Name: ‘A treasure’: Land trust preserves 839-acre property with redwoods and panoramic ocean views south of Silicon Valley
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‘A treasure’: Land trust preserves 839-acre property with redwoods and panoramic ocean views south of Silicon Valley

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Not all of the most breathtaking pieces of property in Northern California are public parks. Some have been in the same family, nurtured and loved for generations, even before parks existed in California.One of those properties, near the Santa Clara-Santa Cruz county border, was recently preserved in a deal that aims to maintain wildlife, open space and the owners’&nbsp;longtime connection with a landscape they have called home for more than 150 years.The 839-acre Estrada Ranch, which stretches along the summit of the Santa Cruz Mountains adjacent to Mount Madonna County Park between Gilroy and Watsonville, was purchased Dec. 20 for $10.6 million by a Palo Alto environmental group, the Peninsula Open Space Trust.The Estrada family has owned land in the rugged area since 1848 — two years before California became a state. Under the deal, the family will continue to manage the property. And it won’t become a public park. The transaction is the latest example in a trend across California that preserves open space by leaving it in private hands.The Estrada Ranch is two miles long, and 80% as large as Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. A mix of towering redwood forests in fern-covered canyons, it also has sweeping green meadows dotted with oak trees, and panoramic views of Monterey Bay. Four creeks, which contain steelhead trout, tumble through the property. Two pairs of golden eagles nest there. Dozens of black-tail deer are regularly seen roaming the landscape. Trail cameras have shown mountain lions, bobcats and other wildlife.“We’ve been approached by a lot of people wanting to purchase the ranch,” said Greg Estrada, a retired Cal Fire battalion chief whose family owns the property. “But we’ve held on to it and held onto it. We didn’t want it broken up. We wanted some kind of a deal to preserve it.”Several sales of neighbors’ properties nearby raised fears of trophy homes carving up the landscape. Under the existing zoning, up to 50 luxury homes could have been built if the ranch were fully subdivided.“We’re just over the hill from Silicon Valley,” he said. “If it were sold, fencing would go in, and there goes the wildlife.”The family has a herd of 80 Black Angus cattle on the property. Working with Big Creek Lumber, it has cut redwood over the years — about 50 acres at a time, removing about 30% of the trees a few times a decade. The last harvest was three years ago. The next will be at least two years from now.Under the deal, the land will not be transferred to parks ownership, or open to the public. Instead, it will be managed by the Estradas, who will continue cattle grazing and modest levels of logging.Preserving “working landscapes” has been a growing part of the conservation movement in California in recent years. The idea is that urban pressures are limiting farming and timber opportunities in some areas, particularly the Greater Bay Area. Not every large open space can be a public park. And local and state parks managers have been reluctant in recent years to acquire some new lands due to the high costs of operating and maintaining them.“When ranchers and farmers are caring for the land they love, it’s extraordinarily valuable,” said EkOngKar  Singh Khalsa, a senior land transaction manager at the Peninsula Open Space Trust. “It’s great to have them in place on the land. Using working landscapes as a conservation tool has been very effective.”The land trust, which is often called by its acronym, “POST,” has preserved 82,000 acres in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties since its founding in 1977, including many of the open space preserves now operated by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District and the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority.In recent years, POST has been working to preserve farming on the San Mateo Coast, Santa Cruz Mountains and Coyote Valley area south of San Jose.In the works is another transaction with the Estradas. The family is in talks with the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County to sell a conservation easement — essentially the development rights — to another 365 acres it owns adjacent to the 839 acres it sold last month. When that deal is completed, the family will retain ownership of that parcel and another 136 acres where family members have homes.The environmentalists say apart from the scenic value of the properties, they also provide a key connection for wildlife migrating between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range.“Every property is unique. But this is a treasure,” Singh Khalsa said. “The condition of the property is extraordinary. It has been so well cared for.”Like some owners, the Estradas could have sold all the acreage to the land trust and moved somewhere else. But the ranch has been in the family since 1863 when the first pieces were purchased by their great grandparents, Jose Antonio Estrada and his wife, Loretta, who moved from Baja, Mexico, to California after the Mexican-American War.The ranch has been chronicled by generations of Estradas through worn black-and-white photographs, and 19th-century deeds, some signed by famed cattle baron Henry Miller, along with handed-down stories about long-ago bandits and horse thieves and logging crews who cut redwoods in the hills to help rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake.“We were born and raised here,” said Grant Estrada, a retired PG&amp;E supervisor and a family member. “Our kids were born and raised here. This is as good as it gets. I’ve traveled the world and never regretted coming home.”

Not all of the most breathtaking pieces of property in Northern California are public parks. Some have been in the same family, nurtured and loved for generations, even before parks existed in California.One of those properties, near the Santa Clara-Santa Cruz county border, was recently preserved in a deal that aims to maintain wildlife, open space and the owners’&nbsp;longtime connection with a landscape they have called home for more than 150 years.The 839-acre Estrada Ranch, which stretches along the summit of the Santa Cruz Mountains adjacent to Mount Madonna County Park between Gilroy...

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‘A treasure’: Land trust preserves 839-acre property with redwoods and panoramic ocean views south of Silicon Valley

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