A sale is pending for two historic ranches that cover thousands of acres of pristine, rolling hills and nine miles of ocean coastline in the Jalama Road area south of Lompoc.

Sotheby's International Realty is handling a private sale for an unidentified buyer at an undisclosed price, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Realtors at Sotheby's in Los Angeles declined to answer any questions, as did representatives of Bixby Ranch Company, the owners of the property. Both referred questions to a spokeswoman who did not return calls Thursday.

Although no sale price is known, Rancho El Cojo was listed at $110 million and the Jalama Ranch was listed at $45 million. An unattributed report by KCOY-TV put the sale price at $120 million. The TV report said the sale will be in escrow for several months.

The secrecy surrounding the pending sale sparked concern among neighbors, who said they fear development of the property.

“We don't know who bought it, but we just hope we have the same relationship with the new owners that we had with the previous owners,” said Ruth Pata, who lives on Jalama Road near the Cojo and Jalama ranches, which total some 25,000 acres.

“The ranches are just a beautiful place for cattle,” Pata said. “It's been like that for I don't know how many years. We hope it stays the same now, but maybe that's a little too much to ask.”

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Another Jalama Road neighbor, Sylvia Signorelli, agreed.

“I don't want houses up there. We're out in the country. It's been a cattle ranch for a 100 years so let it be a cattle ranch. With houses, you have more people trespassing on our land and I don't want people around,” Signorelli said.

“Once you get houses up there, then you have kids up there and they're going to run up all over your place.”

John Cargasacchi, a Lompoc property manager and cattle rancher on Jalama Road, said he suspects the property will be developed with housing.

“Development is the only way they can pay back the amount of money they're spending on the ranches,” Cargasacchi said. “Then there's going to be the question of traffic on Jalama Road and where they are going to get the water.”

Michael Barriere, a Central Coast area real estate agent, said the property purchase could be used in a tax-deferred exchange action or for possible future development of 20- to 100-acre ranch parcels.

Ken Kopcho, a real estate agent with Help-U-Sell Real Estate, said he believed the buyer was likely a multimillionaire or billionaire who bought the property because of great weather, seclusion and highly profitable future resale value.

“The value can only dramatically increase on these type of sales, ranch properties on the Central Coast are so few and far between. There's not much to choose from,” he said.

“A lot of them have been bought for the seclusion or for the climate; the average temperature is 70 degrees on those coastal properties. There's no traffic, no smog, seclusion and unparalleled beauty. There are plenty of billionaires that, to them, this property is an unbelievable bargain.”

The original inhabitants of Rancho El Cojo and the Jalama Ranch were the Chumash Indians. Later, the Spanish established ranches through land grants.

Fred Bixby bought the Cojo Ranch in 1913 to begin raising cattle. The ranch expanded in 1939 with the purchase of adjacent Jalama Ranch.

Neil Nisperos can be reached at 737-1059 or nnisperos@santa

mariatimes.com..

July 28, 2006