Only in Malibu: An 81-Acre, $6M Animal Rescue Ranch
Morris Ranch is an ideal California getaway, complete with rolling hills, extensive countryside views, several guesthouses and horses.
Oh, and emus. And goats. And tortoises. And pygmy cows.
What was once two large ranch lots in Malibu has become an 81-acre animal sanctuary complete with room to roam and several housing structures for animals and humans alike. Called Hope Ranch Animal Rescue, the sanctuary–along with all the property and five houses–is for sale. The price recently dropped to $6 million, a cut of 25 percent, after hitting the market over the summer.
For the past decade, the acreage has been space well used for animals in need.
“My client loves animals, every kind,” real estate agent Payman Emamian told Yahoo Real Estate. Emamian sold the property to the current owner and now is listing it for her. “When she first moved in, she just had her animals, but then as animals needed homes … it eventually became one,“ Emamian says.
Owners Lori and Bob Morris have been collecting and caring for animals since 1982, according to their site.
What started with rehabilitating a few horses quickly grew to a menagerie of more than 100 animals.
The sanctuary even attracted the attention of Lady Gaga, who recently visited, Emamian says.
The current owner hopes someone will want to take over the animal sanctuary, since she’s moving to a regular house and can’t keep the animals there, Emamian says. But if the buyer doesn’t want to run the sanctuary, a few other sanctuaries in the area have already agreed to take the flock.
The current owner bought one of the property’s two parcels in 2003, and when the owner of the other parcel decided to sell about a year later, the two became one large ranch.
While an 81-acre ranch in Malibu is almost unheard of, Emamian says, this property is unique also because of the many habitable structures spread throughout it.
The main house, a ranch-style home with four bedrooms and three bathrooms, is the largest house on the property at about 2,800 square feet. Two guesthouses accompany that home on the larger of the two parcels. The other parcel also boasts a main home and a guesthouse.
"The property is so spread out, you can live here for years and not find every nook and cranny of it,” Emamian says. “It’s just massive. You forget what almost 4 million square feet of land looks like.”
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