Rancho del Cielo: Reagan's Western White House
Near Los Olivos, California
High in the Santa Ynez Mountains above the valley sits a modest ranch that for eight years functioned as a second seat of American power. Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy bought the six hundred eighty-eight acre spread in nineteen seventy-four, near the end of his time as governor of California, for a little over five hundred thousand dollars. Its Spanish name, Rancho del Cielo, means ranch of the sky or ranch of heaven, and it centered on a tiny adobe house built back in eighteen seventy-two, fed by a small lake.
Reagan cherished the place. He said that from the first day it cast a spell over them, that no place ever gave him and Nancy the same joy and serenity. During his presidency, from nineteen eighty-one to nineteen eighty-nine, the ranch served as the Western White House, and Reagan spent roughly three hundred fifty days there, nearly an eighth of his entire presidency.
He mended fences, cleared brush, and rode horses, but he also conducted the nation's business and hosted visitors including Queen Elizabeth the Second and Margaret Thatcher. Mikhail Gorbachev visited the ranch in nineteen ninety-two, after Reagan had already left the presidency. Nancy Reagan last visited in nineteen ninety-eight before selling the property to the Young America's Foundation, a conservative group that preserves the ranch today.
