HOLMAN RANCH

The first clues to its location came from Marc Wanamaker of Bison Archives. He had just received the location files from Columbia Pictures to be added to his archive. Included was one for a Holman Ranch in Calabasas, which also included several photographs of the adobe ranch house and surroundings.

From that clue, I began searching old newspapers and found that the Holman Ranch was located a mile south of Ventura Blvd. Another item stated that the ranch was five (5) miles west of Calabasas. Using an estimate of distance I found that 5 miles would be about Las Virgenes Road and a mile south would be about Mulholland give or take. Stokes Canyon Road came into view and was a maybe for the ranch.

Next I searched census records via FamilySearch.com. Found a Holman family residing in Calabasas in the early part of the 1900s (1900 - 1940 or longer). Their residence was Liberty Canyon at Ventura Blvd.

So I headed to aerial images of the area dating back to 1928. An 1937 image showed me the site of the adobe ranch to a 99% certainty for me. However, that area, while still there and can be visited by hiking (it is protected land), there were no Google Map images which were helpful in checking the hills around the site. But I could see the large tree in the front of the adobe, the roof of the adobe with the second story addition on the south end of the adobe. I could see the fence line to the south, the entrance way there, and the line of a wall heading northward.

So, the results of my search says with 99% certainty (anyone wish to visit the area and take 360 degree photos of it would be appreciated) is that it was located in Liberty Canyon south of the current housing.

The final 1% was provided with photo proof of the location by Dennis R. Liff (he has a blog on the Iverson Movie Ranch (click the link to the left to access it plus his photos of the site).