Ventura County
RARE OPPORTUNITY to own a family compound of 899 acres, on two adjacent parcels (one of 240 acres, and the other of 659 acres). The elevation is about 6,000 feet — a valley partway up Mt. Pinos, which rises to about 9,000 feet. The property is about an hour north of the northern edge of the Los Angeles area, using the uncongested 5 Freeway. It is just outside the Los Angeles County, where it borders on Kern County and Ventura County. The property is in the northern part of Ventura County, about 15 miles southwest of the Tejon Ranch. On two sides the property borders on the extensive Los Padres National Forest, which consists of about 13⁄4 million acres.
The main residence is on the 240-acre parcel, and consists of about 7,000 square feet. It has six bedrooms and four bathrooms. It has a grand living room two stories high with twelve French doors opening on the East, South, and West with stunning views of the property. The property is extremely private, with no neighbor visible from the main resident. There is a porch that wraps around much of the house.
The residence was built using six different local and imported types of wood. Many of the beautiful solid wood doors were hand-crafted, or brought in from New Mexico. The master bedroom has two dressing rooms and an attached sleeping porch. All the closets in the house are cedar lined. The bathrooms were built with imported marble from three different countries: Greece, Argentina, and China. The windows and French doors are all top-quality Pella windows, with aluminum cladding outside that never needs any maintenance, and attractive pine wood on the inside. The roof has the appearance of wooden shakes, but is actually made of light-weight aluminum with fireproof insulation beneath. The residence has garages for three vehicles, large and high enough to hold trucks. Owners have brought 12,000-volt underground electricity cables and a 50-line underground telephone cable from the main paved road 21⁄2 miles away. Heating and cooking is done with propane gas, which is delivered to several storage tanks.
There is other housing on the property for staff. The barn contains three apartments for staff, a bachelor and two one-bedrooms. There is also a small building that has two rooms for staff. The main barn has three stalls for horses, storage for hay and for a horse trailer and tractor, and two tack rooms and a small kitchen facility to prepare food for animals. There are four smaller buildings, each of which has two horse stalls, opening onto small corrals. There are three fenced pastures for horses, of 5, 7, and 10 acres. There is another small house on the 659-acre parcel, about 11⁄2 miles to the east of the main residence. It consists of two small one-bedroom apartments, with a total size of about 1,100 square feet. There is also a newly constructed small but high-quality barn there. The property is ideal for hiking and horseback riding. This can be extended into the surrounding National Forest, which is well known for its Chumash cave paintings and hot creeks, etc. In the winter there are snowfalls frequently of about two feet, allowing cross country skiing and tobogganing — the snow usually lasts for a few days before melting away.
The property has dozens of springs due to the snow melt from Mt. Pinos. Due to the elevation of the property at about 6,000 feet, there is no environmental pollution. The tests show that it is high quality pristine drinking water. For quantity, we have only tested up to 80 gallons a minute, because we had no need of more, but it appears that the water table underlies much of the eastern 80 acres of the valley, as shown by the many springs there. We have drilled two wells, and they show that the water table starts several feet below the surface and extends down to about 90 feet, where there is a thick layer of clay. Owners irrigated 6 acres of lush green lawn around the main residence.
Mineral Rights: The property was converted from National Forest to private property in 1945, as a mining claim for precious metals including gold, silver, etc. No mining of these minerals ever took place on the property. However, as one walks the property, on many acres one finds quartz rocks with veins of gold and silver, as verified by laboratory analysis. Since we were only curious, not interested in exploiting any minerals, we only tested a single rock which contained 0.035 Troy ounces of gold per ton, and two or three times as much silver.
Pinon Nuts: Due to the elevation of 6,000 feet, most of the trees on the property are pines, including many pinon pines. There are countless pinon pine trees that produce large quantities of pinon pine nuts. (These nuts sell for more than $20/lb in food stores.)
