgroup.com

FarmAndRanch.com 149

HACIENDA LOS GUACHOS RANCH 518 ACRES

Costa Rica v Guanacaste

Billy Long 970-948-1333

billy@rmabrokers.com rmabrokers.com 150 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

all in love with Costa Rica and have a great getaway off-the-grid for family and friends with just a threehour flight from Houston! This ranch pays for itself, has more recreation than you can imagine, and is close to the famous beach resorts of Costa Rica. Enjoy great fishing, rafting, animal viewing, hole up in the fishing lodge where the views make you think you own the world, ride a Razr to the on-ranch waterfall and enjoy multiple trails leading to the best fishing holes along one mile of the Cano Negro River. The women can surf, scuba dive, golf and lay on the beach at the Four Seasons Resort, while the men fish, disconnect, ride UTVs, punch cattle and make money from this 250-head cattle-fattening operation. The ranch is remote, yet accessible, unique and of incomparable beauty. Treat your friends and business associates to an adventure they will be talking about for years and wanting more. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss the cougars, coati, sloths, tapirs, armadillos, parrots, toucans, and exotic tropical birds as you ride your ranch mule back in improved grassland and dense tropical forests with views of Tenorio National Park. Pull great Tropical Gar from the river with spinning or fly equipment. Also, enjoy a ranch-grown, ripe and delicious coconut while touring the ranch. Discover a whole new world! For price, photos and videos on Costa Rica, please visit www.rmabrokers.com/listings/hacienda-los-guachos-ranch

THE VERANDA 68 ACRES

Northeast Texas v Franklin County v Mt. Vernon

nprecedented price for one of the most stunning estates in all of Texas. The Veranda has almost 70 acres of lush rolling terrain and includes acres of manicured landscape, in which a 1920s Victorian home, restored to its original grandeur, is situated perfectly to view the many amenities this property has to offer. The 4,200-square-foot residence includes five bedroom suites with upscale furnishings and the supplemental bunkhouse will accommodate another 18 occupants. The home’s commercial grade kitchen is a chef’s dream. With more than 1,000-square-feet of covered porch, you can enjoy the views of the resort-style in-ground pool and private lake. The estate includes a full-size sports court, gazebo, fire pit, miles of walking trails, ATVs and ATV trails, and deer blinds—just to name a few. This property could be used as a single family estate, an upscale B&B, a venue for corporate events, weddings, large parties, etc. Over one million dollars in renovations. Sold furnished! Additional 50 acres are available. $1,695,000.

3264 SE County Road 4115 Mt. Vernon, TX

Nicole Anderson 903-767-2805

nicole@ramseyrealtygroup.com nicolesellstexas.com

298.12 ACRES WITH SAN BERNARD RIVER FRONTAGE Southeast Texas v Fort Bend County v East Bernard/Hungerford

ecreational hunting ranch with San Bernard River frontage located approximately 40 to 50 minutes from Houston consisting of whitetail, hogs, and other native species of wildlife. There is a natural lake on the property that has continuous water and the perfect spot to catch a fish for dinner. The land is primarily very wooded which is a great habitat for wildlife, but does have several pastures that are currently used for hay production. In addition, this property includes a 60x50 shop/barn consisting of concrete/dirt floors, electric, 25x10 enclosed storage, a separate 15x15 shop with electric, a shed row building used as a dog kennel, and 200 amp electric service in place along with a 4 in water well. There is a 2 in water well used for irrigation only. Access is just off Hwy 59 and the main road of CR 227 in the Hungerford/East Bernard area. The combination of rolling topography, lake, river, wooded, pasture/grazing for cattle, abundance of wildlife, and location make this excellent hunting land and a great investment for the true outdoorsman. $2,272,438.

Vicki Miller Broker/Owner 713-254-5400

vicki@fortbendtexas.com • fortbendtexas.com FarmAndRanch.com 151

BIG HORN RANCH 35± ACRES

Colorado Gunnison County v Crested Butte elcome to Big Horn Ranch, a breathtaking Rocky Mountain creekfrontage property located just 20 minutes from downtown Crested Butte. Enjoying over 700 feet of prime Cement Creek fishing, this secluded ranch has space for corporate retreats or large family getaways. Expansive views of the valley can be seen from all four buildings which include a main threebedroom, two-bath home, guest cabin, historic barn, and large accessory dwelling with a massive living area, art studio and half bath. This 35.9 acre, heavily treed parcel borders National Forest with water rights and is easily accessible year-round. $1,995,000.

Corey Dwan 970-596-3219

coreydwan@crestedbuttecollection.com crestedbuttecollection.com

TEXAS ALLIANCE of LAND BROKERS By: Jodie Rapp, President

TALB monthly luncheons offer attendees an excellent opportunity to meet face to face with speakers who are industry leaders and learn about subjects that affect our everyday lives and business activities. During the past few months, we have enjoyed hearing information on a variety of current issues. v Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) – Dan McBride, DVM gave us a description of the disease, its history, current status, and thoughts on what might be expected in the future v Translocation of Pronghorns from the Texas Panhandle to release points in the Marfa area. Dan McBride’s presentation included a vivid description and photos of pronghorns being captured in the Texas Panhandle with nets from helicopters in the mornings, and then being transported to West Texas the following night. v State of Texas General Land Office (GLO) – Attendees heard an extensive presentation on working with the GLO (including use of their website tools) from Mark Neugebauer, Deputy Director of Surveying Services. Mark’s counterpart, GLO Deputy Director and Chief Appraiser Mark McAnally also attended and participated in the discussions. v Federal Government Regulation of US Surface Water – E. V. “Rusty” Adams III, Research Attorney at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University presented an update on current activities of the federal government and courts as they relate to public vs private control of surface water—very important issues that are certain to have a direct effect on our future. v Working with the Texas Legislature (2019 session) – Brad Shields, Managing Associate of Texas Legislative Associates (since 1988), talked about ways to get our issues addressed within current legislative processes—specifically discussing the upcoming 2019 legislative session and TREC’s sunset review. Brad is a prominent, well-respected lobbyist ranked by Mike Hailey’s Capitol Inside among the Top Hired Gun Contract Lobbyists in Texas and one of the Top Five Education Lobbyists in Texas. The TALB program committee has done an outstanding job of lining up speakers for these luncheons. Check the calendar on our website for future speakers and the TREC-approved Advanced Farm and Ranch coming in November. For more information about TALB, to RSVP to a monthly luncheon, or to apply for membership, visit our website texaslandbrokers.org or contact Jane Bushong Brown at (830) 329-3354. 152 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

Statewide Memberâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Meeting October 11, 2018 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM

Pearl Stable

San Antonio, Texas register online at www.tlma.org or call 512-479-5000 for more information

sponsorships available

WEARING THE WHITE HAT SINCE 1994 WW W .RO CKRIVERMINERA LS.CO M 432-262-1478

The Next Frontier

C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 3 7

Given the volatile nature of the cattle business, this income meant security, a permanent hedge against droughts and market fluctuations. It also could have meant great wealth for the shareholders, but Mr. Bob was notoriously frugal. He plowed most of the surplus monies back into the ranching operations and paid out only modest dividends. No one went hungry, but considering the value of the drilling operation, they could all have been much richer. After the major oil price increases of the OPEC-driven seventies, total revenue from the leases rose to $600 million, making the ranch’s share $100 million. That much money called attention to itself, and it did so with particular clarity in the days following the $105 million cash buyout of Johnson and Reynolds. Johnson, family members pointed out, had been able to turn his paper fortune into liquid wealth. Why couldn’t they do the same? Still chafing from years of Mr. Bob’s parsimoniousness, the family members now wanted the oil money they felt was theirs. The board voted to spin 75 percent of the royalties off directly, and permanently, to shareholders. In the peak years of the oil boom, this was a lot of money. It meant that the roughly thirty family owners were considerably richer than they had ever been before. But this event, known to the family as “the mineral distribution,” had the simultaneous effect of diverting the ranch’s revenue stream, a fact that would not be fully appreciated until the price of oil crashed in the eighties. In an attempt to replace the lost revenues, the ranch borrowed additional millions to invest in a subsidiary, King Ranch Oil and Gas (later King Ranch Energy) that drilled wells, primarily in and around the Gulf of Mexico. This put the business further at risk. But despite its hardships, the plan worked. Giving stockholders access to this wealth was the simplest way to guarantee that they would not, like Johnson, Shelton, and Reynolds, soon be lining up to sell their shares.

FOR A VARIETY OF REASONS—DEATH, taxes, divorce, family squabbles, falling profits, changing markets, somebody’s drinking or gambling problem—most families lose their landed heritage by the fourth or fifth generation. One of the chief contributors to these dissolutions is the tendency, among later generations, to live farther and farther from the old home place. Over time, as the families of the King Ranch owners and heirs continued to grow exponentially, fewer and fewer were opting to live on the ranch. As the tumultuous seventies slipped into the perilous eighties, they were scattered across the country, though as many as half managed to keep a residence in San Antonio. They had other jobs, other lives, and visited the ranch only rarely. By this time the King-Kleberg heirs were, in every sense of the term, old money, among the oldest in a country where the first large industrial fortunes had not been established until the middle of the nineteenth century. They behaved like old money, traveling abroad and between various residences in the United States, sitting on boards, giving generously to charities, and sending their children east to expensive, elite private boarding schools and leading private colleges. (Helenita attended Foxcroft boarding school in Virginia, and later commuted by air from Kingsville to Vassar 154 Volume 89 Texas Farm&Ranch

College in New York’s Hudson Valley, sometimes by private aircraft.) Like old money, too, the King-Kleberg heirs were quiet about their wealth: Theirs was not a culture of Ferraris and nightclubs and high living. But they no longer spent any significant time in Kingsville, the town founded by Robert Kleberg Sr. and Alice King Kleberg a few miles from the ranch headquarters. If you weren’t helping to run the place, then why put up with remote living in one of the hottest parts of North America, which also happened to be a cultural desert? The only family members who lived on the ranch anymore were Clement, Armstrong, and Mr. Dick’s grandson Stephen “Tio” Kleberg, the vice president in charge of the cattle outfit and agricultural enterprises. Another vice president, the husband of Mr. Dick’s daughter Katherine, William B. “Dub” Yarborough, looked after the oil business from Midland. Alongside the three businessmen Tio stood out. Many saw him as the last great patrón. He was a superb rider and an old-fashioned handson ranch manager who was often in the saddle from dawn to dusk, a man who could draw you a map of every pasture on the property and whose handlebar mustache suggested an iconic bond with the days of Captain King. Under his direction, the ranch replaced most of its homebred Santa Gertrudis cattle, for which it was world famous, with a hardy, well-marbled breed known as Santa Cruz—a composite of Santa Gertrudis (50 percent), Gelbvieh (25 percent), and Red Angus (25 percent). But neither Tio nor any of the other ranch managers wielded the power Mr. Bob had, and the Kleberg diaspora was left to face the problem of how to pay off the $100 million debt without a strong decision-making autocrat. “When the minerals were spun out, it made it that much tougher on the business,” Tio told me. “The numbers were huge,” agreed his wife, Janell, who worked for the ranch for many years in various capacities, including helping, on horseback, with roundups. “For an agricultural company to pay off that kind of debt was going to be very, very difficult.” In order to survive, the King Ranch had to be restructured from top to bottom according to modern management principles. Unprofitable businesses had to be sold off, costs had to be cut. The most obvious and painful place to start was the ranch’s birth-to-death social welfare system. It had been in place since the 1850’s and had been modeled on similar paternalistic practices in seventeenth-century Mexican haciendas. Looking back, it seems almost impossible that such an archaic system could have survived in America into the 1980’s. The families of more than five hundred workers had lived in houses on the four divisions. Rent was free, as were utilities. Education was taken care of by schools maintained by the ranch on three of the four divisions. As part of their salary, workers got a monthly ration of beef, milk, flour, and other sundries for their families. When they retired, they just stayed in place. “It was just the old way of doing things,” Tio explained. “We had no retirement plan. Literally, the retirement plan was, a guy would come to the house and tell Dad [Mr. Richie] that he was ready to retire. And Dad would say, ‘Here’s $125,’ and you’d get your milk and meat and a ration, everything you needed. If you were sick, you went to the foreman, and he wrote you a little order of paper that said you could go down to the Kingsville clinic and get your health care. That was it. There wasn’t any co-pay.” The huge expense was just part of the problem. The federal government now had wage guidelines and laws about documentation and child labor (sons of Kineños had apprenticed with their fathers in the saddle, going back more than a hundred years). The distasteful job of downsizing the system, and of getting rid of large numbers of faithful employees, fell mainly to Clement and Tio. “It was the toughest thing I have ever had to do,” Tio said. “We had what we called a voluntary early retirement.” They offered cash payouts and in a few years were able to reduce the staff by some 60 percent. In place of the old patrón system there are now updated and quite generous health and retirement plans. The company offers both matching funds for a 401(k) and a pension—a “defined benefit” increasingly rare among smaller companies. For active workers the houses are still free. The population, which fifty years ago hovered around 1,200, is now down to 300, of whom only 45

by the time he died, quite young, it was gone.” Then there was the example of B Johnson, who had a career as a prominent businessman in Texas after his buyout but spent the rest of his life in the thrall of the King Ranch. (“All he could do was look over his shoulder to Kingsville,” his first wife, Patsy, told the San Antonio Express-News.) “It was painful for us all to watch the way it was handled by the three parties,” said Tio, referring to the three who sold out in 1977. “I think there were some lessons. When you look at the underlying question—what do you really want out of it?—I can tell you this: B was not any happier the day he got out than the day he died. He was very unhappy. Money is not the answer. That would be the lesson. You have to be happy with yourself and what you are doing.” By the late eighties, it was apparent that a fundamental change had taken place in the family’s relationship to the ranch. The more physically detached the generations became from the life in Kingsville, the more they seemed, paradoxically, to value their legacy. “After we got the oil distribution and stopped trying to get the last drop of blood out of the cows,” said Helenita, “people started to see what a wonderful place they

Opposite page: King Ranch range and wildlife manager Butch Thompson, in the production office at Santa Gertrudis headquarters. Above, clockwise: Harvesters crossing a cotton field near Kingsville in the formation of the Running W, the King Ranch brand; Jack Hunt, the president and CEO of King Ranch Inc.; the ranch’s orange groves in southern Florida. Right: A cowboy resting on his horse.

are cowboys (compared with more than 400 in the old days). Many of the houses on the ranch are unoccupied; many more have been torn down. The other obvious targets for cost cutting were the foreign ranches. They had never been popular with most shareholders, mainly because they did not produce much income. “With a large segment of the family selling out in short order, the debt that came with that and the plunge in energy prices, those international properties were logical candidates for liquidation,” said Clement. “A lot of people in the family regarded it as less than optimal diversification.” Nor was there much emotion attached to them. So one by one the non-Texas properties were sold off: Venezuela and Argentina in 1986, Pennsylvania in 1987, Spain and Australia in 1989, Morocco in 1990. The Kentucky horse farm went in 1999. Because of foreign exchange problems, the huge Brazilian ranch, first put on the market in the early eighties, was not sold until 2001. When it was all over, the sole remaining piece of Mr. Bob’s old worldwide empire of grass, other than the home ranches, was a 20,000-acre parcel in southern Florida. All this hard work soon bore fruit: The company’s cost cuts and streamlining allowed it to pay off its debt in 1985; the sale of its foreign properties enabled it to sink resources back into the cattle business and refocus its operations in Texas. The whipsawing, recessionary eighties, however, had left their mark. Many family members saw, for the first time, how fragile their legacy really was, how easily threatened. “We ended up witnessing a financial disaster in Texas in the eighties,” said Mr. Bob’s grandson and current board member John Alexander, whose career has been mainly in the oil business and who lives in San Antonio. “There were all of these business reversals for lots of people in Texas, and it made everybody acutely aware of how many unknown factors can come into play. There was this tremendous, unanticipated reversal and a lot of sad stories, and all of that influenced our thinking. One of those sad stories, quite frankly, was Bobby Shelton, who sold out of the ranch and was running hard to do a lot of things he thought would make him very successful. He had a nice asset base to start with, and very sadly,

had.” The proof is that Johnson, Shelton, and Reynolds remain the last shareholders to sell out. Together, the King-Kleberg heirs are sitting on an asset with a breakup value of at least $1.5 billion. Even divided among a large family, that is a great deal of money. Yet not a single family member has asked to get out.

AS A DIRECT CONSEQUENCE OF THE renewed feeling for

its legacy, the family decided that, in an economy that was proving deadly for family ranches, they needed professional managers. Outsiders. In 1988, as Clement and Armstrong were retiring, the shareholders took the

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radical step of hiring as chairman and president a man named Darwin Smith, the CEO of consumer paper products company Kimberly-Clark. The ranch soon got to see what the downside of letting outsiders in looked like. Smith, unquestionably one of the most brilliant and successful CEOs of his time (and of an oldline family company too), did not last a year. One of the matters he tried to take up was usage of the Main House. Though From left to right: Robert Silguero, a fifth-generation no family members Kineño who runs the Santa Gertrudis herd; Rolando Silguero (no relation), who has been cowboying at the King had lived there since Ranch for about five years; Casey Bia, a student from New the sixties, to most of Mexico who is spending the summer on the ranch; Chico Bermudez, who was born and raised on the King Ranch. them it remained the ranch asset with the most sentimental value. In 1989, partly in response to an IRS case review into outdated business practices, such as loose record-keeping involving the separation of family and company records, Smith set new rules for the house. From then on it would be treated like a hotel; family members had to reserve it and had to pay for it. The new rules extended to other services too. A matriarch like Ida Larkin Clement had to lease her house on the ranch and pay to have the lawn cut; Tio, who lived in his father’s house, also had to make lease payments. So sensitive was the issue of the Main House that it was directly responsible for Smith’s abrupt departure. As a litmus test of the family’s confidence, Smith had proposed that he be trusted with a full $2.5 million renovation of the house; when the family balked, he left. His successor as president, Roger Jarvis, who had run the ranch’s oil exploration company, did marginally better. He lasted five years, then resigned under pressure. (Following Smith’s tenure, the positions of president and chairman were separated; Leroy Denman Jr., a prominent San Antonio lawyer, served as chairman from 1989 to 1995, followed by Abe Zaleznik, a Harvard Business School professor with a specialty in family business, from 1995 to 2000.) Finally, after seven years of searching and experimenting, the KingKleberg heirs found the manager they were looking for, someone who embodied, in his childhood, education, working life, and worldview, everything that they, by broad consensus, wanted the King Ranch to be. His name was Jack Hunt. His most obvious qualification was a degree from the Harvard Business School. On first meeting, he would not necessarily strike you as the ideal heir to such hard-drinking, hardriding, saddle-back legends as Richard King and Bob Kleberg. He looks a bit like a friendly uncle—bespectacled, of less than average height, and quiet and reserved except for a dry sense of humor that finds its way periodically to a loud laugh. You can imagine him enjoying a glass of wine with his wife; it is much harder to imagine him shivering in a cow camp on the Laureles division in 30-degree weather. But Hunt, as it turns out, has more in common with the Kleberg clan than you might think. The son of a career Navy man, he grew up partly in Texas. At the age of twelve, he started working summers near Amarillo on ranches owned by his great-uncle. He loved the experience, and he worked there until he was in his twenties, riding, roping, branding, doing roundups and maintenance. He somehow found his way from Texas to elite Williams College, in western Massachusetts; served in the Navy; then attended Harvard.

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The most telling part of his background comes next: With his newly minted Harvard MBA, he went to Houston to work for a feedlot company. I met the 62-year-old Hunt in April at the high-rise building two miles north of the Galleria in Houston where the King Ranch has had its headquarters since 2001. I was struck, as anyone would have been, by the contrast between the rowdy photographs of the ranch that covered his walls and the cool, abstracted corporate air of the place where he worked. He was, he told me, a bit nervous about being interviewed. I asked him how many people in his class at Harvard Business School had gone to work for a feedlot. “Well, not a lot, certainly,” he replied with a small laugh. But the business suited Hunt. He advanced quickly and was soon managing several ranches and feedlots near Amarillo. He later became CEO of the 270,000-acre Tejon Ranch, in California, whose main business was cattle ranching but whose products included almonds, walnuts, pistachios, and wine grapes. His life, it struck me, seemed to have been perfectly scripted to prepare him for running the King Ranch: a childhood and adolescence on horseback, brilliant academic and ranching credentials, and, like the family, a disinclination to be flashy about his many successes. Hunt came to the company during a time of accelerating change. Eighteen months before he arrived, the King Ranch had made its first foray into citrus production when it bought Minute Maid’s orange groves. In 1999 it merged these groves with those of another big orange grower, Collier; acquired a small citrus company, Via Tropical; and formed Consolidated Citrus, the largest citrus grower in the country, with 50,000 acres under cultivation. Hunt’s most notable deal happened in 2002, when the King Ranch bought out Collier. It was the company’s biggest acquisition to date, and even more impressive, Hunt had sold the family on it. Today, the King Ranch owns 36,000 acres and is still the country’s largest grower. Its citrus groves employ 284 full-time workers—more than twice the number who work for the home ranches. Though the King Ranch will not share financial figures with the press or public, family members and management alike insist that the orange groves have been extremely profitable investments. Hunt moved aggressively in other directions too, partly deploying capital freed up from the liquidation of all those foreign ranches. Since 2000 the King Ranch has become a major player in the sod business, buying up three farms in Navasota, Wharton, and Gonzales. In 2006 it bought the Young Pecan Shelling Company, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, the second-largest pecan processor in the world. These nonranching operations are in addition to what existed before Hunt arrived: 3,700 acres of sod in Florida, 12,000 acres of Florida sugarcane farms (which made the King Ranch one of the largest shareholders in the co-op that controls Domino Sugar), and 60,000 acres of cotton and milo that had been grown on the Laureles division since the late eighties. Hunt also steadily expanded the King Ranch mail-order catalog, through which it sells clothing, furniture, leather goods, and other consumer items. The

catalog alone now employs 25 people in Kingsville. (For many years, the King Ranch has also owned a small publishing company and Robstown Hardware, a John Deere dealership.) Today, the entire company employs 809 people, 470 of them in farming operations. Not surprisingly, requests to peruse the books were denied, but my own rough estimates put the ranch’s revenues in the $200 million to $300 million range, of which no more than 10 percent comes from cattle. As these agricultural revenues grew, the oil business became less and less important. According to Hunt, King Ranch Energy was a relatively small company, and it was not competitive, given the tremendous costs of offshore exploration. The King Ranch was turning into an agribusiness conglomerate, and the oil and gas business no longer fit. “It became clear to the board and to me that we were not going to be able to grow in the area that we were strongest, which was agriculture, as long as we had these tremendous capital requirements,” said Hunt. His solution: Spin King Ranch Energy out to a larger, publicly traded company called St. Mary Land and Exploration and let the family owners have the full proceeds in the form of St. Mary stock. It was a way, again, of turning paper into liquid wealth. This stock distribution netted the family some $53 million, but not all the changes Hunt brought to the King Ranch were so happily received. In 1998 he clashed with Tio over the hiring of consultants and other issues (chronicled in detail in “When We Were Kings,” August 1998). The battle was engaged, and Tio lost; the board, including some family members, supported Hunt. Tio resigned his position as vice president and took a position on the board, which he occupies today. His departure meant that, for the first time in the King Ranch’s 145-year history, no descendant of Richard King’s would be part of the day-to-day management of the company. It was no exaggeration to say this marked the end of an era. Tio and Hunt have since reconciled—and indeed work closely together as board member and CEO—though clearly neither has forgotten what happened. Hunt acknowledges that it was a difficult time but insists that it was a transition that had to be made. “It is never easy to make changes in an organization,” he said circumspectly. “We felt we needed to add some depth generally throughout the company, and this was part of that process. The good thing about it was that we retained Tio at the board level and got the benefit of his knowledge and experience. It really sort of freed up the company to do some of the things we have been doing.” “I would do it the same way today,” Tio told me. “We had a real disagreement, and I haven’t changed my opinion about it.” But he was quick to add that he thinks the board and managers are doing “a terrific job.” Interestingly, for all their publicized differences, Tio and Hunt have fundamentally similar views on the ranch business. It was Tio who had pushed hard in the early days for farming and later for expanded hunting leases, both of which would dominate the Hunt era. Their relationship has also come to symbolize the new, smoother working relations between management and the board. In the late eighties, when the first outsiders had been let in, there had been considerable and often unpleasant debate about their role in the family

business. “The one thing we could always agree on,” said 62-year-old Sally Kleberg, Tio’s sister, “was that the historic King Ranch in Texas should never be sold or broken up. Whatever else it was, we would just try to work out our differences.” A decade later, the ranch had settled on a balance: 100 percent outside management and a family chairman. Today, the board has eight members. Three are from the family: chairman Jamey Clement (the son of previous chairman Jim Clement, he succeeded Zaleznik), John Alexander (Mr. Bob’s grandson), and Tio. They represent the three branches of the family: descendants of, respectively, Henrietta Kleberg, Mr. Bob, and Mr. Dick, the three grandchildren of Captain King who did not sell out. Then there are four blue-chip outside directors: former Secretary of State James A. Baker; Dallas oilman Ray Hunt; William Gayden, the chairman of Dallas-based Merit Energy; and Stuart Janney, the chairman of the Bessemer Group. Both the family and its outside managers and directors are committed to making the company grow. This is not something, it should be noted, that can be done over the long haul on a farm or ranch, which represents a fixed acreage with a limited rate of production. You can get only so many oranges from a tree or plant, so much sod in a field. So that means diversification and acquisitions, lots of them, which is what the future of the King Ranch is all about. “We had to move from a personal to an institutional basis, where the important thing is not the people but the systems,” said 51-year-old Caroline Alexander Forgason, one of Mr. Bob’s granddaughters. “I think we have done that. It has been very difficult, very painful. Very tough. But in order for the coming generations to experience it and maintain it, we have had to do that.” If owning shares of a large-scale commercial agribusiness, as opposed to an old-fashioned cattle ranch, struck some King-Kleberg heirs as unfamiliar ground, they were quick to adapt to the new reality. A far more controversial pursuit was the selling of hunting leases on the home ranches to companies and wealthy individuals. In the seventies there had been two corporate leases on the little-used Encino division, but there was no precedent for letting outsiders in to build hunting lodges and roam the sacred acres with hundreds or even thousands of their friends, shooting the King Ranch deer, quail, turkeys, and hogs. The fact that the ranch was large enough to accommodate this did not matter: To most of the family, this was like letting strangers camp in your living room. The heirs were being asked to allow this intrusion because of simple economics: Hunting is a considerably more profitable business than ranching. The going rate for cattle leases is $2 to $3 an acre; wildlife leases range from $12 to $15 an acre. This is a truth that ranches all over Texas have had to come to grips with in the past 25 years. But it still caused a dustup in Kingsville. “There was a real emotional uproar about commercializing hunting,” said Sally Kleberg. “Getting the family to go along was extremely difficult.” Leasing dictated an entirely different approach to the land. The ranch had spent a

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great deal of money over the years eradicating brush, mostly invasive responsible for upholding the ranch’s extremely strict and finely calibratmesquite and huisache. With hunting and wildlife as a priority, however, ed hunting limits. There are forty full-time wildlife biologists on the King brush habitat became as important as tall grass. This meant that the Ranch, all paid for by lessees. The Holt Cat biologist, Nathan Ballard, cattle operation had to shrink, and shrink it did. At its peak, in 1925, the takes part in annual surveys of his lease’s acres. Each hunt is closely guidKing Ranch was home to 95,000 cows. That number has dwindled to ed: Guests are allowed to shoot only certain kinds of deer and certain 43,500. Due to its new land-management priorities, the ranch will never sexes and ages of various animals. Every week, data on all hunts and kills, with descriptions of the animals taken, is fed back into the King Ranch again run the kinds of herds it once did. Instead, the King Ranch is today one of the premier game areas in database. Holt Cat is expected to harvest 50 bucks and 100 does this North America. Many people consider it the best white-tailed deer and year, while the number of deer taken on the entire ranch will be between bobwhite quail hunting, period. No high fences here, just unbroken, hori- 2,500 and 3,000. “A few other ranches in South Texas have programs like zon-spanning stretches of open land that are thick with free-range game, this,” said Mickey Hellickson, the King Ranch’s chief wildlife biologist, the product of decades of strict conservation. Though it has only recently “but no one does it on this scale combined with this intensity.” The partnership does not end there. Roughly one third of the lessees opened its gates to commercial hunting, the King Ranch was a pioneer in wildlife habitat and conservation, establishing strict game limits for family are also responsible for helping to maintain a strict grasslands-to-brushmembers as early as 1912. It was among the first large American ranches lands ratio, which means chaining, root plowing, and burning mesquite to hire a full-time wildlife biologist to track animal populations, and it was brush and then disk-plowing hundreds of miles of fifteen-foot-wide lanes. an initiator of the practice of converting water wells and stock tanks for This is a battle that has been going on since brush began encroaching on wildlife use. (Even away from Kingsville, the family played a role in land Captain King’s oceanic expanses of grass in the late 1800’s (horses and stewardship: In 1934 Mr. Dick was the chief sponsor of a House bill that cattle eat the mesquite pods, then scatter the seeds in dung over wide required waterfowl hunters to buy a permit, or stamp, the proceeds from distances). The goal is to achieve a balance, roughly 65 percent grass and which went to protect wetlands; for seventy years, the Duck Stamp, as it 35 percent brush. All this supplemental responsibility costs money too, is known, has been a tremendously successful conservation tool, funding somewhere between an additional $1 and $3 per acre. It is interesting to note that, though the number of most of the country’s 545 national cowboys on the ranch has declined wildlife refuges.) considerably, the number of bioloThe result of this approach to gists, hunting and fishing guides, conservation was a ranch that was and dog handlers has more than always rich in wildlife, and in that compensated for it—an employthe family came to see value. South ment shift that tells you a good deal Texas is one of the most biologiabout the changes in the business cally diverse regions of the world. and economy of Kingsville. In a time of runaway urbanization, All four divisions of the ranch are declining rangelands, and endlesssubjected to constant and careful ly sprawling chains of 5-acre ranchscrutiny, from management of turettes, the home ranches representkey and feral hog populations to ed an uncommonly well-protected, selective plantings of native grassand uncommonly big, refuge. Bioles. In addition to this, there is the ogists refer to the King Ranch, and ongoing work of two other King the adjacent 500,000-acre Kenedy Ranch offshoots, the Caesar Kleberg and 300,000-acre East properties, Wildlife Research Institute and the as the region’s “last great habitat.” King Ranch Institute for Ranch ManToday, the King Ranch’s 44 hunting agement at Texas A&M’s Kingsville leases cover 500,000 acres. Though campus. Both conduct extensive it does not make public its rates for studies of the ranch and its balance hunting leases, they generate sigof cattle and wildlife, including studnificantly more in net profits than all ies of individual species. The Caesar the cattle operations combined. Kleberg Institute, for example, has If, like me, your idea of a huntrecently done work on bobwhite ing lease is a travel trailer in the Above: A ranch road on the Laureles division. Opposite page: J.R. Ramirez, a unit manager on the Laureles division with a degree quail, white-tailed deer, wild turmiddle of nowhere with a handful in reproductive physiology from Texas A&M University, tightening up his cinch. keys, nilgai antelope, and rare ferruof camo-clad guys drinking beer and cleaning their rifles, the camps on the King Ranch will likely surprise ginous pygmy owls (most of which live on or near the ranch). The result of you. Take the lease belonging to San Antonio Caterpillar dealer Holt all this—and the presence of dozens of wildlife biologists feeding weekly Cat (the owner, Peter Holt, who also owns the San Antonio Spurs, is the data into ranch headquarters—is that the King Ranch acres constitute pergreat-nephew of William Knox Holt, the man who, with Bob Kleberg and haps the most closely monitored large piece of land in the country. Which may account for the battle now being waged by the ranch over Howard Murphy, invented the root plow to clear mesquite). Holt Cat’s lease consists of 34,000 acres, 150 miles of roads, an impeccably appoint- a proposal by the trusts and foundations that own the adjacent Kenedy ed twelve-bedroom hunting lodge with the usual assortment of dead Ranch for two waves of construction that would put up more than 400 animals on the walls, assorted outbuildings, high and low skeet houses, windmills on its coastal sections in the coming years. The King Ranch has a rifle range, ten hunting vehicles, and a dog kennel. The lease employs long been famous for fighting what it considers incursions on its land: It eight people full-time, including a manager, a chef, three dog handlers, fought the location of U.S. 77, the building of a naval bombing range, two guides, and a wildlife biologist. Think of it as a fine hotel, specializing the dredging of the Laguna Madre to make the Gulf Intracoastal Waterin hunting, nestled in the mesquite and huisache groves on the Santa way (it won the bombing range battle and succeeded in preventing the dumping of dredge spoil on the King Ranch land but lost the highway Gertrudis division. It hosts one thousand people every year. What is most interesting about the lease is not its grandeur, however, fight). The family’s new cause célèbre is the windmill proposal, which the but its unusual partnership with the ranch. The lessee, for example, is state of Texas and the Kenedy trusts view as environmentally responsible

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and the King-Kleberg heirs view as something close to an assault on the land. “In the biggest sense it is just a massive change in land use,” said Jack Hunt, who, along with Jamey Clement, has been an outspoken opponent of the wind farms. “The land will never be the same. Everywhere there is going to be a turbine, there are going to be thousands of tons of concrete and steel in the ground. The problem is that there is no permit required to build these things, no environmental studies, no requirements to remove them later on. The fact is that nobody really knows what they do or what effect they have on birds or other wildlife.” The King Ranch, therefore, wants laws that will make builders of wind turbines get permits, but it is facing enormous resistance from all quarters. As Texas land commissioner Jerry Patterson recently told the Austin American-Statesman: “This is the King Ranch versus the rest of Texas.” In June the family gathered at the ranch for its annual “summer camp” and shareholders’ meeting. The activities take place over the course of a week and are the spiritual pivot of the ranch. They convey the notion of ownership of a large, iconic American ranch in a palpably real way. Almost all the owners and families come. Family members and employees compete in a rodeo; kids participate in calf riding and goat roping. There are nature tours and hunting and fishing excursions and historical seminars and splendid meals in the Main House dining room or in the pool house. This year the kids went out on photographic expeditions and assembled a natural science museum of sorts with cow skulls and other artifacts. In the midst of all the fun is business: the annual shareholders’ meeting where family members can air their views on the business of running the ranch. Outsiders are not allowed near the place. I asked. Who exactly are these folks? While there are far too many to profile, they seem to share, as a group, certain attributes. They are, without exception, wealthy. They are highly educated and value both professional and advanced degrees, and they seem to prefer work to leisure, even though many are financially independent. “The majority of us work,” said Chris Kleberg, Tio’s son. “That is part of our legacy and heritage. Captain King was a hardworking man. The subsequent owners had the same mentality and work ethic.” Said Janell Kleberg: “There is a sense that you need to be out there doing something. Look at Tio’s first cousin [Rich Sugden, the largest single shareholder]. He is a good example of somebody who did not have to do anything. He is a family-practice doctor in a town in Wyoming and has delivered several thousand babies.” If there is one pursuit that is common to the majority of the heirs, it would seem to be horses, from basic show riding to Thoroughbred and cutting horse breeding—perhaps as a way of keeping in touch with the old days in Kingsville they never experienced. This year the news is mostly good: Profits are strong, cattle prices are up, the acquisitions in the past few years of Young Pecan, Consolidated Citrus, and several sod farms are working out well. There is the inevitable talk about what the ranch will do next (possibly buy some pecan groves, maybe increase sod production), considerable anger over the Kenedy Ranch’s wind farm plan, and some worry over the bacterial disease called greening that is spreading in the Florida orange groves. But another concern lurks in the conversations too. The King Ranch’s success in reinventing itself since Mr. Bob’s death 33 years ago has come with a caveat: There is no guarantee that the next generation will want what its forebears have built. The big, transformative changes were made by the fourth and fifth generations, who continue to hold the majority of the voting shares of stock. (The King Ranch has two classes of stock, voting and nonvoting. The parents tend to hold most of the voting stock until they die.) The sixth generation, whose members range in age from about fifteen to forty, will come to power in the next quarter century. There are fifty or sixty of them—not a single rancher among them. Unlike the members of the fifth generation, they don’t even have parents who spent their childhoods on the ranch (Tio’s three children are the exception to this). Chairman Jamey Clement is so concerned with strengthening their ties to the ranch that he has been organizing field trips. “We have been trying to think of ways to engage them with the idea of what the ranch is and what it does,” he said, “so we pick a weekend in the fall and try to

educate them about different things.” There have been trips to the ranch and trips to Florida to see the orange groves and the cane and sod farms. It is far too early to tell if Clement’s plan will work. A few years ago the ranch started to offer summer “internships” for younger family members—the opportunity to go down to the ranch and learn how to ride and rope and do other useful work around cattle and horses. Aside from Tio’s kids, the five or six boys and girls, ranging in ages from 12 to 22, who have taken part in the internship are the first family members in that age range to have worked on the ranch in twenty years or more. These are encouraging signs, though it is interesting to consider what Captain King might have thought of a ranch internship. “The pendulum has swung,” said Clement. “We were a family-owned and -operated business. We went to a family-owned and professionally managed business. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have family participation.” For the family company that has remade itself from top to bottom, this may suggest the most radical possibility of all: that one day, maybe, a lineal descendant of Richard King could once again rule the empire.

UPDATE FROM KING RANCH: On King Ranch, time is

measured by generations not years. It is a place where the beginning of a drought or its end becomes a point of reference or a reminder of the sensitive balance of nature in the Wild Horse Desert of South Texas. One hundred sixty-five years after Captain King established his first cow camp on Santa Gertrudis Creek, King Ranch continues to be a business in transition. Through seven generations, adaptation and innovation have sustained the progress of the privately owned Family business. In 2010, King Ranch Inc., elected Robert J. Underbrink as president and CEO. Mr. Underbrink, a native of South Texas who has been employed by King Ranch thirty-four years and has an innate understanding of the culture of King Ranch and the complexities of this diverse company. Under his leadership, King Ranch Inc., continues to expand its agricultural footprint in Texas and nationally. Today’s King Ranch is a major agribusiness with interests in cattle ranching, farming (citrus, cotton, grain, sugar cane, and turfgrass), luxury retail goods, recreational hunting, and eco-tourism. King Ranch continues to foster a culture of uncompromising quality, stewardship, and authenticity – a true tribute to Captain King’s integrity and commitment to the land. Bob Kinnan, King Ranch Historian.

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