In the early 2000s, a property owner in Utah set out to turn his land into the optimal hunting retreat complete with a lodge.
He bought land from his neighbors and eventually amassed some 5,000 acres in Morgan. At the center: a hunting lodge.
“It was very rustic,” according to broker Sam Sanders, “with a lot of animal heads in it and so forth.”
Now, more than 20 years later, the property, known as Sheep Creek Canyon Ranch, has been reimagined from the ground up, and it’s on the market for $72.5 million, making it the most expensive public listing in Utah, according to Homes.com.
The ranch was redesigned by the LLC that owns it, Sanders said. Salt Lake City-based interior designer Bond Design also contributed to the project.
“It was like, when in doubt, what is the best that we could install?" Sanders added.
Sanders holds the listing alongside Tim Anderson. Both brokers are with Swan Land Co.
A reimagined main house and New York-style speakeasy
The sellers took down the original lodge and rebuilt a more than 6,000-square-foot house with five bedrooms and seven bathrooms, Sanders said.
“The current home, the new home, sits on the footprint of that old home,” he said. “They left parts of the old home standing but stripped it to the studs; ripped out all the wiring, all the plumbing, everything; and started over.”
Inside, custom light fixtures hang from vaulted ceilings. Glass doors connect the open first floor to the outdoor space. And upstairs, there’s a bunk room with built-in bunk beds.
Next door to the main house, there’s a three-bedroom, two-bathroom guest house that doubles as a New York-inspired speakeasy.
“That original building existed, but again, they knocked it down and just kept the footprint, expanding it slightly,” Sanders said. “On the lower level, you have storage space.”
The property also includes a campground complete with a platformed tent, outdoor shower, and hot tub, as well as a fully functional barn.
The LLC added 2,000 acres, bringing the total to 7,000-plus.
What it takes to maintain 7,000-plus acres
Sanders said the property is more than its buildings. The secluded spot offers hunting grounds, and the bodies of water that dot and wind through the land are ripe for fishing.
At the same time, though, it is a driving distance to urban hotspots, including Salt Lake City.
“That’s the No. 1 thing, convenience,” Sanders said. “There’s absolutely nothing like it, to have that kind of contiguous acreage altogether with this level of improvements.”
Maintaining that much acreage, however, takes work, according to Sanders.
“There are a lot of trails,” he said, “so every spring, you need to go back there and you carry a chainsaw with you because there will be trees that have fallen across and rocks that have fallen down.”
It would also be important to keep up with invasive weed growth across the property, and it could be worth having a small staff to help with upkeep, he said.
Even so, Sanders thinks the property will sell to an end-user.
“This could easily be a primary property, but it can also be a second home," he said. "It doesn’t require a tremendous staff to keep it up. It’s not like some of these places where you’ve got 20,000 square feet of building to maintain."