More Ranch Columns

     Beware of hippies hunting for the psychedelic peyote cactus. They might be uprooting a cactus that is actually an endangered species of rare plant life.
       The Nature Conservancy of Texas is trying to protect a former South Texas ranch from the hippies and others who have been swiping the rare Star Cactus.
      In December, the Nature Conservancy announced its purchase of a 415-acre ranch in Starr County north of Rio Grande City in order to create a new nature preserve. The new Las Estrellas Preserve represents the first protected area for the federally endangered Star Cactus -- known by botanists as the Astrophytum asterias. The Star Cactus is found only in Starr County and a couple of places in Mexico.
       The Nature Conservancy is not disclosing the exact location of the ranch and it is not giving out maps, said Niki Frances McDaniel, a spokeswoman for the nature group. That is because of cactus poachers who have frequently come on the property and ripped off some of the Star Cactus plants. Some of the poachers are peyote hunters, who mistakenly identify the Star Cactus as peyote. Peyote cactus has traditionally been ingested by Native American Indians to get stoned. The hippies, seeking a psychedelic high like LSD, became devotees of the peyote plant during the Timothy Leary era of the 1960s. The Star Cactus will not get people high, but it looks like a peyote cactus, McDaniel said.
       Other people are poaching the Star Cactus for a really sick reason -- they like to collect plants that are on the federally endangered species list. "There is a market for these plants over the Internet. We won't give anybody a map to this property for this reason," McDaniel said.
         Under the Nature Conservancy's ownership, the former ranch will not be open to the public, although eventually there will be careful controlled access for some interested visitors. Additionally, volunteers will be closely monitoring the preserve to prevent trespassing, she said, and anyone found trespassing will be prosecuted.
       The old ranch is home to a number of rare plant species, many of which are not found outside of the Rio Grande Valley. These include Runyon’s cory-cactus, Fitch’s hedgehog cactus, Texas shrimp plant, Mission fiddlewood and St. Joseph’s staff. The rare Texas Indigo Snake is also found on this property.
        This region along the Mexican border is an area that scientists call the Tamaulipan Thornscrub Ecoregion. In fact, Starr County is known as a biological “hot spot” because it has an abundance of diverse and unique animal and plant life.
       Many of the creatures dwell near the region's Ramaderos -- a Spanish term for the broad creeks that intermittently flow into the Rio Grande River to the south. Animals can survive on the puddles and wisps of moisture that persist in the creek bottoms long after the last rain fell. The Ramaderos also collect enough water to extend the survival of the brush and plant life in this arid area.
      The ranch was purchased from the family of the late Elias and Adela Guerrero, two Starr County natives who loved the land and wished to see its natural rugged beauty preserved.
      If you love your ranch and you want the property nurtured for decades to come, you might want to contact the Nature Conservancy, an international non-profit with more than 1 million members. Around the world, it has 83 million acres under its protection. Visit The Nature Conservancy of Texas on the Internet at www.nature.org/texas.
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Riders in the Sky

By Ralph Bivins

       "From out of the clear blue of the western sky comes Sky King." That was the opening line to an 1950s black-and-white TV show called Sky King.
        Instead of riding on horseback, Sky King was western hero cutting through the clouds in a Cessna airplane. Headquartered at his Flying Crown Ranch in Arizona, Sky King and his niece Penny would fly around the West saving lives and doing various adventures. (Trivia question: What was the name of Sky King's trusty Cessna?... See answer below.)
   The wide open spaces of the West have invited the use of aircraft for those who need to cover a lot of ground fast. Airplanes make sense in ranch country.
      Mike Luigs, who specializes in sellings ranches in the Texas Hill Country, has adopted this principle to the real estate business. He flies his clients around in his Cessna or a helicopter. The aircraft makes it faster and easier to show would-be buyers ranches that are up for sale.
       Luigs is owner of a one-year-old firm called Land/Water/Sky. The real estate company is based in Bandera, which is about 50 miles northwest of San Antonio.
     Luigs studied aviation at the University of North Dakota and he worked at the marketing department of Cessna Aircraft Co. before going into ranch sales. Luigs, licensed as a commercial pilot, often meets his customers at the San Antonio airport, but at times he will fly to Houston or Dallas to pick up a special client.
        Efficiency experts will note that flying around the Hill Country can save a lot of time. "You might be able to see three to five ranches in a day as opposed to seeing only one if you're driving," says Brandy Mock, manager of the Austin office of Land/Water/Sky.
      The air tours probably do a lot to boost sales for the company. "Seeing the Texas Hill Country ranch property from the air is breath taking and a superb way to view the contour and texture of the land," Luigs says.
       The headquarters of Land/Water/Sky in Bandera is equipped to handle the business. The company has a 3,600-foot-long runway, two concrete taxiways and an 8,000-square-foot hangar there..
      Flying sounds like an easy way to go, if you are on a search for a ranch to buy. To find your dream ranch, you've got to look for it high and low. The tour process typically means climbing into your realty agent's SUV and bouncing down a dusty road. Or you can drive around on your own trying to navigate down roads that don't have street signs -- a major bummer.
       Some buyers want to ride the property on horseback before they buy it. Some want to take a long walk, inspecting every nook and berm.
     But when you are early in the search process, traveling from ranch to ranch can take a long time. It can take months of touring various ranches before you discover that one that is perfect for you in price and location. That's why the aircraft mode seems like a time saver that I would like to try. Tell my bosses down at Texas Horse Talk they better batten down their expense accounts. My budget request for 2005 will include my own private Cessna.
      (Trivia answer: Sky King's twin-engine Cessna was named Songbird.)

Vista Hills in Navasota

By Ralph Bivins

John Anderson is a sophisticated, topnotch businessman. And he is an experienced developer.
But he is not a wild and crazy guy. Mr. Anderson is friendly, yes. But he is not the kind of fellow who gets into drunken fist fights at your neighborhood honky tonk on Saturday night.
So as I look back over my lengthy journalism career, I wonder how did John Anderson end up taking me on my most exciting interview ever?
I've been in the news business a long time, a full-time staffer on four different Texas newspapers. I've seen house fires, right-wing activists with machine guns, dead bodies and a lot of weird things that newsmen see on a daily basis. I've probably interviewed more than 20,000 people.
So when I say that John Anderson, a conservative businessman, took me on my most exciting interview of my career you know there were some special circumstances.
John was driving a luxury sedan. I was sitting the passenger's seat. It was summertime.
At that time John was one of the developers of Bentwater. Bentwater wraps around the shoreline of Lake Conroe. The views are beautiful. But on this day the beauty was more than John bargained for.
I was a reporter for the Houston Chronicle and John was a developer wanting to make a good impression as he gave me a tour of Bentwater. We drove over a bridge to the most exclusive part of Bentwater -- a small island where no homes had been built yet.
As we drove along slowly, we looked through the trees and saw a motorboat anchored just offshore. On board were two guys and a gal. It only took an instant to realize they were all buck naked. They were drinking beer and getting some rays in some places that don't get much exposure to the sun. I don't think they ever saw us.
It embarrassed John, who realized the nudies had popped his PR bubble. When you are trying to get a reporter to write good things about the finest aspects of your real estate project, you don't want nude boaters putting some tarnish on Bentwater's image.
I got a real kick out of the nudity and was laughing about it. John drove on and tried to change the subject. It was a hoot.
Since then, John Anderson has sold his interest in Bentwater and he is starting a new project. I 'm sure he will do well.
His new project, called Vista Hills, is near Navasota.
Vista Hills covers 458 acres that will be divided into about 30 home sites, ranging in size from 10 to 40 acres.
This is a horse-friendly community with bridle paths running everywhere. All of the roads in Vista Hills will be bordered with five-board fencing, giving it a handsome horse ranch look. Homeowners will be allowed to keep horses.
Vista Hills is located off of Texas 105 and FM 362, about 30 minutes from Brenham and College Station.
Anderson said Vista Hills may be a trendsetter. The project is located in Grimes County. Much of the development to the northwest of Houston has been concentrated in Washington County. Vista Hills may influence other developers and consumers to focus more often on Grimes County.
Anderson says Vista Hills is only an hour's drive to the Galleria. A lot of folks are looking for that kind of place. It's close enough to town so you can take care of business in Houston, but far enough away for some peace and enough acreage to establish a private homestead.

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Deja Vu: Dreaming of a Second Home

By Ralph Bivins

Homeownership is the American Dream. But millions of Americans are going a step further. The American Dream has become for many a double vision. They want a second home for recreational purposes.
In addition to the primary house, a growing number of our countrymen want a weekend place or a vacation home. home. It can be a shack on the beach, a chalet in the mountains or -- for true Texans -- a ranch with plenty of grazing acreage and a stable.
The nation has almost 7 million dwellings that are owned as a second home or weekend home, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Over the next decade, the nation is set to see historically high levels of second home sales. Across the nation, second-home sales have been rising steadily. In 1989 the nation recorded 288,000 second home sales, but the annual sales total had increased to approximately 450,000 properties in 2003, according to a study by the National Assocation of Realtors.
The root cause of the second-home trend is the massive Baby Boomer Generation. Many of them can afford second homes and they are seeking a recreational retreat as they move closer to retirement years.
"This market is driven by middle-class baby boomers,” says David Lereah, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.
The baby-boomers make up the massive wave of a population explosion that occurred after World War II. Demographic experts officially place the Baby-Boomer generation as any American who was born between 1946 and 1964. The Baby-Boomers are like a demographic lump in the belly of a python -- it's a huge number of people who influence buying patterns in our culture.
Baby-Boomers are getting older and more affluent. It has set the stage for a surge in purchases for recreational homes across Texas.
"There is an explosion going on out here," said realty broker Jeff Tucker told Texas Horse Talk. Tucker works out of Heritage Texas Country Properties office in the rural Round Top community. Tucker says some of the buyers are getting ranches and rural property as a place to spend the weekend. Others are finding a way to work from home or do a limited amount of commuting into the city. "You can get to Houston in an hour and a half," Tucker said.
Today's second home buyer -- whether they seek a ranch house or a beach house - want to be within an easy drive of their primary home, not in a distant state. A few second-home buyers seek a vacation home on the other side of the nation, but a the median distance is 185 miles from their primary residence.
Why own a ranch in Wyoming that you can visit only once or twice a year? Doesn't it make more sense to own a place in the Hill Country that you can visit every other weekend?
According to Realtors' study, having nearby a lake or body of water is a huge deal for the vacation home buyer. Seventy-six percent want to be near an lake, ocean or river. In terms of preferred leisure activity, the Realtors said boating was vital for 44 percent of vacation home buyers. Others preferred recreational activities mentioned included: 36 percent favored hunting or fishing; 21 percent golf; 21 percent winter recreation; 16 percent biking, hiking or horseback riding; and 4 percent tennis.
The trend toward second homes is also being pushed along by the anemic stock market. Real estate values have been rising steadily while the stock market has had tough times. Americans are deciding to put their money into a recreational property that has a good chance in gaining value, unlike a tech stock.
The money put into a vacation home can produce a decent return. According to the Realtors association, the national median price of a second-home in 2003 was approximately $200,000. Four years earlier, in 1999, the median second-home was $128,000.
The rural rural areas of Texas are in the middle of this trens, especially near the large cities as the urban population overflows.
Improvements to Highway 290 have made the commute out of Houston a lot easier and that has injected real life into the ranch market, said realty agent Holly Joy of Coldwell Banker Marshall & Marshall.
And Joy tells Texas Horse Ranch she is seeing another trend: some of the older weekend ranchers are selling their larger ranches and buying smaller spreads that require less upkeep.

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BE PRESIDENTIAL -- Own a Texas Ranch

By Ralph Bivins

Most Texas ranches are simply places for cattle and horses. But near Waco is the ranch that people around the world call the Western White House.
The Bush Ranch in Crawford is the most power-laden parcel of Texas ranchland in the world. It's been visited by world leaders. It's been staked out by media who await the sound bite that will become tomorrow's headlines.
For a world that formed its impressions of Texas by watching J.R. Ewing on the Southfork Ranch it probably seems natural that President Bush has a ranch in Texas.
Texas ranches and political power seem to go together.President Lyndon Johnson cut an image of the Texas rancher in the 1960s, cruising around the Johnson Ranch in a Cadillac convertible with the top down and the air conditioner blasting at full force.
Texans think of Texas ranches are a places to raise cattle or keep horses. Texans politicians know that Texas ranches are a good place to raise and nurture a political career. The connection to Texas ranchland seems to make a vital contribution to the image of a Texas politician and the cowboy roots of the Lone Star State.
Being a rancher has been part of the image of a long line of Texas governors. Governors Rick Perry, Dolph Briscoe, John Connally, Price Daniel and Coke Stevenson have all been able to call themselves a Texas rancher. And there will probably be more rancher/politicians in the Texas history books of the future. The image appeals to Texas voters.
For Bush, the 1,600-acre ranch in western McLennan County provides a retreat that is out of the line of fire of cameras and boom mikes. On some days, reporters have to make do with Press Secretary's explanation that the president is out clearing brush in a remote section of the ranch, forcing the Washington Post to use some of its ink to define "clearing brush" for its Inside the Beltway readers.
The Bush Ranch is a nice place for a retreat. It covers over two square miles of gently rolling Blackland Prairie, laced with creeks and the smallish Middle Bosque River. The Bushes bought the ranch in 1999 and they subsequently building a comfortable, but not opulent ranch house there.
The presence of the President has brought change to the town of Crawford, which has less than 1,000 in population. The tourists come to see the Western White House and the little town that has been thrust into the Presidential spotlight.
Several souvenir shops and Texas-theme retailers have opened up shop in Crawford to cater to the tourists.
Norma Nelson Crow owns a shop called Crawford Country Style, which sells cowboy boots, caps, T-shirts and a variety of Bush paraphernalia.
Crow is even mentally prepared to accept the blow of a John Kerry win in November, sad news for souvenir shops in Crawford.
"President Bush has stated many times that Crawford will still be his home -- he loves it here and says he looks forward to his grandchildren visiting him here -- and people across the nation will always travel to homes of former Presidents," Crow said. "It may make it a little tougher if someone else is in The White House, but we'll still have travelers coming through to visit."
And this much is true. No matter what happens in the November elections, the Western White House of Crawford has already made its mark in history. And Bush's ranch has written another chapter to the rich political history of Texas ranches.

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Texans Looking West for Land

By Ralph Bivins

Whether by wagon train, by locomotive or by Route 66, Americans have been drawn westward. Dreams of new frontiers or a new life draw us to the west like magnets of the soul.
The westward migration is playing itself out again in theTexas real estate ranch market today.
The western land market in the Abilene-Lubbock-Amarillo region was white hot last year, according to the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.
The affordable prices of ranch land in South Plains and Panhandle region of the state are drawing buyers away from Central and South Texas, which has been wildly popular for recreational land buyers.
In the Abilene-Lubbock-Amarillo region recreational buyers can find land priced as low as $250 or $350 per acre. That looks sweet when compared to prices of $850 to more than $3,000 per acrein Central and South Texas, according to Dr. Charles E. Gilliland, research economost at the Texas A&M Real Estate Center.
Some of the prime properties in the finest parts of the Texas Hill Country are bringing in prices of $10,000 an acre.
When good hunting land is available in the Panhandle-Plains for a fraction of the cost of South Texas properties, it is proving to be a bargain that many folks cannot ignore, said Lubbock-based ranch broker Sam Middleton of the Chas. S. Middleton & Son realty firm.
"These prices have gotten so high in other areas, it's pushing people up this direction," Middleton said. "They are willing to drive a few extra hours to get more affordable land."
Much of the activity involves buyers who have no interest in livestock at all, the buyers just seek a location for hunting a recreation, Middleton said. A working ranch that is devoid of recreational qualities may sit on the market forever.
A big part of the westward movement is the huge growth in the population of both mule and white-tailed deer in the South Plains and Panhandle over the last quarter of a century, Dr. Gilliland says. Of course, the region has always had strong quail hunting.
While the land may be cheaper out west, there are a few drawbacks. The wind is one of them. In West Texas, strong winds are as constant as a nagging wife.
Along with the wind, comes the blowing sand and dust storms. Leave your truck parked outside overnight and you may wake up to find a sand storm has blasted the paint off your fender.
And when it rains during a dust storm, be prepared to be pelted by flying mudballs, a most unpleasant experience.
I experienced it all when I was a young newspaper reporter at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal years ago. West Texas' winds give you something to complain about -- after you rinse the sandy grit off your teeth.
Burle Pettit, my old editor at the Avalanche-Journal, points out that there is a bright spot to the windy weather out west. It makes for good "yankee repellent."
And Burle is right. You don't find many tea-sippin' Bostonians in bow ties in Lubbock. Or in Muleshoe, or Ropesville or Levelland, for that matter.

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Don Thomas Develops Ranches

of Clear Creek Project

By Ralph Bivins
Real Estate Editor

The wisest of Texas land developers know a basic principle of commerce in the Lone Star State -- horses make money.
Give people a ranchette where they can keep a horse or ride on a bridle path and they open checkbooks wide to buy a tract.
On the periphery of Texas' major cities a number of large-lot communities have popped up in recent years. It doesn't matter if it's an hour commute to downtown. People want to have a large lot, at least three or four acres, where they can keep a horse. They want some space between their neighbors. Some peace and quiet would be just what the doctor ordered, thank you.
A few years ago when I was researching these exurban communities, it was obvious that a lot of these folks moving out from the cities where just trying to escape urban woes. They wanted safe harbor communities for their kids. The cities' suburbs, such as First Colony or Plano, do not have pristine, trouble-free high schools. So they tried to get away from the problems by moving farther away from the urban core.
Texas, as great as it is, is no Utopia. You won't find a high school without some marijuana and at least a few wild kids.
But you can get away from the city's noisy freeways, crowded stores and scary ghettos.
And more and more of those who are fleeing end up in big-lot communities with equestrian facilities.
The latest in the long line of equestrian oriented communities is Ranches of Clear Creek.
The Ranches of Clear Creek project is being developed northwest of Houston on FM 1887 five miles south of U.S. 290 in Waller County. It's about 50 miles from Houston and about five miles from Hempstead.
Midway Ranch Properties, a division of Houston-based Midway Cos. is the developer. Midway is a seasoned real estate development firm that is developing the massive Spring Trails community, just north of Houston.
Ranches of Clear Creek is an 880-acre project that will be divided into 35 ranch properties. The individual properties will range in size from from 13.6 to 58.5 acres. About 100 acres will be set aside for open space. It will include two private lakes, a spring-fed creek that flows year-round, over five miles of riding and walking trails and a private equestrian center
The equestrian center at Ranches of Clear Creek will provide covered and open-air riding arenas, a round pen, a cool-down walker, turnout pastures, riding lessons and organized equestrian events.
Each ranch site was laid out to take advantage of lay of the land and provide for great views, privacy and ranch ecology, said Don Thomas, executive vice president of the Midway Cos.
Most of the ranchettes are priced from $150,000 to $300,000. But an extra large parcel is priced at $390,000.
The project's ranch manager will be around to oversee the property, maintaining the roads and overseeing the equestrian center. In addition, the ranch manager will assist owners in maintaining their property and livestock He will also help out things, such as letting repairmen onto the property.
In short, Thomas wants to create a ranch community that offers more than just roads and utilities.
Thomas said the project will probably be split between people who are looking for vacation homes and people who will make Ranches of Clear Creek their full-time residence.
Vacation home sales have been hot items across the country. Part of that is attributed to the 9-11 terrorist attacks and subsequent security issues. A vacation home that is a short drive from the city can be accessed after work on Friday for a time of weekend respite.
Another trend driving the huge surge for second homes is the massive aging Baby Boomer population. The huge demographic bulge in births in the Post World War II era is now creating a big market for people who are looking for a home they can use after retirement. A lot of these folks will buy a weekend home, or a parcel of rural land, that will become their primary residence after they retire.
And a Texas ranch sounds like a great place to go for the final round-up.

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Last Updated: January 31, 2006