Historic ranch put up for sale

Saturday, Nov. 4, 2000 | 3:51 a.m.

Walking Box Ranch

Here's what is being offered at the Nov. 18 Walking Box Ranch auction:

SEARCHLIGHT -- The Walking Box Ranch, once a haven for movie stars seeking tranquility from the stress of Hollywood and an endearing link to Southern Nevada's colorful past, is going on the block.

On Nov. 18 the ranch that was founded by cowboy actor and Nevada Lt. Gov. Rex Bell and his actress wife Clara Bow will be auctioned off. Open house for potential buyers of the Spanish-style ranch house and 38.5-acre parcel will be Nov. 12.

"I'd like to see somebody buy it who will keep it in the form that it is now with the barn, the corals and the ranch house because there is a lot of historical significance to the property," said former District Attorney Rex Bell, who grew up on his parents' ranch 7 miles west of this small highway rest-stop town and 60 miles south of Las Vegas.

"The Walking Box cannot be the working cattle ranch it was when I was a boy, but because the area is so peaceful and quiet, it can be great for retreats or as a bed and breakfast. It can be something wonderful."

The Walking Box Ranch was built in 1931 on 350,000 acres, most of which was sold off by the elder Bell in 1949 and '50. Bounded by the Newberry Mountains to the east and the New York Mountains to the west, the site today is at the heart of an expansive desert tortoise habitat.

In its early days the property was a retreat frequented by some of the biggest Hollywood stars, including John and Lionel Barrymore, Clark Gable, Norma Shearer and Errol Flynn.

The ranch has been restored by Viceroy Resource Corp. and Viceroy Gold Corp., of British Columbia. The Canadian gold mining company purchased the property in 1989 to build a 15-mile roadway to its Castle Mountain gold mines in Southern California.

Those mines, which produced their one millionth ounce of gold in April, are drying up, and Viceroy has been trying for some time to sell the ranch. The asking price is $2.5 million, down from the original $3 million, says the company's real estate agent David Boyer, of Prudential Americana.

"If it were located just a little closer to Las Vegas, I feel it would have sold by now," said Boyer, who has developed a deep affection for the Walking Box property.

"Every time I come here, I take the route through Nipton and stop and buy a California lottery ticket. I have promised myself that if I hit the lottery, I will buy this ranch. I love this place because when I grew up in Las Vegas, you could look out on West Charleston Boulevard and see wide-open spaces like this."

Restoration efforts

Boyer said that Viceroy has invested about $750,000 to restore the ranch.

The ranch sits in the postcard picturesque valley about 4,000 feet above sea level. It is dotted by more than 200 species of desert plants, including Joshua and mesquite trees. Under nonpolluted rural night skies, thousands of stars can be seen.

"Are you kidding me, of course I am going to miss living here after it is sold -- who wouldn't?" said Mary Savage, historian and caretaker of the Walking Box since the late 1980s.

"You can just feel the history here in every room. For instance, Rex and George's room is the only one in the house with metal bars (that resemble decorative wood trim) on the windows. Clara had them built in because it was shortly after the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, and she wanted extra security for her children."

Rex's dad got the idea for the name of the ranch while doodling. He drew several cattle brands on a piece of paper -- among them the established Box K brand. He simply flipped it one quarter turn to the right so that the arms of the "K" formed the legs upon which the box sat -- thus, the Walking Box.

The brand also resembles an old-time Hollywood movie camera. Bell and Bow then acquired the vast piece of land on the southeast California and southwest Nevada border that was part of the historic Old 88 Ranch that once stretched across 1.5 million acres.

But the big question was whether Clara Bow, the "it girl," would make a good, wholesome ranch wife, given her image as a steamy 1920s flapper in such Paramount Studios films as "Mantrap" and "Hoopla."

Bow, who also starred in "Wings," the first film to win the Oscar for best picture, was just as wild off-screen as she was in her on-screen appearances -- perhaps more so. She dated Gary Cooper, "Wizard of Oz" director Victor Fleming and a host of others.

She met Bell -- real name George Beldam -- while working with him on the film "True to the Navy" in 1930. They married the next year. He suggested they buy the ranch to get away from the rigors of Hollywood.

"At first the ranch was good for mom because she really loved the ranch life and the animals," Bell said. "But then dad was away a lot either making movies or politicking, and mom got lonely."

The Bells enjoyed a rustic life on the ranch. Initially the house they affectionately called "the shack" had no electricity, no heating and no plumbing.

They got their initial power from Nipton, Calif., but today the electricity comes from Searchlight. The home is cooled today as it was in its early days, by a swamp cooler. It is heated by a desert rock fireplace. Comprised of quartz, mica, turquoise, other native materials, it is the signature piece of the two-story, eight-bedroom home.

Today, the property gets water from a well and pump house. The initial system that brought water in from miles away was built at a cost of $18,000 -- a small fortune in the 1930s. The swimming pool also was built during the ranch's early days.

"I used to like swimming in the pool, but I also liked swimming in the horse troughs," attorney Bell said.

"The ranch's foreman, Al Marshall, had two sons who were the same age as me and George, and he didn't like his boys swimming in the pool because he believed we should have been working during the day. But he didn't seem to have a problem with us cooling off in the troughs, so we did."

Life on the ranch

Bell, who served as district attorney in the 1980s and early '90s, said life on the ranch was hard work and that he found ways of having fun through that work, whether it was riding horses -- a skill he learned on a Shetland pony when he was 5 -- mending fences or branding cattle.

Bell also played with wild animals that would wander onto the ranch, like a deer he called Jenny that he would feed by hand and a bighorn sheep called Billy who once playfully chased Rex and crashed through the door into Clara's laundry room.

Rex Bell was born Rex Larbow Beldam in 1934. His godmother named him Tony for reasons unknown to Rex. He was called Tony for most of his youth until his father started introducing him as Rex Jr. in the 1950s.

Later, Bell legally changed his name to Rex Anthony Bell. He dropped the unusual middle name Larbow -- a combination of the middle three letters of his mother's first name and her last name.

In 1937, George was born. By many accounts, these were the happiest years of Bow's roller-coaster life. Then her husband got into Republican politics. He ran for Congress in 1944, lost, but was elected lieutenant governor in 1954 and served two terms.

In the mid-1940s, Clara apparently took an overdose of drugs and her sons found her unconscious. She moved to Las Vegas and later to California. She remained married to Rex, but they lived separate lives. She never returned to the ranch.

A lot has been written about Bow -- her party girl days, battles with alcohol and drugs and apparent nervous breakdowns. One book alleges she abused her children.

"A lot of crap biographies have been written about mom, but the one that is accurate is 'Clara Bow, Runnin' Wild' by David Stenn," Bell said, noting that he first learned his mother was abused as a child from that book that was supported by medical records.

"Mom did not abuse us. Any spanking I got, I deserved. She was a very loving mother. Some of the biographies are very inaccurate. One says that mom was so vain she had the cows on the ranch dyed to match the color of her hair. It didn't happen.

Also, Bell said that while Hollywood's biggest stars were reported to have stayed at the Walking Box, he does not recall meeting them as a boy.

"Mom tried to shield us from the Hollywood scene when we were young," said Bell, who later was coached by Bow during his brief career as a bit part actor in westerns, including "Stage to Thunder Rock," a 1964 film starring his parents' friends Marilyn Maxwell and Lon Chaney Jr.

"If I ever met any stars at the ranch, they were introduced to me as just guests -- not as famous people."

In 1961, Bell was introduced by his father to Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe at the Mapes Hotel in Northern Nevada while the three were filming "The Misfits." Within a year, his father, Gable and Monroe would die.

New ownership

But by then, the Walking Box Ranch was under new ownership. In 1949, Marshall bought the northern portion of the ranch and a year later, Karl Weikel bought the Walking Box ranch house and the rest of the property. He renamed it the YKL Ranch, which he operated for 39 years. Young Rex was a frequent and welcomed guest.

The elder Rex, who also owned a western haberdashery in downtown Las Vegas, ran for governor in 1962, but died of a heart attack after collapsing at an Independence Day GOP rally. He was 58. Bow attended his funeral services in Glendale, Calif. She died on Sept. 27, 1965.

In 1963, Rex Bell Elementary School was dedicated in honor of Rex's father.

Viceroy bought the ranch from Weikel and not only renamed it Walking Box, but also restored it to its early splendor. Bell has been a frequent visitor to the Walking Box during Viceroy's ownership, but says he will not attend the auction.

On Feb. 17, 1990, the Walking Box was nominated for inclusion in the National Registrar of Historic Places at a ceremony where Searchlight resident Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., delivered the dedication speech.

But that never materialized because Viceroy apparently did too much restoration, including installing a tennis court and a modern barbecue near the pool.

Viceroy, working with the Nature Conservancy of Nevada, has obtained restrictions that will not allow the Walking Box to be turned into a hotel-casino, golf course, condominiums or other projects that would harm the desert creatures or environment.

"The Walking Box has become one of the important sites in the protection of the desert tortoise," said conservancy spokeswoman Caleen Norrod Johnson, director of development for the group that owns the 120,000-acre desert tortoise habitat adjacent to the ranch and the conservation easement to the Walking Box property.

"But we are pretty flexible and will work with the new owners for the benefit of their livelihood as well as for the preservation of the environment."

Bell also says he is willing to allow the new owners to use the name Walking Box and the brand of which he holds the rights if their project is in line with preserving the property's rich heritage.

But if Rex Bell had his druthers, the Walking Box auction would not be an issue today. He would have owned it and operated it as a working ranch since the 1950s.

"My only regret is that my family didn't keep the ranch, because I would have been happy to have been a rancher," said Rex, whose brother George Beldam is a retired casino card dealer who lives in Las Vegas.

"My dad figured I was off at Notre Dame as a premed student and that I was no longer interested in the ranch. But, you know, it was a blessing in disguise because being a rancher is a tough and (financially) risky life and I was proud to have been district attorney. The change in life's plans turned out very good for me."

archive