Under the oaks, conservation ideas flood to new Triangle Ranch owner

Elizabeth Moore isn’t your typical rancher.

Sure, she’s got the cowboy hat and the land to prove it. But at first glance, the part-time Massachusetts resident’s trendy Hunter-brand rain boots and her white Tesla Model X might stick out like a sore thumb on the 1,143-acre Carlton Triangle Ranch.

She didn’t think she’d be a ranch owner, either.

But Moore — having purchased Triangle Ranch in part with the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast and the Forever Florida Trust Fund for nearly $5 million in October — is learning the language of Old Miakka and how to best preserve the historic cattle-ranch-turned-conservation easement. So, she’s getting by with a little help from her friends.

Triangle Ranch is a quiet sanctuary, save for the intermittent moos. You can hear the wind coming from a half mile away as it flows through the oak trees. During the rainy season, the three miles of the tannin-stained Myakka River that snakes through the land spills over the edge, making it a lush, green paradise.

When Moore, a Bradenton conservationist, first visited the property more than a year prior, she saw the for sale sign, hoping whoever bought the land would be an environmentalist.

That person would be her, helping to put a close to the Conservation Foundation’s three-year journey to save the property from development.

“This land will be preserved beyond my lifetime, and frankly I wouldn’t have bought the property if it didn’t have a conservation easement on it,” Moore said.

On a recent weekend, after bumping around on ATVs through the property and filling bellies with Nancy’s Bar-B-Q, about 50 people from different trades gathered under the oak canopy to share ideas how to re-purpose the blank slate.

One by one, representatives from the Conservation Foundation, South Florida Museum, Manatee County government, the Crowley Museum and Myakka River State Park spoke during the brainstorming session along with artists, architects, solar gurus and neighbors.

“Spend enough time on the land so that it starts to talk to you,” Conservation Foundation’s staff biologist Lee Amos suggested to Moore.

Trail cams, stargazing setups, tips to attract native species and even having an artist-in-residence program were some of the ideas presented.

Jason McKendree is outfitted in a big-brimmed cowboy hat and a gold belt buckle, and he has decades worth of farming knowledge from Schroeder Manatee Ranch and the tenacity of a bull to boot.

“‘Can’t’s not in my vocabulary,” McKendree said. “I won’t be told something if I know it can work. You just have to know how to work it.”

Now, he’s tasked with managing the property that had been owned by the Carlton farming dynasty for generations, which will include caring for the cattle and a clean-up process of at least six months.

“Every man has a different way of doing things and (Tony Carlton) kept this place cleaned up, but there’s a lot to be said,” he said. “My vision is a little different.”

His wish for the property calls back to his own childhood, when he learned the love for all things agricultural.

Take the grandkids to Disney World for the weekend and spend an “astronomical” amount of money, McKendree said. Or bring them to Triangle Ranch to ride around the ATVs with him, feed the cattle and deer and have a steak dinner right on the Myakka River.

“The kids will have more of a story to tell at the end of the day,” he said. “That’s what I want this place to be about.”

Though a small drop in the bucket of protected land compared to the nearby 37,000-acre Myakka State Park, any land saved is a win.

“It’s really important, now or never, to save the land from too much development,” Moore said. “We have to be good stewards of our land.”

This story was originally published February 17, 2017 at 3:02 PM with the headline "Under the oaks, conservation ideas flood to new Triangle Ranch owner."