Lot 134

Start on the north fence and follow it east. Both of those sides are fenced their full length, and between them they account for better than half the perimeter, so two of your lines are already turned out and wired. The survey governs where the boundary actually sits, and we will put the plat in your hands. Among the ranch land for sale at Tortuga Ranch in Duval County, this 46.27-acre tract is the one with the old headquarters standing on it. The shape runs long and narrow, roughly 2.7 to 1, which gives you a deep run of ground from one end to the other with the house seated in the middle of it.

The ground rolls, but gently. About 21 ft of drop end to end is all you will find, and a pickup handles the whole of it in low gear without complaint. Roughly 510 ft of dirt ranch road already runs on the tract toward the southeast end, which saves you the expense of cutting one and gives a work truck or a side-by-side somewhere to go when the grass is tall. Understand it for what it is: an existing road on the ground. How your legal way in is written is a matter for the deed and the plat, and we will sit down and go over both.

Now the yard. The live oaks standing over this headquarters are the only oaks on the entire ranch, which tells you somebody hauled them here, set them, and watered them through more than one dry summer. They have earned their keep. Their shade spreads over the house and most of the lawn, and in a region where shade is usually something you build, a canopy like that is worth more than the lumber it would take to replace it. A stucco wall with square pillars fronts the yard, cedar-post stockade fencing runs behind it, and a wraparound concrete loop with cattle guards at the openings keeps stock out of the grass while the pasture runs right up to the wall.

The house is a long, low adobe-colored ranch home under a standing-seam metal roof, with a deep covered porch on the west face held up by heavy stucco columns, tiled floor underneath, and a fire ring stacked with split wood at one end. Inside, saltillo tile runs through the whole of it. The main room has a vaulted ceiling, a limestone fireplace with a cut-stone mantel, built-in shelving, and sliding glass the full width of the wall so the porch and the pasture beyond stay in view from the hearth. The kitchen was built for people who cook for a crowds: granite counters on a long island with a gas cooktop, a second granite run with a double sink, stainless double wall ovens set in cabinetry, and knotty alder doors and trim throughout. Bedrooms open off a tiled hall, the baths are finished in troweled plaster and tile, and antler fixtures hang where somebody meant them to hang. Even though it feels private and remote, the town of Freer is about an 8 min drive from cattle guard to the school.

Out back, past a brick and saltillo walk, a ramada framed in weathered posts and roofed with stacked limbs shades a tiled lap pool, with a stockade fence closing the courtyard and agave and prickly pear growing right where they were planted. This was a serious headquarters in its day, assembled by one of the oldest families in this corner of Texas when oil came to the brush, and over the years it grew to include pool, pumphouse, garage and guest quarters. It sits empty now. It will need a real owner's attention, plaster patched, systems checked, mechanicals gone through, and we would rather say that plainly than let you find it on your own walk. What is included in a sale gets spelled out in the contract, so ask us and we will put it in writing.

The brush beyond the yard fence is the same brushland that made this region's reputation with hunters, the grown-up thornscrub between Freer and San Diego where dove work the openings and deer move at dusk. Stock has been run on this ground since the days of the old land grants, and the stockade pens and wooden corrals behind the house are a leftover from working cattle here rather than a decoration somebody added later. Ask us about how the taxes are valued and about the few restrictions that apply here, and we will get you the paperwork rather than a verbal answer.

Owner financing makes a tract like this reachable, with as little as 5% down to get it started, and the full terms are printed beside this listing. Tracts on this ranch are surveyed, with deeded access on the ranch roads. Come in cool weather if you can, wear boots that can take cactus spines, and give yourself half a day. We will open the gate, loop the caliche around the house, and go through the rooms one at a time, and then walk the tract from the north fence to the southeast end so you see the whole 46.27 acres and not just the yard.