America’s Most Fabulous Billionaire Estate Sells

One of America’s most extravagant and picturesque ranches has sold. Mesa Vista, the giant Texas ranch of the late oil billionaire, T. Boone Pickens, was on the market for $170 million.

Located in the northeast corner of the Texas Panhandle, Mesa Vista stretches for over 100 square miles and almost 37,000 acres along 25 miles of the Canadian River. The compound includes a five-bedroom family house, an 11,500-square-foot lake house with three bedrooms, a 2,300-square-foot gatehouse with three more bedrooms, a private airport with a two-bedroom apartment for pilots, a chapel where T. Boone and his fifth wife were married, a 2,250-square-foot pub, a golf course and tennis court, and a 400-square-foot gun room. There is a 25,000-square-foot lodge and conference center with a living room, commercial kitchen, more bedrooms, a library with a spiral staircase, a thirty-seat theater/media room, and a wine cellar. And an 11,000-square-foot dog kennel, which includes a veterinary lab and 3,600 square feet of enclosed air conditioned space. T. Boone even moved the Oklahoma white-frame home where he grew up to Mesa Vista.

The ranch has an abundance of water as Boone’s Creek flows through the ranch for about 12 miles of creeks, lakes, waterfalls and ponds, all of which are man-made and recirculated. One of Boone’s major goals for the ranch was to enrich the land, returning it to an oasis for wildlife, much of which is back to its natural state of lush natural grasses, which have never been grazed. He was a leader in land conservation practices that are now followed by many other ranchers in the United States.

Pickens graduated from Oklahoma State University and dressed Mesa Vista in variations of Pickens’ favorite orange color. Which is also the color for his beloved OSU football team. In the early 2000s, Pickens donated over $200 million to the school’s athletic department. The school’s football field was renamed Boone Pickens Stadium in 2003. T. Boone made his fortune in the oil and natural gas business, which brought him a net worth of about $1 billion at the time of his death in 2019 at the age of 91.

Mesa Vista sold in two transactions. Travis Chester, a Texas rancher, purchased 27,000+ acres in September 2022. Bill Kent, a Texas businessman, led a group that purchased the balance of the ranch in November 2022. The price is confidential for both transactions. The sale to Chester was real estate only and had only minor improvements. The Kent purchase included all the extraordinary improvements (lakehouse, lodge, dog kennel and airport as well as several employee residences) and was turn-key to include essentially all art, furnishings, and equipment.

Sam Middleton of Chas. S. Middleton and Son and Monte Lyons of Hall and Hall handled the sale.