Ambushed by a Ranch

Every good plan needs a curveball. Ours came with gates, weeds, and a barn that leaned just enough to be photogenic.

We were not looking for a ranch. But apparently, the ranch was looking for us.

By the fall of 2021, I had stepped away from a 35+ year career in tech. Megan and I pictured travel, leisure, maybe even pickleball glory. What we did not picture was a 30-year project featuring barns that lean, barbed wire that bites, calves that refuse to be corralled, and neighbors who make the calves look agreeable. Yet here we are.

You Had Me at “It Has an Old Barn”

The ambush came, as ambushes often do, during a favorite pastime: surfing real estate porn — that guilty pleasure of scrolling listings in our favorite locales, imagining lives we could live without the inconvenience of a down payment or a mortgage. For us, the daydreams often centered on San Luis Obispo, where we already had a small second home in town. The Golden Oak Retirement Estate was more than comfortable, but we’d begun picturing something different — more space, more sky, maybe five or ten acres to stretch out. What I found overshot the mark by… well, quite a bit. I sent the listing to Megan half as a joke and half as a test, to see just how crazy she was willing to be.

The first photo that caught my eye was a rustic old barn — exactly the sort of thing I knew would capture Megan’s imagination. Then came the kicker: not one, not two, not three, but four dilapidated residences. And sheds galore. Enough crumbly outbuildings to keep an army of tool-wielding contractors in shiny white pickups busy for years. But beyond the wreckage stretched wide-open spaces. Rolling green and rugged hills caught the sunlight like something out of Yellowstone, and that barn, with its rusted tin roof, looked like it had a hundred years of stories — most of them ending with a leaky roof.

I hit “send” on the listing with a smirk, imagining Megan’s eye-roll at the sheer scale of it. Instead, she studied the pictures and said, “I love that barn!” Not exactly the “you’re out of your mind” I was half expecting.

It was a small but telling moment. Neither of us declared, “This is it!” But neither of us dismissed it, either. Somewhere between my half-joke and her half-smile, we realized we could both imagine ourselves possibly doing something like this — someday, maybe.

The First Visit

Photos were one thing. Dirt under our boots was another. We already had a January trip to San Luis Obispo on the calendar, so we figured: why not go take a look? Worst case, it would be an entertaining detour. Best case… well, we weren’t ready to say out loud what the best case might be.

We met our realtor, Sacha Steel, on the dirt road just off LOVR — Los Osos Valley Road. Before long we were wedged into listing agent Linda’s Land Rover, rattling down the track. The photos hadn’t exaggerated the barn — if anything, its rusted roof looked even more heroic up close. The four houses were every bit as dilapidated as promised, and the sheds looked ready to surrender at the first stiff wind. But the hills — those hills — were the kind of backdrop you can’t Photoshop, no matter how many filters you try. Standing there, it was impossible not to imagine a life that looked less like retirement and more like Ranch Hands ’R Us.

Megan saw beauty and possibility: a canvas big enough for gardens, gatherings, and a touch of design magic. I saw history, character, and the irresistible challenge of reviving a beautiful piece of California. Together, we saw something that made us forget about practicalities like common sense, finances, and physical limitations.

Somewhere between that first drive through the pastures and the second glass of wine, we convinced ourselves this was a real possibility. After all, hadn’t we already painted cabinets, survived Tudor plaster, and resuscitated plumbing that last saw daylight during the Hoover administration? Surely a ranch couldn’t be that much harder. Famous last words.

The 30-Year Project

When we call this The 30-Year Project, we’re not talking about a deadline circled on a calendar. Thirty years is shorthand for everything this new chapter represents.

It’s about time — the years we hope to have ahead of us, and how we want to spend them. It’s about focus — pouring our energy into a place that constantly reminds us to slow down, pay attention, and work with our hands. It’s about patience — because shaping a ranch takes longer than a weekend remodel, and because the best results come from evolution, not instant gratification (or unrealistic HGTV timelines).

We’ve tackled plenty of projects before — crumbling cottage plaster, Hoover-era plumbing, kitchens with every generation’s idea of “modern convenience” — but this one is different. This isn’t just another remodel. It’s the canvas for our next phase of life. The kind of project that changes you even as you try to change it.

If we do it right, this place will outlast us. If we do it really right, it will keep evolving long after we’re gone — a blend of finished work, half-finished experiments, and stories etched into the land. In that sense, it’s less a project and more a partnership: the ranch shaping us as much as we shape it.

You’re Sheeting Me

Welcome to The Rancho Bullsheet, our periodic dispatch about two people who thought they were headed for pickleball and travel miles, and now find themselves staring down broken barbed wire, escaped cattle, and windblown barns. Expect tall tales, true stories, and the occasional lesson learned the hard way.

We weren’t looking for a ranch. But apparently, the ranch was looking for us.

Never underestimate a piece of land that refuses to let go of your imagination.