Scenic ranch south of San Jose owned by Bechtel family sells for $24 million in latest major conservation deal
The Peninsula Open Space Trust, a non-profit environmental group based in Palo Alto, made headlines in January when it closed the last significant part of a $63 million deal to buy the 6,500-acre Sargent Ranch, a vast property south of Gilroy that had been the center of battles since the 1990s over a proposed casino, subdivisions and most recently a gravel mine.
On Tuesday, the group secured another landmark property in Santa Clara County, announcing it had purchased Mead Ranch, a 1,921-acre parcel between San Jose and Morgan Hill, for $24.3 million.
The ranch, located in the picturesque rolling foothills along Uvas Road, will be preserved as open space, according to the organization, commonly known as POST. It’s the latest property in recent years to be set aside for wildlife, farming or open space in and around Coyote Valley, an area west of Highway 101 on San Jose’s southern edges where tech giants Apple and Cisco once proposed to build huge campuses in the 1980s and 1990s.
“There are rolling hills, oak-studded grasslands, ponds and beautiful views,” said Gordon Clark, president of the Peninsula Open Space Trust, during a recent visit to Mead Ranch. “This property is a key linchpin that connects the Santa Cruz Mountains to Coyote Valley.”
Clark said the purchase, which was funded in large part by a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, is the latest example of a wider strategy to provide places to roam for mountain lions, deer and other wildlife that are increasingly isolated by freeways and development across California.
“We’ve been filling in puzzle pieces on the valley floor at Coyote Valley and bigger pieces on the hillsides around it,” Clark said. “We’re trying to protect big blocks that wildlife can use as habitat, and which link to the Diablo Range and the rest of the state.”
The ranch is roughly twice the size of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. From its highest hills, visitors can see Mount Hamilton to the east, and Mount Umunhum and Loma Prieta to the west. With the purchase, about 49,000 acres of open space now exists between Mount Umunhum and Highway 101 — an area six times the size of Stanford University.
Since 1954, Mead Ranch had been owned by the family of Stephen D. Bechtel Jr., who from 1960 to 1990 served as president of Bechtel, a major American engineering and construction company. Bechtel was married to Elizabeth Mead Hogan, who died two years ago. Stephen D. Bechtel Jr., died in 2021 at age 95, with a net worth estimated at $3.5 billion.
Founded in San Francisco in 1898, the Bechtel company built Hoover Dam, BART and the Channel Tunnel between England and France, along with airports, nuclear plants and other huge projects around the world. Over time, some Bechtel heirs have moved out of the Bay Area, and the company shifted its headquarters to Virginia in 2018.
Along with his friends and family, Bechtel used Mead Ranch for getaways and hunting trips. In 2007, he hosted the National Retriever Championship on the property, an annual event in which hunting dogs from around the United States compete to retrieve birds, like ducks or pheasants, while navigating challenging terrain.
Evan Johnstone of Reno, Bechtel’s grandson, declined to comment on the sale.
In 2023, another branch of the family sold an adjacent property called Lakeside Ranch to POST for $22 million.
POST transferred that property to the Santa Clara Valley Habitat Agency, a government agency that preserves open space as part of a broad countywide plan in which developers pay fees to offset harm they do to endangered species on their properties so they can obtain permits. Clark said the same outcome is likely with Mead Ranch.
Santa Clara County’s landscape and politics have shifted considerably since the Bechtels, who also have lived in San Francisco and Piedmont, first bought the two ranches during the Eisenhower years.
From the 1950s until the 1980s, San Jose sprawled in all directions. With a booming post-war economy driven by military contractors, electronics companies and computer firms, city leaders eagerly approved bulldozing orchards and farms that had given the area the name “Valley of Heart’s Delight” for freeways, subdivisions and businesses.
By the 1980s and 1990s, political views began to shift. San Jose, neighboring cities and Santa Clara County began passing rules to limit development on hillsides and some farmland. Environmental groups and land trusts began pushing for new parks and open space preserves. Many old-time ranching families sold their properties, which have increasingly become parks and open space preserves.
“It used to be that Grandpa bought the land,” said Henry Coletto, a retired game warden with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s office from 1988 to 2004, who also worked as a county parks ranger starting in 1967. “His family raised cattle, then the second generation raised their family there, and the third generation sold the property because they didn’t want to be in the cattle business. It’s a tough life. Today, there are only a handful of cowboys who own their own land in this area. The rest are renting it from open space and parks agencies.”
Coletto said that amid the working ranchers, several wealthy families from the Peninsula and San Francisco, including the Hewletts and Packards, bought large pieces of land in rural Santa Clara County in the 1950s and 1960s.
“Back then, it was a trend for people who had money to have a big ranch and be a cowboy or raise horses,” Coletto said. “The Bechtels didn’t spend a lot of time on the property. But they did invite friends to do pheasant hunting and work with dogs. They did a beautiful job of maintaining the fences and the corrals and the houses.”
The Bechtel family allowed cattle grazing on the ranch, which POST will continue. The family also built six homes on the property. POST says it’s not sure yet what it will do with them or if there ever will be public access to the property, although it could provide a 1.5-mile addition to the Bay Area Ridge Trail. Coletto said he hopes it’s not too heavily grazed in the future, particularly around two sensitive streams that run through the property, Uvas and Llagas creeks.
“The big thing is that the land is not going to be developed,” he said. “It’s like its own little mountain range back there. There are some good water areas there on the west side. The whole area is pretty important for wildlife.”