Reply #12: 1583 acres, 7 canyons, 3 miles of river/creek footage, plus buildings -pix [View All]

[jean]

I found a few pix, but think the one of 'the house' and of Laura inside the house, are actually of the renovated farmhouse, not their built-from-scratch abode with the 10 foot wide porch circling it 'like a moat..."

http://quest.cjonline.com/stories/122300/gen_1223007482...
Town near Bush's ranch gains notice
December 23, 2000


President-elect Bush stands in the doorway of his ranch house outside Crawford, Texas.
Associated Press Photo


The house on President-elect Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Associated Press Photo

"Bush's ranch is fenced, has one gated entrance down a dirt road and no indication of who lives there. Only a large field dotted with trees can be seen from the road.

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The Bushes are building a home on the property and have renovated a 60-year-old farmhouse. Bush, an avid fisherman, also has built a private fishing lake to be stocked with largemouth bass.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_Chapel_Ranch

"Buildings on the land built by the Englebrechts were refurbished for new uses, such as Secret Service quarters and guest houses. Bush and his wife had David Heymann, an associate professor of architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, design a 10,000 ft² (930 m²) honey-colored native limestone single-level home on the site. Over half of that square footage is from a ten-foot-wide limestone porch that encircles the house. The house was built by members of a religious community from nearby Elm Mott, Texas and wasn't completed until after his inauguration.

The passive-solar house is positioned to absorb winter sunlight, warming the interior walkways and walls of the residence. Geothermal heat pumps circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground. A 40,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof urns; wastewater from sinks, toilets, and showers cascades into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is then used to irrigate the landscaping around the four-bedroom home. Photographs of the interior of the house indicate a sophisticated take on rough-hewn living, with generous English-style club chairs covered in what appears to be printed Fortuny linen.

Bush added an 11 acre (45,000 m²) man-made pond that is stocked with 600 bass and thousands of bait fish. In 2002, the ranch was wired for what Bush described in a 2003 tour of the ranch as "real time, secure videoconferencing" to be used for his briefings from the CIA and Dick Cheney."
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http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/images/...
November 2001

First Lady Laura Bush reads her Radio Address from Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas.
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http://business.baylor.edu/Tom_Kelly/The%20Impact%20of%...

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Bush never released financial details of the ranch purchase, but local real estate agents have said the 1,600-acre property is worth $1.2 million, or $800 to $900 per acre. The market value is $988,353, according to the county tax appraiser's office. Bush constructed a single-level ranch house on 10,000 square feet with high-ceiling rooms making up about one-third of the space. A limestone porch takes up the rest, circling the house like a moat. (The builders, who Bush got to know on a first name basis, were from a religious community in El Mott.) There’s a swimming (“whining”) pool for his twin daughters and a 10-acre man- made pond stocked with 5,000 bass to serve his love of fishing.

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