George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch in California is an architecture marvel.

American film director, producer, screenwriter, and entrepreneur George Lucas may have decided to sell the rights of his creation Star Wars but he is still the proud owner of the 4,700-acre Skywalker Ranch in which he has spent over $100 million to build and develop. The impressive and massive property located on the north of San Francisco has been with him since 1978. He does not live on the property but rather use it as a retreat as well as a studio and work space. It is located on the secluded area of Nicasio, California inside the Marin County. The ranch sits on the Lucas Valley Road which was named after the early-20th-century landowner in that area who is not at all related to George Lucas.

History Of The Skywalker Ranch

George Lucas purchased the first parcel of land in the Skywalker Ranch in September 1978, and during that time he named it Bulltail Ranch. Overall, the costs of building the Skywalker ranch raked up to $100 million according to the reports by Wall Street Journal. In addition to the first parcel of land, Lucas added another 3,000 acres of adjoining land which total the entire ranch to 4,700 acres and only 15 acres of land have been developed so far. His now 47,000 acres of land ranch is located in the valley named Lucas Valley. For the next twenty five years, the residents in the nearby area have fought for Lucas’ plan to build a much larger studio on his property claiming that it will add to the light and noise pollution.

Lucas intended the place to be the filmmaker’s retreat rather than being a headquarters for his business operations. The headquarters of the Lucasfilm, LucasArts and Industrial Light & Magic are all located in the Presidio of San Francisco in Lucas’s Letterman Digital Arts Center. Currently, Lucas has based his The George Lucas Educational Foundation on the ranch and the Skywalker Sound was also moved to the ranch which is being paid rentals by the Lucasfilm. George Lucas remains to be the property owner and although he has maintained his offices in the ranch, he does not reside in the ranch.

Functions And Amenities In The Ranch

The main operation of the Skywalker Ranch is it serves as a motion picture sound mixing and recording facility to the movies George Lucas has created. It was in 1987 that Lucas decided to move the Skywalker Sound to the ranch which is now occupying the Technical Building of the ranch. The main house of the ranch has company research library which is located under the stained glass dome. Some other properties of the Lucasfilm are intended to provide visual effects and animation for Lucas films. The Skywalker ranch mainly handles the music, sound and allied services. Lucas mainly creates the sounds and music to be used in his films on this ranch.

The ranch includes a barn with numerous animals, a vineyard and a stunning garden filled with vegetables and fruits. It has an on-site restaurant along with an outdoor swimming pool and a fitness center. There is also a man-made lake at the Skywalker Ranch which Lucas named as the Ewok Lake. Aside from these nature loving amenities, it also has a hilltop observatory with a 300-seat theater named The Stag and a theater screening room. There is also a huge parking space in the ranch which is mostly hidden in order to preserve the natural landscape of the place.

Buildings And Properties On The Skywalker Ranch

Currently, the ranch has 50,000-square foot main home which is designed to look like some sort of a 1869 Victorian home of a cattle rancher. Aside from the Ewok Lake, it also contains some other Star Wars themed places and things even a Yoda statue can be found somewhere in the property. The massive parcel of land has its own fire station in case of fire which is a part of the Marin County mutual aid system. It is often called on to help the firefighters in the nearby Marinwood. About a hundred firefighters are currently working on the ranch and assist overnight guest some services at the inn and sometimes they transport the guests from the main house on their smaller trucks. There is a giant Mission-style building which Lucas tried to set up and build as the house of his employees however the Marin County blocked the expansion idea.