Billie Eilish and Harrison Ford filmed thereYou can buy this Hollywood ranch for 35 million dollars
Samuel Walder
3.10.2024
Films such as "American Horror Story" and "Oppenheimer" were shot at Sable Ranch. Now the property is being sold for 35 million dollars.
03.10.2024, 21:11
03.10.2024, 21:14
Samuel Walder
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Sable Ranch, a well-known film set for productions such as "Robin Hood" and "Oppenheimer", is up for sale.
The 400-acre ranch was originally purchased and built by Frank Vacek in the 1970s.
It offers several film sets, five houses and modern film production facilities.
After being destroyed by the Sand Fire in 2016, the ranch was rebuilt and continues to be a popular filming location for movies, series and music videos.
Where Hollywood stars, film producers and cameramen used to hang out from the 1970s onwards, you can now live - for a whopping 35 million dollars. Sable Ranch, a property that served as a film set for years, is up for sale.
When Frank Vacek arrived at Sable Ranch, located about 48 kilometers north of Hollywood, in the 1970s, he immediately saw a Californian dream, as the "New York Times" writes.
In the 1940s, Vacek fled from the Nazis in Czechoslovakia to America. His fate changed abruptly when he opened a photography business in Los Angeles in the 1950s. But he was drawn to the Sable Ranch. There, where cattle grazed among the oak trees, he envisioned an even grander second act of his life.
He bought the ranch and the adjoining property and built a Wild West movie set on the land, bringing Hollywood - with its gun shows, cowboys and insatiable appetite for entertainment - to his doorstep.
Half a century later, the Sable Ranch in Santa Clarita served as a movie set for productions such as "Robin Hood", "American Horror Story" and "Oppenheimer".
The 400 hectares have been used for so many movie sets that they have become Hollywood icons. And now the ranch is coming on the market for 35 million dollars.
In addition to the movie sets and sprawling acreage, the ranch includes five houses and two apartments with a total of 14 bedrooms and eleven bathrooms.
A place to immerse yourself in another world
"The amount of history that's here and the amount of movies, TV shows and commercials that have been filmed here is really phenomenal," said Derek Hunt, the owner of Sable Ranch.
Mr. Hunt, the grandson of Frank Vacek, inherited Sable Ranch in 2020. In 2008, he initiated the creation of the Movie Ranch Overlay Zone, a special designation for feature film and television productions that streamlines the permitting process and reduces costs.
These zoning benefits and Sable Ranch's amenities - which include parking for 200 cars, a catering area and a green screen - have made it particularly attractive to film crews.
In recent years, the series "Leave it, Larry!", "Criminal Minds" and "24" have been filmed on the ranch. After the crews of "Fear Factor" used the ranch in 2001, they returned in 2007 to film another game show, "Wipeout", in which contestants compete against each other in an obstacle course with large pools.
So Mr. Hunt built water tanks that could hold millions of gallons of water each - an amenity that lured Billie Eilish to the ranch in 2021 when she was scouting locations for her underwater music video for "Happier Than Ever."
"You can feel the Hollywood legacy when you're on the property," said Aaron Kirman of Christie's International Real Estate Southern California, who is representing Mr. Hunt in the sale.
In 2016, the Sand Fire raged through Santa Clarita, destroying large parts of the ranch, including the original western town built by Mr. Hunt's grandfather. Hunt refused to leave the ranch and stayed behind with his workers to fight the flames.
He rebuilt the western town and the ranch recovered. And many of the buildings, including another Spanish-style house built in 1900, are still standing.
In 2020, the ranch served as a production location for the movie "Call of the Wild", and Harrison Ford often commuted to the shoot by helicopter.
Hunt himself has been living in Mexico for a year and a half and traveling the world. He is not married and has no children. He is ready to pass the ranch on to a family.
"I want to make sure it remains a future home and a legacy," he said. "It can either be used as a large family estate or a movie studio. To have a property that Harrison Ford traveled to in his helicopter to work is truly a once-in-a-lifetime place."