Peter Strauss, best known for his work with ‘Rich Man, Poor Man,’ ‘Soldier Blue,’ ‘The Jericho Mile,’ and ‘Kane and Abel,’ once spent USD 225,000 to buy out a 64-acre ranch in California that had gone barren. Years later, however, the space ended up turning into a National Park Service site within the next ten years.
In 1977, Peter Strauss bought out a barren ranch in California
The Los Angeles Times reported that Peter Strauss had been filming for one of his most famous TV series, ‘Rich Man, Poor Man,’ nearby at Malibu Lake in 1976. This was when he first came across the barren land, and a year later, he bought the space at a tax auction for USD 225,000.
The history behind the abandoned ranch in Agoura Hills, California
Originally, the area was home to the Chumash people, an Indigenous Native American group from the central and southern coastal regions of California. However, after the Spanish colonization, the area became a part of the Spanish land grant Rancho Las Virgenes. Years later, in the 1920s, famous automotive designer and engineer Harry Miller built a stone ranch house, a lookout tower, and an aviary and maintained a private zoo on the estate.In the 1930s, the property was later acquired by Warren Shobert and Arthur Edeson and turned into a public retreat resort called Lake Enchanto, featuring a 650,000-gallon swimming pool, a terrazzo dance floor, and live entertainment. The resort fell into disrepair and closed around 1960.
How Peter Strauss lived on the estate
During the time Strauss stayed on the estate, he helped restore it to its natural state, filled with greenery. Strauss lived there until 1983 and invested around USD 230,000 in land restoration, removing dilapidated resort structures, and maintaining a natural environment.
Peter Strauss’ barren farmland turned into a National Park Service site
According to the website of the National Park Service, the land was given over to the National Park Service. The ranch is part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which was originally established in 1978. It later became known as the Peter Strauss Ranch Park, operating as a public unit of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.The property covers around 150,000 acres of mountains and coastal areas of Ventura and Los Angeles counties. As per the website, the space housed 450 animal species and 26 plant communities. Since it was a public space, visitors were allowed to hike, picnic, or catch a concert at the outdoor stone amphitheater.However, most of the property was damaged in 2018 during the Woolsey Fire. Most of the historic ranch house was lost in the fire, though the stone amphitheater survived, and concerts have resumed. It reopened its grounds to the public on June 6, 2022, after the Park Service removed hazardous materials from the soil and most of the space was restored to its natural state.
