A Texas oil and gas magnate has purchased a Cimarron area ranch for $27 million in one of the largest recent real estate transactions in Gunnison County. The acreage near Blue Creek includes land formerly owned by an heir to the Walt Disney Company media fortune, Diane Disney, Walt Disney’s only biological child.
Gunnison County records show that Rodney Lewis, CEO of Lewis Energy Group in San Antonio, signed for the purchase of the 10,649-acre ranch. Forbes estimated Lewis’ net worth in 2018 to be $1.3 billion.
Lewis Energy Group is a major player in the Eagle Ford shale, a formation in South Texas that has been heavily fracked for natural gas. Lewis started the company in 1983 and has been its leader for 35 years.
In 2004, Lewis Energy Group made history as the first U.S. company in more than 60 years to operate oil and gas wells in Mexico. The company also has operations in Columbia
Lewis is well known as a collector and pilot of vintage aircraft. He owns the largest collection of air-worthy World War II fighter planes, and, according to Lewis Energy, he flies every one of them. He is a member emiritus on the board of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Diane Disney formerly owned a portion of the parcels Lewis purchased. County records show that Diane Disney bought the land for $1 million in 1988. When she died in 2013, some ownership transferred to her husband, Ronald Mille; who was formerly an executive in the Disney media empire. In 2015 and 2016, Miller and Diane Disney’s estate transferred the land to Blue Creek Partners.
Blue Creek Partners is a limited liability corporation headquartered at a Delta law firm office, Clay and Dodson. The mailing address of Blue Creek Partners, however, is in Marin County, California, near San Francisco. County records show that the corporation acquired parcels roughly between Little Blue Creek and Little Cimarron Creek into a package that was sold to Lewis. Transaction records show that two of Diane Disney’s children, Christopher Miller and Tamara Mille; were co-managers of Blue Creek Partners at the time of sale in January.
The ranch includes a 4,200-square foot home and several outbuildings and cabins. The spread appears to lack an airstrip, however, raising the possibility that rare planes could touch down at the Gunnison-Crested Butte Regional Airport when the new owner comes to town.
(Sam Liebl can be contacted at 970.641.1414 or editor@gunnisontimes.com)
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