Cielo Vista ranch owner revealed

VALLEY — A story updated on Tuesday in the Denver Post named the new owner of the 83,000-acre Cielo Vista Ranch in the San Luis Valley as Texas oil heir William Bruce Harrison.

The property sold last month after listing for $105 million, but the buyer and sales price were not disclosed at that time. Post writer Jason Blevins researched the buyer’s name, beginning with the Costilla County property records, which listed the new owner as a Delaware-registered limited liability company named Cielo Vista Ranch II. The company traces back to the Houston office of Cathexis Oil & Gas LLC, an investment firm founded by Harrison in 2010.

A Houston law firm Jackson Walker representing the new owners of the ranch said, “as of this time, the owner has no plans to change such access.”

The broker who negotiated the sale for the Mirr Ranch Group said in a statement following the August deal that the new, unidentified owner was “a true conservationist … deeply committed to preserving this national treasure and extraordinary resource.”

Harrison’s father, billionaire oil and ranching baron Bruce Harrison, passed away in 2004 at age 54 when his son was only 17. According to a lawsuit he filed against his uncle, who was trustee and executor of his father’s estate, Harrison was scheduled to receive his inheritance when he turned 30 in 2017.

Cathexis has investments in real estate, construction and oil and gas.

Cielo Vista Ranch encompasses 83,368 acres stretching across more than 20 miles of Sangre de Cristo ridgeline and includes the 14,047-foot Culebra Peak and 18 13,000-foot peaks.

The property, a land grant dating to the 1800s, has been owned by lumberman Jack Taylor, Enron executive Lou Pai and most recently by a group of Texas investors who named it Cielo Vista. Although the sale price was not disclosed in county records, it was listed at $105 million and likely marked the largest ranch sale so far in 2017.