CIELO VISTA RANCH BOUGHT BY HEIR TO TEXAS OIL FORTUNE

William Bruce Harrison, scion to one of Texas’ original oil fortunes, has purchased the storied 83,000acre Cielo Vista Ranch in the San Luis Valley, according to Costilla County property records. The property sold last month after listing for $105 million, but the buyer and sales price were not disclosed at that time.

The address of the new owner — a Delaware-registered limited liability company named Cielo Vista Ranch II — traces back to the Houston office of Cathexis Oil & Gas LLC, an investment firm founded by Harrison in 2010.

Harrison’s father, billionaire oil and ranching baron Bruce Harrison, died in 2004 at age 54 when his son was only 17. According to a lawsuit he filed against his uncle, who was trustee and executor of his father’s estate, Harrison was scheduled to receive his inheritance when he turned 30 in 2017.

The 83,368-acre Cielo Vista property stretches across more than 20 miles of Sangre de Cristo ridgeline and includes the 14,047-foot Culebra Peak.

In the mid 1800s, Mexico granted the property to a trapper who then doled out deeds to Mexican and Spanish settlers before Colorado was a U.S. state.

In 1960, Jack Taylor bought and closed the ranch, irking families of those settlers who had used it for grazing, logging, hunting and fishing. The ensuing range war lasted three decades until courts restored limited rights. Lou Pai bought the Taylor Ranch in 1988 for $20 million and sold it for $60 million in 2004 to a group of investors who changed the name to Cielo Vista.

Climbers have traditionally had access to Culebra for a $150 fee. A statement from a representative of the new owner said that access will continue.