ALLAS, Oct. 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Continuing the trend of investing in some of America’s most iconic viewsheds and working landscapes, The Land Report released the 2014 Land Report 100 presented by Fay Ranches highlighting the major investments and even bigger personalities of America’s largest landowners. In all, private holdings increased by nearly 500,000 acres over the last year.
Among the major movers is nationally known homebuilder D.R. Horton, founder and chairman of DR Horton Inc. (DHI), which acquired New Mexico’s 457-square-mile Great Western Ranch. This transaction landed Horton at No. 32 on this year’s list. Horton purchased the 292,779-acre Great Western from Denver investor Patrick Broe. But don’t worry about Broe. Thanks to holdings inColorado and Wyoming, he stayed on the list and is at No. 76.
And that wasn’t even the biggest sale. The Reed family, owners of Green Diamond Resource Company, acquired 600,000 acres ofOregon timberland from the estate of Richard Wendt, founder of JELD-WEN Windows & Doors. The purchase upped the Reeds from No. 10 in 2013 to No. 5 in 2014. This swath of rural Oregon is almost the same size as Rhode Island and is the largest land transaction in the U.S. since Liberty Media Chairman John Malone acquired more than 1 million acres of timberland in Maine and New Hampshire in 2011. That buy put Malone atop The Land Report 100, where he remains in 2014 with 2.2 million acres. His good friend and fellow cable entrepreneur Ted Turner is No. 2 with more than 2 million acres. Rounding out the top five are California’sEmmerson family with 1.86 million acres, Kentucky billionaire Brad Kelley with 1.5 million acres, and the Seattle-based Reeds with 1.37 million acres.
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Click here for the WINTER 2014 edition of The Land Report: The Land Report 100.
