One of the biggest US ranches – twice the size of NYC – is for sale in Texas

One of the largest ranches in the United States — more than twice the size of New York City — is for sale in Texas, a real estate agent says.

The “shy” billionaire who spent decades assembling the giant property has a particular type of buyer in mind.

Brewster Ranches is 420,000 acres of sprawling West Texas habitat, ranging in elevation from 1,600 feet in canyons of the Rio Grande to a couple of mile-high peaks, according to a listing by King Land and Water. It’s home to herds of elk, bighorn sheep, quail, mule deer and cattle.

“That’s a huge single ownership anywhere in the United States, not just in Texas,” real estate agent James King told McClatchy News.

It could be yours for the price of $320 million.

Or, if you don’t have that much money, the landowner is willing to divide it into five separate tracts. But he prefers a single buyer, King said.

Who is the ranch landowner, Brad Kelley?

Billionaire Brad Kelley, who owns the land under Texas Mountain Cattle Company LLC, has spent years assembling 22 separate properties to amass the mega ranch.

The Kentucky businessman is known for being reclusive, rarely giving interviews to the media and certainly not tweeting — or even using email, according to a Wall Street Journal profile in 2012.

Yet he’s one of the largest landowners in the country and worth $2.4 billion, having built his fortune from selling discount cigarettes, according to Forbes.

“He’s an amazing individual,” King told McClatchy. “He’s done a lot of conservation work in Texas and across the country.”

Searching for a land conservation buyer

That partially explains why Kelley wants to sell the enormous ranch as a single property.

It borders Black Gap Wildlife Management Area, home to an important and recovering bighorn sheep population, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife. Just to the west of the wildlife area is Big Bend National Park.

Hopefully, a buyer will put a conservation easement on the land, King said.

“Keeping these tracts in large ownership is good for our landscape, our wildlife and our ranching communities,” King said.

Living on a big ranch in Texas

Right now, local families lease land from Kelley for ranching and hunting operations, King told Marfa Public Radio. Whether that continues will be the decision of the new landowner, the radio station reported.

Either way, there’s plenty of land for hiking, four-wheeling, hunting and other outdoor adventures, King said.

Plus, there’s a five-bedroom,four-bathroom Spanish hacienda, an airstrip and hangar, and other buildings and homes on the ranch, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Here’s a slideshow with pictures from across the ranch.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly named Brewster Ranches the biggest in the United States.

This story was originally published January 10, 2020 at 1:22 PM with the headline "One of the biggest US ranches – twice the size of NYC – is for sale in Texas."