4M Ranch is featured in the Summer 2021 issue of Texas LAND magazine. Click here to find out more.
The highly improved 4M Ranch is a world unto itself with an incredible suite of world-class improvements including a 5,000-foot paved runway, crushed rock roads, headquarters complex and, set out miles away on a limestone perch, a truly remarkable 10,000± square-foot home with infinity pool peering down at the four miles of Lower Pecos River frontage below. Stunning, complete and perfect are words that come to mind. Located 16 miles north of Langtry on county-maintained Pandale Road, the ranch includes a scenic, wild segment of the Lower Pecos River and its spring-fed, gin-clear waters. 4M Ranch is a turnkey paradise.
4M Ranch was home to the Pecos culture of hunter/gatherers dating back 4,000 years, who left a legacy of extensive rock art over 8,000 square miles. The area was also known for pioneers of the late 1800s such as Judge Roy Bean at Langtry, and his “law West of the Pecos,” as well as Lieutenant John Bullis, commander of the Seminole Indian Scouts fighting in the Pecos River skirmishes in 1870. Today, the Pecos River is a ranch and recreation neighborhood with a wilderness multi-night, world-class canoe and kayak experience to enjoy. Cross through high canyon walls in a series of rapids and pools with world-class, clear-water fishing in one of the most unique float trips in North America.
4M Ranch has a conservation easement on 90 percent of the property with the ability to divide the ranch into five tracts with five large building envelopes. This is part of a regional conservation effort to help maintain the wild character and spring flow of this important river stretch. 4M Ranch has completed the tasteful construction and creation of one of the finest improved live-water properties in Texas. The Lower Pecos River is fed by a series of springs starting south of I-10, the largest, Caroline Spring, being located on the 19,500-acre Independence Creek Preserve owned by The Nature Conservancy 50 miles upstream. This protected outflow of the Edwards-Trinity Aquifer changes the river into a spring-fed reach with water quality rivaling the Devils River to the east, although here it is much more private!
Main Lodge & Guest House
Past the headquarters complex, three miles along a flat ridge on a beautiful winding road, is the stunning main house and guest house. The site, out on a limestone knife point towering over the river canyon 400 feet below, takes your breath away. Electricity all the way from the headquarters to this homesite is buried, protecting the landscape views.
The main house is a 10,000± square-foot custom rock home with impeccable landscaping and interior finishes.
The large master has two bathrooms, one containing a glass shower with a stunning river view. Four guest suites all have large, private full baths, views and separate outside entrances, and an upstairs bunkroom has four queen bunks, two full baths and a laundry room. The office has a custom desk set into a window nook with river views.
The kitchen has many amenities including a large, custom island with barstools for 10 and name-brand appliances. The kitchen and a bar area have pass-through windows to the outside patios.
The game room has a surround sound entertainment center, fireplace, large view windows, shuffleboard and sliding doors to a private outdoor patio overlooking a canyon which feeds into the Pecos River. Huge outdoor covered porches around the back of the house provide a variety of sitting areas, dining areas and bars, all with steps down to multi-level limestone patios surrounding a pool and fire pit. The custom infinity pool/hot spa is bordered by custom stonework providing stunning, unobstructed views of the Pecos River below.
A separate, cantilevered wine and cigar building with glass doors and outside porch looks into the confluence of Goat Canyon and the Pecos River.
The guest house has two large bedrooms, a great room with bar and a kitchen. Wall-size sliding doors open onto a large, covered porch with views of the river canyon. A covered shooting porch and skeet range has seven remote-controlled throwers contained in all-weather housings and a rifle range toward the river with multiple targets reaching out to 800 feet.
Headquarters Complex
The Headquarters complex is the working hub of the ranch and contains a variety of quality improvements accessed through a private electric high-fence gate on a crushed rock road.
Living quarters include a foreman’s house, a ranch worker’s house and an overflow house for ranch guests with a large covered porch.
Other improvements include an electric-pump water well with an indigenous rock tank swimming pool and deck, a dog kennel and game bird aviary.
Stunning, complete and perfect are words that come to mind. 4M Ranch is a turnkey paradise.”
A large metal barn and equipment shop boasts state-of-the-art deer cleaning facilities and a walk-in cooler. Overhead doors provide easy access into the shop. The barn has two second-story exterior efficiency apartments, and below the efficiency apartments is a two-bedroom, full-kitchen bunkroom for extra hunters or pilots visiting the ranch. The north and south of the barn are covered and have a concrete foundation to accommodate vehicles, tractors, hunting trucks and various equipment.
There is also a paved, 5,000’x80’ paved airstrip (48TE) with a covered, drive-through airplane or jet steel shade structure on the taxiway and a high fence for deer protection.
River Frontage
The four miles of river frontage on 4M Ranch is one of a kind on the Lower Pecos, which generally is shrouded with huge limestone bluffs and cliffs. Here, there is an all-weather road that gently falls off the hill at the main house to the river’s edge. With over a mile of Pecos River accessible by vehicle to water’s edge, you can literally drive within the flat limestone riverbed where you can easily load and offload canoes and kayaks. There are incredible swimming areas with shallow runs and deeper natural pools. Large yellow limestone bluffs on the opposite riverbanks capture light for incredible sunrise and sunset colors. There is also easy access into the mouth of Goat Canyon where you can hike to hanging fern springs and miles of tributary canyon bottoms.
Deer Hunting Amenities
The remaining ranch has over 30 miles of easy-access crushed rock roads with culverts that give access to a diversity of habitats for hunting. Improvements here include 23 elevated deer blinds with 23 protein and 23 corn feeders as well as water troughs and bird waterers fed by a poly pipe system from six high-capacity solar wells and elevated storage. Three year-round water surface tanks are also fed by well water. There are five+ plowed food plots for dove and deer feed.
Whitetail deer genetics and enhanced breeding bucks and does were introduced in 2000, and deer have been intensely bred for release on the ranch. There are six whitetail breeding pens with water and shade structures as well as a high-fence large trap next to the pens. A 1,758-acre high-fenced mule deer pasture has three breeding pens. The “Promontory,” the highest point on the ranch, is in the mule deer pasture and has a rock patio/wind break/sundowner pavilion with firepit, stone picnic table and cooking grill.
A high-security fence runs along three sides of the ranch, excluding the river.
Habitat & Wildlife
The ranch is situated at the convergence of three biologically distinct eco-regions in Texas; the Texas Hill Country to the east, the Chihuahuan Desert to the west and the subtropical Tamaulipan Brushland to the south, creating one of the most unique wildlife habitats in the state. From ocotillo and sotol to oak and juniper woodlands, to persimmon and ceniza, the ranch represents a crossroads of diverse habitats. The property’s browse and grasslands are in excellent condition as the ranch has focused on its wildlife resources with today’s recreation uses of hunting, fishing, canoeing and enjoyment of the scenic beauty in mind. Native grasses, forbs, browse, brush, cacti and trees not only provide excellent habitat for game species such as mule deer, quail, dove, turkey, mountain lion, aoudad, bobcat and fox but also for non-game species such as bear, Texas horned lizard, neotropical songbirds, Texas tortoise, Rio Grande beaver and native fish species. Elevations are between 1,300 and 2,000 feet with numerous steep carved limestone canyons, some with 200-foot sheer faces.
The combination of river, canyons, topography, browse and habitat creates a wildlife-rich environment for both the hunter and wildlife watcher. This ranch has a special significance in the large deer harvested each year, and through its carefully implemented MLD Program with TPWD, the size and numbers are flourishing and second to none in this region of Texas. Deer harvested on the ranch over the past three years have included several bucks that have scored in excess of 240 and one over 300.
The river itself is an important body of water for the region with its native fish and fauna, as well as game fish like small and largemouth bass, black bass and catfish. From fly fishing in the shoals and riffles to bottom fishing the clear deep holes, this ranch is an angler’s dream.
Water
The Lower Pecos River, much like the nearby Devils River, is supported by area springs as outflow from the Edwards-Trinity Aquifer and is located in one the most intact river environments in Texas, offering unique streamside habitat such as willow, live oak, hackberry, mesquite, river cane and many riparian plants, including a wide diversity of flowers and blooming cacti.
Much of the Lower Pecos is hidden behind dense stands of river cane, but not this property. You can walk for miles along the river frontage with hundreds of swimming holes and areas perfect for canoeing, fishing or just lying on the smooth rocks next to its shallows. It is recreation at its best. The Lower Pecos River area is all private land with limited access for launching canoes, creating a wilderness quality usually found only in our country’s largest national parks.
Along with the four miles of river frontage, there are four solar-powered and two electric wells serving 16 water toughs and 40 small ground tanks for birds as well as three supplemented surface tanks. Tinajas in the deep canyons are abundant, and a series of springs within Goat Canyon and along the Pecos provide year-round natural water.
10,955± Acres in Val Verde County, Texas
Offered at $22,000,000
King Land & Water
James King, Agent • Harrison King, Broker • Tammy King, Broker
432-426-2024 • Info@KingLandWater.com • KingLandWater.com