Reagan's Ranch in the Sky
Near Los Olivos, California
High in the Santa Ynez Mountains above the Gaviota coast sits a modest ranch that once functioned as the Western White House. In nineteen seventy four, Ronald and Nancy Reagan bought the roughly six hundred and eighty eight acre property, known as Rancho del Cielo, Spanish for ranch in the sky, or heaven's ranch. At its heart was a tiny adobe house dating to the eighteen seventies and a small lake.
Reagan loved the place fiercely. During his eight years as president he spent hundreds of days here riding horses, clearing brush, and mending fences. It was at this ranch that he signed a major tax cut into law and hosted world leaders dressed in blue jeans.
Reaching it meant climbing narrow, winding Refugio Road, a route so tied up in local history that it traces back to a Spanish land grant and even a pirate scare in the early eighteen hundreds that sent settlers fleeing over the pass. Today the ranch is owned by the Young America's Foundation and preserved much as the Reagans left it, a plainspoken retreat that revealed the private man behind the presidency.
