Casa Grande now open at Vermejo Park Ranch
Mansion is heart of of Ted Turner ranch
VERMEJO PARK RANCH — With towering, snowdraped mountains scratching the sky at nearly 13,000 feet framing one end of a valley and rolling green meadows serving as a backdrop at the other, Casa Grande was unveiled Wednesday and opened for business following a fouryear, multi-million-dollar renovation project.
The centerpiece of Ted Turner’s 590,000-acre ranch, Casa Grande — created as a mansion in the early 1900s — will serve as upscale guest quarters for those who wish to commune with nature on a grand scale.
The costs are on something of a grand scale, as well, as room rates for two at Casa Grande start at $850 (including all meals) per night, although there are other, less expensive rooms available at the Vermejo.
The opening of the 25,000-square-foot Casa Grande coincides with last year’s creation of Ted Turner Expeditions as the media mogul has thrown open his three New Mexico ranches, covering about one million acres — not to mention his other properties across the country — to sportsmen, adventurers and ecotourists.
“Casa Grande is a national treasure set amidst the national treasure that is America’s West,” Turner said. “By opening this mansion to global travelers, I invite visitors to explore our American heritage and assist in its preservation.”
Seven bedrooms are sprinkled across the opulent, stone-faced mansion, built by Chicago businessman and former Vermejo Park owner William H. Bartlett. The structure also houses a billiards room, library, plant-filled atrium and a ballroom complete with a grand piano.
“Of course, this project would not have been possible without the support of Ted Turner and his vision for the ranches,” Gus Holm, ranch manager, said at Vermejo Park. “We’ve not only preserved a piece of the Vermejo with the Casa Grande, but also sustained the Vermejo going into the future.”
At this point in his life, Turner said, it was time to start letting other people enjoy some of what he has been fortunate to own.
“I have too many places to enjoy them all myself,” he said to reporters here. “So that’s the reason I’m going to rent them out a little bit so they can be utilized. This has really been a wonderful experience, and it gives me something to live for beside cable television.”
Turner, founder of cable television stations CNN, TBS and TNT, bought the Vermejo ranch in 1996, but the 106-year-old Casa Grande was in need of modernization. It was built between 1907 and 1909 by prominent architect Joseph Lyman Sisbee, a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright.
The renovation began four years ago at the insistence of Mark Kossler, general manager of Turner Ranches, Holm said.
“Mark was the person who had the vision and the drive to start this project,” he said. “We would not all be standing here in front of this incredible building, celebrating its return to its former glory, without Mark Kossler.”
The plan was to modernize the building while also retaining its original Victorian charm in order to make it a special experience for anyone using it, said Jeff Mokotoff, chief administrative officer of Turner Enterprises.
“During Ted’s ownership of Vermejo, Casa Grande had been used by Ted, his family and guests as a private getaway, and was not generally open to the public,” he said. “But we realized to appeal to the ecotourism guest that we were seeking to attract, we wanted to have a property that would act as a crown jewel for our overarching brand.”
The ranch has long served as a playground for the wealthy. For instance, in the 1920s, notable luminaries such as Cecil B. deMille, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and even President Herbert Hoover each paid an annual $1,000 fee for the rights to use the ranch to hunt and fish.
The Great Depression signaled the end of that enterprise and it passed through various owners until 1960 when Casa Grande got its first facelift. The Pennzoil Co. soon bought the property, holding it until selling it to Turner for a reported $80 million. (The New Mexico state government had passed on buying Vermejo Park in the 1970s for $26 million).
With more than 50 years since its last renovation, Casa Grande needed significant work, particularly in the area of heating and cooling, electrical and plumbing.
“So, when Casa Grande was undergoing restoration and renovation for Ted and his family, Ted agreed to allow us to bring Casa Grande into our greater vision of ecotourism on Ted’s properties,” Mokotoff said.
So now the lineup of activities at Vermejo includes ecotours that can be as short as three hours or many, many hours as visitors keep on the lookout for bobcats, black bears, wild turkeys, raptors, elk, feral horses and, of course, bison, of which some 1,700 head roam on the ranch. The ecotours can also encounter desolate homesteads, Native American ruins and 100-year-old charcoal kilns that still carry the burning odor.
There’s mountain biking, not only on the 2,000 miles of dirt roads that crisscross the ranch, but also on rugged trails through the hills and mountains. Hiking is plentiful and challenging, with numerous high-country peaks and fish-stocked lakes. Skeet and clay pigeon shooting both enthrall visitors, as does the archery range with targets shaped like animals.
Mokotoff tried to put the immensity of Turner’s holdings in New Mexico and the West into perspective.
“Over the course of the last two decades, Ted has acquired over two million acres of land in the western United States,” he said. “Two million acres is more than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. And those two states have more than two million people living in their borders. We have a couple of hundred people living in there.”
So visiting the Vermejo is akin to having a private national park.
“The smallest of Ted’s three ranches in New Mexico is 150,000 acres, which is the same size as Zion,” he said. “Zion sees approximately 3.5 million visitors a year. Vermejo will see a couple of thousand, with a nearly certain chance of seeing more wildlife than you would have at the very best national parks. Ted wishes to share his complete love of nature, wildlife and discovery in order to help all generations develop a keen appreciation and awareness of our earth and what it has to offer. And, just as importantly, a shared responsibility for the well-being of our environment.”
It comes down to conservation and being stewards of the land, Holm said.
“Our mission statement is to manage Turner land in an economically sustainable and environmentally sensible manner with an emphasis on native species and habitat,” he said. “Many people believe this statement is contradictory. One can’t be done without negative impact on the other. But we at Team Turner view this mission statement as complementary and interconnected. Sort of a yin and yang, for everything must be in balance.”