Elizabeth Harris
08/01/06
When Russ Maytag looks out at the nearly 3,000 acres of mountain and meadow on his Hillside, Colo., ranch, he is confident that it will remain open land for generations to come. This is not just wishful thinking, but the result of careful strategic planning. “It’s a huge part of our lives,” he says. “I wanted to figure out a way to preserve that family legacy, yet capitalize on some of the appreciated value of the land.”
Frequently displayed on the porch of the
modest house Maytag shares with his wife, Jeannie, and their daughter is a
gasoline-powered wringer washing machine, circa 1920, testimony to his family’s
commercial history. The great-grandson of inventor F.L. Maytag, 52-year-old Russ
purchased the land and cattle in 1978. But, he says, he owned only a token
amount of Maytag stock and sold it last year, so he gained nothing when the
company was acquired by Whirlpool in a $2.6 billion deal in March. His share of
the family’s wealth is largely invested in the ranch, now worth about $30
million.His father, Robert, owned four ranches as investment properties, so Maytag spent most of his school holidays roping cattle and helping with other chores. “It gave me a passion for agriculture and also a passion for ecology,” he says.
Maytag has watched with alarm as developers have encroached upon Colorado’s ranchland. The state has lost 2.9 million acres of agricultural land since 1992, according to the Environment Colorado Research & Policy Center. As he and his wife contemplated retirement, they decided that they wanted to ensure their ranch survived the onslaught. Their daughter, Samantha, who will be a freshman at Middlebury College in Vermont this fall, seems to have inherited her parents’ love for the land, but she is studying business or politics and her career may take her away from the ranch. With no other heirs, the Maytags considered putting their property up for sale. But the painful thought of it crowded with tract homes and shopping centers spurred them to look for other options.
Maytag considered, but rejected, the idea of placing a conservation easement on the property. This would have netted him a tax break and kept the land intact, but would not have solved the nettlesome problems of who would manage the ranch after he retires and where the next generation would get the capital to keep it running.
In 2001, Maytag began formulating a plan to raise operating capital for the ranch by parceling out 25 homesites, developed in a manner that would keep the ranchland intact. The Maytags planned to sell to people who agreed with their vision for the property. Samantha was among those; she picked out a property on which to build her future home.
Homes on the Range
The Maytags spent $9 million to add roads, power and water, a cookhouse, guest cabins, a stable and a trout stream for their new development, which they dubbed Maytag Mountain Ranch. They created a corporation, Maytag Ranch Enterprises, to own the land; Maytag and his daughter are its majority owners. After expenses, Maytag expects to net about $12 million from selling the 100-acre homesites, which range in price from $895,000 to $1.5 million. Buyers will also pay an annual $7,975 fee to the collective, which will manage the ranch and also bring in revenue from cattle sales.
Buyers agree to build houses no smaller than 2,000 square feet, but no larger than 8,000 square feet, so the 250 Red Angus cattle have room to roam. The cattle belong to the association, and every household receives a half side of beef—about 110 pounds of meat—each year. The buyers may also net a small amount of income from the ranch, but Maytag lets them know up front that they should consider this an investment in a way of life rather than a business opportunity. The cooperative agreement stipulates that any member who wishes to sell his property must find a buyer who will also agree to the membership terms.
For ranch resident Jim
Johnson, the head of a construction company in Colorado Springs that has built
structures around the state, ranching without responsibility was appealing. “All
3,000 acres isn’t ours, but there’s somebody there taking care of the cattle,
there’s somebody else looking after the horses,” Johnson says. “So I don’t get
the call at midnight that the cows are across the highway.”
Maytag is happy
with his progress. Sharing his land with even carefully chosen strangers could
have been disastrous, but it has worked out well so far. “We’ve gotten to know
some really neat people,” he says. “We’re all kind of like-minded.” Maytag’s
father now owns only one of the ranches he once had—the rest were sold years
ago—so he watches his son’s project with interest and is considering backing a
second Maytag ranch owners’ association.
Portrait by Larry Pierce/Illustration by Allan B
urch.
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