COSTILLA COUNTY — William Bruce Harrison, the 30 year old heir to one of Texas’ original oil fortunes, has purchased what has been known as the Taylor Ranch.
The purchase includes a 14,000-foot peak that is said to be the world’s tallest privately owned mountain.
The 83,000-acre Cielo Vista Ranch sold last month after listing for $105 million, according to Costilla County property records, but the buyer and sales price have not been disclosed.
Records now show Harrison has purchased the ranch, which spans more than 20 miles of Sangre de Cristo mountain range, including the 14,047-foot Culebra Peak and 18 13,000-foot peaks.
Harrison’s father, billionaire oil and ranching baron Bruce Harrison, passed away in 2004 at age 54. William was scheduled to receive his inheritance when he turned 30 in 2017.
A broker who negotiated the sale for the Mirr Ranch Group said in an August statement that Harrison was “a true conservationist … deeply committed to preserving this national treasure and extraordinary resource.”
Public access is still debatable, though the Cielo Vista II website offers it — at a price — and limited access has been awarded to land grant heirs.
Climbers who count Culebra as an important peak in the state’s collection of “fourteeners” have been allowed access to the summit for a $150 fee. That access didn’t exist in August, but Harrison’s representative said the ranch would continue access programs that allowed climbing the state’s tallest privately owned peak.
In 1960, North Carolina lumberman Jack T. Taylor bought the property and closed the ranch, angering families of land grant heirs who had used the property for grazing, logging, hunting and fishing.
The ensuing litigation, filed in 1981, lasted more than 30 years before the Colorado Supreme Court settled the dispute by restoring wood gathering and limited grazing rights to heirs of the original settlers, while denying hunting rights.
Enron executive Lou Pai bought the Taylor Ranch in 1988 for $20 million and sold it 16 years later for $60 million to a group of Texas investors who changed the name to Cielo Vista.
The address of the new owner — a Delaware-registed limited liability company named Cielo Vista Ranch II — is the Houston office of Cathexis Oil & Gas LLC, an investment firm founded by Harrison in 2010.
Cathexis has investments in real estate, construction and oil and gas. The company is partnered with Houston developer Midway on a planned Houston complex that could include 8 million square feet of shops, offices and entertainment venues, according to the Houston Chronicle. Cathexis last year orchestrated a hostile takeover of ISG, an international construction firm that was reportedly worth more than $100 million.
Emails and calls to the new ranch offices were not returned.