Spellbottom Ranch
What is Spellbottom Ranch to HomeLand Properties and what is HomeLand Properties to Spellbottom Ranch?
Many of you have seen our activities at our Project Ranch in Texas, Spellbottom, but may not know the history behind it. Project Ranch is a title we use at HomeLand to define Spellbottom, as an illustration and example of the many different diverse features our clients can visualize for their own property. From trees to wetland conservation, cattle to wildlife, barn and/or lake construction, grass management, etc. At HomeLand, we hope that Spellbottom Ranch can assist our clients with land interest, acquisition and/or management. We welcome any of our clients to tour Spellbottom and experience the diverse ecosystems and terrain, to better understand the possibilities for their own land.
The name “Spellbottom” came from one of the original owners, the Spell family. The historic Gibbs family acquired the property around the 1940s, and moved a farmhouse out to the property during the 1960s. Spellbottom was then known as Gibbs Area Headquarters for their cattle operation. During the mid 1990s, Gibbs sold a large disposition. In 2007 after a few owners, this legacy tract was purchased by its current owner, Andy Flack, a principal of HomeLand Properties. Restorative practices were implemented in 2011 to bring the river bottomland back to its natural state. This included the implementation of 4 levees for erosion control, making up ~ 150 acres of water and wetland habitat with the reforestation of native bottomland species of trees, including cypress, willow, oak, hickory, maple, elm, and others.
Today, Spellbottom Ranch spans 3,115 acres, offering a unique blend of resources. It encompasses significant upland managed forests, natural riverine forests, and a bottomland habitat sustaining aquatic fish, wildlife, plants, and/or the ecosystems that support them enabling them to thrive in a relatively natural condition. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated priority five to the West Fork San Jacinto River area of Spellbottom Ranch. With close proximity to the Sam Houston National Forest, this ranch includes valuable mature native forestland with a diverse species of mature oak, hickory, ash, elm, and pine represented by diverse age classes and contributing to the structural diversity, including a multi-story canopy.
The property continues to be well maintained through timber thinnings, understory control burning, road maintenance and improvement, food plots, wildlife management, lake management and construction, grass maintenance (herbicide, fertilize, seeding, etc.), fence maintenance and construction, barn construction, trash removal, new construction silo, farmhouse remodel and more. We are excited to share that each of these management practices have contributed an important role in being named 2024 Tree Farm of the Year.
Because Spellbottom Ranch was named Texas Forestry Association 2024 Tree Farm of the Year, along with our tree farmer, Andy Flack, there will be a tour of Spellbottom this coming April to highlight timber management activities, conservation easement and mitigation bank, and its hunting program. We’d love to see you there!
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