Legend of Fred remains strong

Deepa Bharath

Bill Lange hasn’t really seen Fred.

Well, at least not all of Fred.

But Lange, who owned Buffalo Ranch in Newport Beach, and many

others who visited the conference room at the ranch in the ‘60s and

‘70s know the 1,900-pound buffalo and still talk about him.

Fred, popularly known as King of the Herd, roamed around freely in

the ranch named after his species several decades ago. He is said to

have died in the late 1950s.

However, his stuffed head came into the possession of actor John

Wayne, who then gifted it to architect William Pereira who had set up

his headquarters at Buffalo Ranch.

Pereira often entertained Wayne at the ranch’s conference room

which was an old red barn that Pereira had discovered in Kansas,

Lange said.

“One night, over a few drinks, Wayne told Pereira he had a gift

for him,” Lange said.

And so, Fred’s gigantic head was placed in Pereira’s conference

room in 1966, where it stayed for almost 30 years. Pereira gave Fred

to Lange when he bought the ranch in the early ‘80s.

He still remains in Newport Beach in a building on Newport Center

Drive from where Lange’s real estate company, LFC Group, operates.

That building is also the Newport Beach headquarters for First Team

Realty, who decorated their office “around Fred,” Lange said.

Fred is more than a mere decoration, he said.

“He’s a symbol of those times in Orange County when we were just

sage brush,” Lange said.

He said the buffalo also represents the legacy of Pereira, who

envisioned the city of Irvine and UC Irvine gazing at the rural

landscape sitting in the silo at Buffalo Ranch.

Fred was on the wall of the conference room where important

decisions were made.

“Anybody who was a mover and a shaker in this area in the ‘60s and

‘70s sat in that conference room and made decisions,” Lange said.

That included officials from UCI, the city of Irvine and the

Irvine Co.

“Fred stands for that time in our history,” Lange said. “He

oversaw all those gigantic decisions.”

The bison’s not just famous locally, he said.

“When I was in Hong Kong, I met a few businessmen there who

learned I was from Newport Beach and asked me about Fred because they

had been to that conference room,” Lange said. “He’s still King of

the Herd.”