Prairie Chapel Ranch
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Prairie Chapel Ranch is a 1583 acre (6.4 km²) estate located seven miles outside Crawford, Texas. It is the home of President George W. Bush. Then-Governor Bush bought the land in 1999 shortly after earning a $14.3-million profit from the sale of the Texas Rangers. Based on fair-market land prices at the time the deal was closed for an estimated $1.3 million. While Bush is there as President, the ranch is known as the Western White House.
The land includes seven canyons and three miles of frontage along Rainey Creek and the Middle Bosque River. It is a part of land settled in the mid-19th century by German immigrant Heinrich Englebrecht, who raised turkeys and hogs there and donated some of it to found the Canaan Baptist Church (the "Prairie Chapel").
President Bush uses the ranch for vacations, occasional meetings, and entertaining foreign dignitaries. An August 7, 2001 article in the Washington Post noted that Bush spent all or part of 54 days, including many weekends, working and relaxing at the ranch between his inauguration (January 20) and Labor Day (September 3) 2001.
Description of house and grounds
Buildings on the land built by the Englebrechts were refurbished for new uses, such as Secret Service quarters and guest houses. In 2002, the ranch was wired for what Bush described in a 2003 tour of the ranch as "real time, secure videoconferencing" to be used for his briefings from the CIA and Dick Cheney.
Bush and his wife had David Heymann, an associate professor of architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, design a 10,000 ft² (930 m²) honey-colored native limestone single-level home on the site. Over half of that square footage is from a ten-foot-wide limestone porch that encircles the house. The house was built by members of a religious community from nearby Elm Mott, Texas and wasn't completed until after his inauguration.
The passive-solar house is positioned to absorb winter sunlight, warming the interior walkways and walls of the residence. Geothermal heat pumps circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground. A 40,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof urns; wastewater from sinks, toilets, and showers cascades into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is then used to irrigate the landscaping around the four-bedroom home. Photographs of the interior of the house indicate a sophisticated take on rough-hewn living, with generous English-style club chairs covered in what appears to be printed Fortuny linen.
Bush added an 11 acre (45,000 m²) man-made pond that is stocked with 600 bass and thousands of bait fish.
Visits from foreign dignitaries
Visitors to the ranch have included:
- Russian President Vladimir Putin, November 2001
- British Prime Minister Tony Blair, April 2002
- Abdullah, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, April 2002
- Chinese President Jiāng Zémín, October 2002
- Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, February 2003
- Australian Prime Minister John Howard, May 2003
- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, May 2003
- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, July 2003
- Mexican President Vicente Fox Quesada, March, May 2004
- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, April 2004
- Spanish King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía, November 2004
- Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, March 2005
- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, April 2005
External links and sources
- July 1999: Locals Hope Bush will create a White House in Texas (http://www.texnews.com/1998/1999/texas/ranch0730.html), from the Abilene Reporter-News
- December 2000: Home on the Range (http://www.time.com/time/poy2000/mag/ranch.html), from TIME magazine's Person of the Year story on Bush
- March 2001: Prohibited Area P-49 (http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-IMPACT/2001/March/Day-26/i7412.htm) established by the FAA over the ranch and enlarged during presidential visits
- August 2001: No grocery, $5 haircuts - and the Bush ranch (http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0814/p1s3-uspo.html), from the Christian Science Monitor
- August 25, 2001: President Gives Tour of Crawford Ranch (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20010825-2.html), a White House press release
- December 2002: The Bush Ranch (http://www.cowboysindians.com/articles/archives/1202/bush.html), from Cowboys & Indians magazine
- January 2, 2003: President's Remarks on Walking Tour of the Ranch (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030102-3.html), a White House press release