If A Movie Star Buys 40 Acres of Open Range...

redsquid2

redsquid2

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I grew up in south-central Oklahoma. Acre-for-acre, the grazing there is relatively productive. That's what I've heard. Seems like the ranches around there are at least 320 acres, and as you go further west (especially in Arizona) they get bigger and bigger, to 100,000+ acres, in some cases.

My question: If some celebrity or gazillionaire gets some pasture land, builds a pretty house on it, puts a pretty white fence around it, and plops a few cows down on it, does that make it a "ranch?"

Not sure why, but it rubs me the wrong way when I hear that some movie star has a "20-acre ranch," and stuff like that. Is it just me?

On the other hand, if it produces some beef, I guess it's a "ranch."
 
I'm with you, rs2. Movie star = big hat, no cattle. They call it a ranch, but I call it a vacation home.
 
Hobby ranch :D

The people who have piles of money, think actors, musicians and athletes, that buy a big chunk of land want to pretend they are the same as blue collar hard working people, are only fooling themselves. I think there is a lot of cowboy fantasy involved...

A lot of these people spend little time at their getaways, and the rest of their time living in big cities in the limelight buying fancy cars, fancy clothes, and spending huge amounts of money on dinner and partying... It doesn't matter how much acreage these people buy, they aren't ranchers or cowboys. They don't put out the effort 16-20 hours a day, 365 days a year, and they don't count on the income generated to survive.
It's all fun and games if you only do it a few weeks a year, and someone else is doing all the hard work for you.

There are some wealthy people who do have large ranches and they actually live there, and work the ranch, and that is the lifestyle they prefer. Those people I have a lot of respect for.
 
Out east homesteads were on 40 acres, which was enough for a self-sustaining farm before the days of motorized equipment.
In the west, original homesteads were 160 acres. So any less than that is not a ranch, IMO. And even back in the homesteading days, families immediately multiplied the sizes of their ranches by buying out neighbors or by having multiple family members apply for adjacent plots. Most active ranches in this area of New Mexico are now thousands of acres, tens-of-thousands, or even hundreds-of-thousands of acres.

I don't know how large the original homesteaded "ranches" were in Oklahoma, 40 or 160 acres? Maybe it depended on the area.

But by no historic or practical definition could 20 acres be considered a "ranch."
 
I grew up on a few hundred acres. We had about 100 head of cattle. I still say I grew up on a farm.

To me a ranch is about making a living off the cattle. Anything else is a hobby.
 
At minimum I'd make the distinction between working ranch (you expect to make a living on it) and vacation ranch. I have literally zero interest in ever really being a rancher, but given the kind of money those folks have I'd buy a bunch of land to screw around on in a heartbeat.
 
Prop, "vanity ranch" — A luxury that drives up prices for people who depend on the land for their livelihood.
 
I understand that in Australia most of our US ranches are considered "quaint".
 
In more and more places, it seems you'd have to be a movie star to be able to afford 40 acres. But if they keep the land productive and well-cared for, I don't mind if they call it a ranch. Better that than re-zoning it and turning it into McMansions.
 
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