Ranch was Reagan country
By Tom Kisken
Scripps Howard News Service
Good sport: The first lady's tolerance of the ranch was one of many ways she showed her feelings for her husband, said Reagan's biographer, Lou Cannon. "Nancy really loved him, really cared for him," he said. "The ranch was important to him, so it was important to her."
Ronald Reagan's Water Pik is on the bathroom counter. A throw pillow with the needlepoint message "Roommates" rests in the bedroom Nancy Reagan decorated. An orange Naugahyde chair faces the fireplace in the den.
The furnishings and keepsakes, kept at the Reagan ranch outside Santa Barbara, form a peephole into the former president's life.
It's here at Rancho del Cielo - Ranch of the Sky - where Reagan would ride horseback for hours. "There's nothing so good for the insides of a man as the outsides of a horse," he'd say before giving his riding companion, Nancy, a kiss after each journey.
Reagan would spend rainy afternoons in the barn tearing apart a chain saw and piecing it back together and spend sunny days outside "chopping wood and clearing brush." Afterward, he'd relax with a Western novel in the main house, decorated 1970s-style with a sort of Louis L'Amour meets "The Brady Bunch" theme.
"There's more of Reagan in that ranch than in some of his speeches," said presidential biographer Lou Cannon. "There's more of him there than in the (Ronald Reagan Presidential) library or the (state government) building named for him in Los Angeles."
During his presidency, Reagan used the ranch as a home where he could get away with his family, closest friends and a handful of dignitaries, including Queen Elizabeth II and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Even top members of his administration visited only the grounds, never gaining a peek inside the main house where, for instance, the bookshelf holds titles such as "Inside Football," "Lonesome Dove" and "Rural Land as an Investment."
The Reagans paid $547,000 in 1974 for the modest 688-acre spread on a plateau with a view of the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Santa Ynez Mountains to the east. The couple used it as a vacation home for more than 20 years until they left it and moved permanently to Bel Air, Calif., in 1995 after his health worsened.
In April 1998, the ranch was sold for nearly $5.9 million to the Young America's Foundation. The Virginia-based group tries to balance what its leaders call the leftist tilt of university campuses by educating students about conservatism.
In stone: A carving in a rock just off one of the winding dirt roads commemorates the Reagans' love. The carving is dated Aug. 21, 1977.
|
In 2001, the foundation added a $5 million historic building on Main Street in Santa Barbara, 30 miles from the ranch. The new Ronald Reagan Ranch Center houses a leadership program based on Reagan's politics and his accomplishments as president.
"We're bringing the ranch to Santa Barbara," said Reagan Ranch Center executive director Floyd Brown, a veteran conservative operative who said he traded in contact politics for ideas when he took the ranch job.
Students take day trips to Rancho del Cielo for inspiration because "there's no better place to meet Ronald Reagan," Brown says. "If you want to get to know Ronald Reagan, what his character is, what's essential to the man, you have to come to the Reagan ranch."
However, the foundation is intent on preserving the working ranch "as is," including seven head of cattle, three horses and a donkey. "The president derived a real sense of pride in physical labor, from getting in touch with the land," Brown said.
The foundation also takes Reagan's politics and the ranch to campuses around the country with speakers including Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese, Reagan National Security Adviser Richard Allen and conservative TV pundit Ann Coulter, among others.
Students can wander the house and look at the jar of jellybeans in the kitchen. Or they can sit at the patio table where Reagan signed his Economic Recovery Act.
Off Highway 101, about 20 miles beyond Santa Barbara, one-laned Refugio Road leads up the Santa Ynez Mountains to the ranch. Winding and treacherous, the road and the Reagan tradition of not having overnight guests worked better than a fire alarm in ending gatherings early.
"When people from Beverly Hills came up with their big cars, we always had to break up at 3 p.m. because they didn't want to drive at night," said Frankie Umbro, an octogenarian accordion player from Ojai, Calif., who played at the ranch eight times a year, sometimes more.
During Reagan's presidency, part of the road was lined with motion sensors and Secret Service agents. That presence is gone, but a roadside sign remains. A gift from the Australian prime minister, it bears the silhouette of a kangaroo with the message that such animals can be seen for the next 8 kilometers.
If not kangaroos, kitsch is on the loose everywhere.
Rustic reading room: Books include "Lonesome Dove" and "Cowboy Economics."
|
The former president had a fake outhouse installed near the main house. It's a double-seater complete with a Sears catalog for reading material.
In the house, antlers double as a gun rack, a lamp has been fashioned out of a huge Hennesey Cognac bottle, and head of two mythical jackalopes - his and hers - are mounted to a wall.
The showerhead is a faux Liberty Bell. A sign on the front door reads, "On this date in 1897, nothing happened."
The decor is an oil-and-water mix of the Wild West and the polyester-themed '70s. In the den, the head of a longhorn steer is mounted over the doorway, overlooking chocolate-brown and bright orange furniture.
Sheepskin rugs are everywhere, as are rainbow-colored knit blankets and rotary-dial telephones.
The Reagans decorated the place shortly after purchasing it in 1974 and changed little over the years, said John Barletta, a former Secret Service agent who was in charge of the ranch detail.
"That's the way they wanted it," Barletta said of the decor. "They could have had anything."
Reportedly, Gorbachev was one of the leaders who was disappointed in what Barletta calls the modesty of the ranch.
"A lot of people think it's like the TV show 'Dallas' with this huge spread," he said. "It's very modest and very functional. It epitomizes President Reagan. He didn't need a lot of bells and whistles."
Reagan built pasture fences out of old telephone poles. He hauled rocks from the back hills and used them for the floor of his patio. He painted the names of deceased family pets on the rocks that decorate a pet cemetery.
He was a manual kind of guy who loved being able to do what he wanted without worrying about security or appearances.
As the president, Reagan was always chauffeured. So one of the first things he would do at the ranch is grab for the keys of his maroon-colored jeep.
"He would get in that little beat-up jeep and he would shift the gears and grind them," Barletta said. "He loved it."
Cannon, Reagan's biographer, questions the first lady's feelings about the ranch. He said her tolerance of the place was one of many ways she showed her feelings for her husband.
"Nancy really loved him, really cared for him," he said. "The ranch was important to him, so it was important to her."
Cannon thinks Reagan saw himself as a western pioneer. The ranch, he said, may have represented a final frontier.
All content copyright 1999 - 2002 AzStarNet , Arizona Daily Star and
its
wire services and suppliers and may not be republished without permission.
All
rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution, or retransmission of any of
the
contents of this service without the expressed written consent of Arizona
Daily
Star or AzStarNet is prohibited.
|
