Idyllic ranch is rooted in an illicit past

Rancho del Rio is a property with a past.

On 187 chaparral-covered acres deep in the hills of southeast Orange County, the ranch features a modest 1930s-era Spanish hacienda, numerous guest rooms with antique mahogany doors, a small vineyard, a well-stocked lake and at least a dozen scattered buildings including stables, caretaker’s quarters, pump houses and barns.

“It’s peaceful, serene and gorgeous,” says Jason Hahn, who oversees the place for the wealthy family that owns it. “It’s a little piece of the 1800s just 7 1/2 miles from downtown San Juan Capistrano; you expect to see Hoss Cartwright walking out of the barn.”

The largest piece of residential property available in Orange County can be yours for $22.5 million, said Stephen Sutherland, one of the real estate agents trying to sell it. The only drawback, he says, is the property’s unsavory history; once the base of a notorious ring of international drug smugglers, it has become something of a monument to southern Orange County’s inglorious past.

In 1989, in fact, President George H.W. Bush landed at the ranch in a helicopter to deliver a nationally broadcast address about the nation’s war on drugs. His visit followed the arrest of Daniel James Fowlie, the ranch’s former owner, who used it as his headquarters to dominate the West Coast’s marijuana trade in the mid-1980s.

“It’s sad that part of Rancho del Rio’s reputation is about the very short time that this person -- we won’t call him a man -- used the property,” Sutherland said. Fowlie’s actions had their roots, investigators believe, in his early involvement with the Brotherhood of Eternal Love founded by drug guru and former Harvard University psychologist Timothy Leary, who spread his philosophy of enlightenment through getting high during the late 1960s and early ‘70s from nearby Laguna Beach. Fowlie, a surfer and artist, took up residence at the rustic Verdugo Canyon ranch, where he developed his drug business into a hugely lucrative enterprise.

For years his organization used the ranch to hide and process marijuana and cocaine smuggled from Mexico in big rigs and tanker trucks, authorities said. Fowlie’s group, which involved his two sons and a shell company in the Netherlands that laundered profits, became one of the largest drug trafficking outfits in the U.S.

The business began unraveling one night in 1985 when Rancho del Rio’s foreman went on a drug binge in his South Laguna home, during which he fired a gun. Someone called the authorities, which led to an early-morning raid at the ranch where sheriff’s deputies seized $23,000 in cash, 50 rifles and shotguns, three automatic weapons, a money-counting machine, precision-scale packaging machines and an unspecified amount of drugs.

Fowlie, who was traveling abroad, fled to Mexico. Two years later he was arrested in Puerto Escondido, 250 miles south of Acapulco and, following a lengthy extradition fight, was returned in shackles to the U.S. in 1990. In a headline-grabbing trial, Fowlie was convicted of possessing marijuana with intent to distribute, conspiracy, illegal transfer of currency outside the U.S. and operating a continuing criminal enterprise. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Federal authorities, meanwhile, used asset seizure laws to take control of the ranch in 1985. Eventually they turned it over to Orange County, which planned to transform the ranch into a regional narcotics enforcement training center. Instead, it was sold -- for $2.38 million earned from cookie sales -- to the Girl Scout Council of Orange County, which operated the site as a Scout camp until 2000.

Three years ago the property was bought for $3.65 million by the Seligman family, owners of real estate development companies with offices in San Francisco, Michigan and Los Angeles.

“They love this place,” Hahn said.

Though they planned to use the Orange County ranch as a weekend retreat, he said, the family seldom visited.

“They don’t have enough time to come out here and really enjoy it,” Hahn said. “Maybe someone else will.”

Sutherland envisions that “someone else” as special indeed.

“Perhaps it would appeal to somebody in the entertainment industry who wants to be where they can’t be bothered by paparazzi,” he said. “Not many people can say that Marine One landed in their backyard.”

Peeking into the eccentric property next door, one can see giraffes, who roam its 2,000 acres along with camels, llamas, zebras and ostriches.

Little evidence, however, remains of what the ranch once was.

Sutherland says he knows nothing, for instance, of the subterranean vault accessed through a hidden trap door in the barn. When he toured the grounds in 1989, President Bush was shown the underground compartment where tons of illegal drugs had been stored. He also saw a van and pickup truck with false bottoms that were filled with drugs and money when they were seized.

Tours these days emphasize more marketable amenities, such as the house by the lake and the helipad on the hill.

“You could fly in on your helicopter, ride your horse down to the lake house and do a little fishing, all before dinner,” Sutherland suggested.

Yet a little of the legend can’t help but creep in.

A few weeks ago, Hahn came across the remains of an alcove on a deserted part of the grounds that appeared to have caved in.

“I found an old eight-track and a rotting sleeping bag down there,” he said.

Further investigation revealed nothing more.

“I’ve heard that someone left a satchel of money somewhere around here,” the caretaker confided. “I’m still looking for it.”

david.haldane@latimes.com