The Colinas Ranch – The Stoney Family’s Pledge of Stewardship

Small_photo_for_people_making_a_difference_-_dr

Every piece of property has a story to tell, but not all can lay claim to being the place where the American flag was first raised in California. Rich in natural habitat and cultural history, the Colinas Ranch is owned by Dr. Ron and Mrs. Linda Stoney, who last year placed a conservation easement on their entire 1,107-acre property. This easement will be managed by the Land Trust, ensuring the protection in perpetuity of some of the Central Coast’s most significant oak woodlands, native grasslands, riparian forests, and wildlife corridors. It also continues a story of connection to the land that began when Dr. Stoney was a child.

“I’ve had an interest in land most of my life,” Stoney says. His family moved from Carmel to Carmel Valley when Ron was ten, and he never looked back. As a teenager in the Valley there were ample opportunities to work outdoors, and Stoney picked fruit, harvested grain, and baled hay. From the age of seventeen to eighteen he worked on a 16,000-acre cattle ranch.

“It was my introduction to the outdoors,” he says.

Stoney went on to study medicine, and in 1965, after he had finished his training in vascular surgery at UCSF, his father suggested that he invest in buying land. The following year Stoney bought Colinas Ranch, which is located in both Monterey and San Benito Counties, northeast of Salinas and south of San Juan Bautista. He added other contiguous parcels to the Ranch in the 1970s.

Besides leasing the property to cattle ranchers and an organic farmer, his principle use of the Ranch has been for quiet pleasure and enjoyment with family and friends.

Small_rancho_colinas_1_central_rancho_colinas

“My profession was fixing blood vessels,” Stoney says. Owning Colinas Ranch gave him the opportunity to “get out of the sterile environment of the operating room and get out into the outdoors.”

Today, the Gabilan foothills are one of the most rapidly developing areas on the Central Coast. “I’ve watched a lot of other properties in the area get built up,” Stoney laments, historic cattle ranches that have been turned into “one home after another and another.”

Seeing some of the beautiful hills around him turn into built-out neighborhoods inspired Stoney to seek ways to conserve his land. “What are we doing for the generations that follow?” he asks.

The Stoneys’ gift represents the Land Trust’s first conservation easement in the Gabilan region, a critical area of wildlife corridors and habitat. Ron and Linda hope that their decision will motivate other landowners in the area to preserve their valuable lands in their natural state.

Based on location records, researchers believe that Yates Peak, located on Colinas Ranch, was the strategic site where in 1846 John C. Fremont built his fort to prepare for attack by Mexican troops. Much has changed since that first flag was raised, but the Ranch’s commanding view of beautiful rolling hills, the valleys and Monterey Bay remains. Thanks to the Stoney family’s generous decision, it always will.

You can support stewardship of our lands and waters.