Ronald Reagan has been mentioned on this blog a couple of times, once because we went to his library and the other was due to the fact that he mentioned Temecula in a speech and the town named our sports park in his honor. With tomorrow being his birthday, it is quite the coincidence that we found yet another Reagan-Temecula link. Back roads are truly the best roads.
As we were driving to Tenaja Falls, we passed this sign and just had to stop. Turns out our 40th President had, at one time, owned this property not too far from us. How very cool.Reagan was likely first introduced to the Temecula area in the1960s, when he was California’s governor, by his friend William A. Wilson, who owned a ranch on the Santa Rosa Plateau. “One weekend, for Nancy’s birthday, Betty and I invited the Reagans down to our ranch in Temecula,” Wilson told Stanford Magazine for an article in the May 1999 edition. "Reagan must have seen something he liked, because in the late 1960s he bought this property."“California Governor Ronald Reagan has purchased 771 acres (on the Santa Rosa Plateau) reputedly for a retirement ranch,” wrote Bennie Hudson in the Winter 1969 edition of High Country Magazine. "News reports say that he is ‘literally itching’ to get a fence up around the ranch.” Sadly, Reagan was not a frequent visitor to Temecula and by the early 1970s had apparently lost his itch and sold the land (he reportedly complained of delays in getting water and power to the location).The property is now adjacent to a private airport. What remains of the President's large purchase is now a 30-acre equestrian property which includes a 5-acre seasonally fed lake, a lakeside house, a regulation-size polo field with two grandstands, an 8-acre pasture, nine corrals, three wells and a 2,750-square-foot barn with skylights. Who knows what he would have done with the place. Man!The Reagans ended up very happy at their final destination, a ranch in Santa Barbara. Temecula lost a special opportunity, but we still have The Gipper, holding down the fort at the sports park which bears his name.
"Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music."
-Ronald Reagan
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