RANCHO EL COJO

Santa Barbara County, California THE OFFERING

For the first time in nearly a century, the Cojo Ranch is available for purchase. It represents the most highly coveted coastal property of scale to be offered for sale in the United States.

Rancho El Cojo, or the Cojo Ranch, is a natural wonder on the Central California Coast. Stretching from and the breathtaking Gaviota Coast to the foothills of the majestic in western Santa Barbara County, the Cojo Ranch is a remarkably well preserved cultural landscape. Mother Nature has combined nine miles of pristine ocean coastline and sandy beaches, 8,580 acres of rolling grasslands and ancient oak forests, and sweeping panoramic views of the Islands to create a mural whose motif is spectacular unspoiled beauty.

From the indigenous Chumash Indians to the arrival of the first Spanish explorers in the 16th century to Fred H. Bixby in 1913, all inhabitants recognized the value and potential of this rich and fertile land. Bixby Ranch Company has owned and operated the Cojo as a working cattle and horse ranch for nearly 100 years and has been committed to preserving the land’s rural identity and natural beauty to ensure that future generations may experience its wonder and awe.

The Cojo Ranch is the last intact coastal ranch in Southern California of this size, a vast expanse of open land with many private scenic locations overlooking the Pacific Ocean. From Point Conception, migrating whales, breeding sea lions, and playful sea otters are commonly observed. The historic and solitary Point Conception Lighthouse, first activated in 1856, is still maintained by the Coast Guard and alerts ocean vessels of the abrupt 90 degree coastline turn at Point Conception, referred to by mariners as the “Cape Horn of California,” where ocean currents from the north meet the calm waters of the Santa Barbara Channel and create a dramatic and evolving natural environment that is unprecedented in the United States.

Blessed with an exceptionally mild Mediterranean climate, the Cojo Ranch offers year round enjoyment of its wild splendor, which contains an incredible diversity of plant and animal life, with a paucity of man-made intrusions. The Cojo’s relatively warm and dry weather conditions to the south and east and cool, moist conditions to the north combine to produce morning coastal fog, afternoon ocean breezes, and heavenly star-filled nights.

HISTORY OF THE COJO RANCH

Rancho El Cojo (Cojo Ranch) was originally part of the 25,000-acre Rancho de la Punta Conception, awarded to Anastacio Carrillo by Governor Juan Batista Alvarado in 1837. The Cojo derived its name from soldiers traveling with Gaspar de Portola’s first overland expedition of who referred to the area around their encampment near Point Conception as Rancheria del Cojo (Ranch of the Lame) after the crippled chief of a local Chumash Indian village.

The Cojo Ranch sits adjacent to Point Conception, a sacred site to the Chumash Indians that has served as an important tribal symbol for thousands of years. Originally called Humqaq (“The Raven Comes”), Point Conception represented the “western gate” to heaven, a spiritual portal into the celestial world where the souls of the dead depart for Shimilaqsha (“Realm of the Dead”). Centuries later in 1602 when Spanish navigator Sebastian Vizcaino reached this spectacular promontory around the feast day of the Immaculate Conception, he renamed it “Punta de la Limpia Concepcion” (“Point of the Immaculate Conception”), which eventually became known as Point Conception. Point Conception marks the northern entry to the Santa Barbara Channel, an abrupt 90 degree turn in the California coastline. In 1856, the Point Conception Ligh