Enter this fascinating ranch in Valley Center, CA, and prepare for your inner cowboy to emerge.
The ranch is more than just the 1,500-square-foot home that sits on the property. It’s an actual one-acre replica of an old Western town, all available for $950,000. Maybe. (More on that later.)
Listing agent Earl Brown promised you’ll walk differently on this property. “I tell you what, you start to scuff your heels and walk like a cowboy,” Brown said.
There’s a reason for that, pardner. (Yes, it rubbed off on us, too.) Just mosey in, and you’ll find the modest two-bedroom, two-bath ranch house.
More importantly, you’ll see a general store, blacksmith, barbershop, and print shop, all painstakingly furnished with period detail. Grab a sarsaparilla at the saloon—and behave yourself since there’s also a jail. We can’t say for sure if there’s a sheriff. But watch yourself at high noon.
“It’s definitely a labor of love,” Brown said. He told us the owners traveled the country to collect antiques for some 60 years, and constructed the replica town themselves, building by building. There’s even a small-scale locomotive that’s also a 1,000-gallon water tank, all in keeping with the theme. “It’s just a neat little town,” he added.
The modest ranch house itself is almost a letdown after the amazing replica town on the premises. And that’s part of the problem. “The appraiser for the lender is not going to appraise any of the collectibles or the antiques,” Brown said. “Just the house.” In fact, the house alone is worth only about half the asking price.
Brown is holding out hope that the property, which is set up for horses, can attract a buyer from nearby Orange County who desires to spend weekends unleashing his inner cowboy.
Part of the challenge may be that this tiny town is kind of a secret. Despite the obvious tourist attraction, the owners preferred not to open their cool creation to the public, except for friends and for filming the occasional TV commercial or movie.
“It’s actually a private place,” Brown said. “I venture 95 percent of the people in our town don’t even know it’s there.”
Sadly, it may be about to disappear and become a true ghost town. The future of this property is decidedly murky: According to Brown, the owners have signed with an auction house to dismantle the collectibles and sell them off on March 1.
For buckaroos in training who’d love a slice of the Old West, this may be your last chance to buy this ode to the past.
Or come next month, it could be one more fond memory and blow away with the tumbleweeds.
