The 12,000-acre MV2, formerly part of the legendary Mesa Vista Ranch, is a “sportsman’s paradise.”
By Katharine Jose, Managing Editor, Chron.com Nov 17, 2024
A little more than 12,000 acres in the Texas Panhandle that once belonged to legendary oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens is back on the market just a few years after the original property was split up.
MV2 Ranch, listed for $19.6 million by Bryan Pickens (no relation) of Republic Ranches, is “arguably one of the finest quail and wildlife ranches in the country,” its listing suggests. That’s no surprise. Despite his massive, somewhat fossil fuel-based fortune T. Boone Pickens spent decades building his iconic property from merely 2,900 nearly empty acres in 1971 to the sprawling 65,000-acre Mesa Vista Ranch, which had a massive hunting lodge and its own airport. Along the way, he aimed to create an ideal place for hunting, which he was passionate about, which meant extensive habitat restoration and water features to support wildlife.
Preserving the land was important to T. Boone Pickens. He listed it for sale in 2017 for $250 million (nearly half of Pickens’ net worth at that point after he became a noted philanthropist and gave a large piece of his fortune away), and told Texas Monthly not long after that he was selling it after 47 years of ownership instead of passing it down to his children in part to maintain the habitat for local quail and other birds.
MV2 is only one part of that ranch, which finally sold in two pieces in 2022 after the price was dropped to $170 million. The larger section, 37,000 acres that includes the hunting lodge and 40-dog kennel, sold to a group of investors led by Bill Kent, a Midland-based oil-and-gas investor. The other piece sold to a cattle rancher named Travis Chester. The acreage that makes up MV2 was bought by a group of investors in 2023.
And while it may not have the fancy lodge, according to sixth-generation Texan Bryan Pickens MV2 is a “remarkable ranch.”
“For the sportsman, this is a mecca,” Bryan Pickens said. Part of what makes it a particularly excellent piece of land for hunting, he went on to say, is that it is the only piece of Mesa Vista that had a T. Boone Pickens-installed, seven-mile, four-inch water line with sprinklers every 1,000 feet. Even in the Panhandle, which is hot and dry in the summer, “you’ve got these little green oasis pastures,” Bryan Pickens said, drawing wildlife.
MV2 was affected by the Smokehouse Creek Fire earlier this year, which was the largest in Texas history and burned more than a million acres (including nearly all of the venerable Turkey Track Ranch, on the market at the time for $180 million). Bryan Pickens said that while the fire was undeniably damaging to people and livestock in the Pandhandle, the quail population around MV2 has responded well to its clearing of brush and the reseeding that followed.
Bryan Pickens also emphasized the uniqueness of the property. “Having a piece of Boone’s place with the water line and stewardship can’t be replicated,” he said. “It’s just a long history there.”
https://www.chron.com/homes/article/t-boone-pickens-ranch-sale-19919349.php