Untapped Utopia
Modestly priced acreage is leading world investors into the Patagonian wilds.
It was four years ago that Joe Luter flew to Buenos Aires, hopped a plane southwest to the city of San Carlos de Bariloche, then took a drive through Argentina’s Lake District.
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Share“I was just swept away by it all; spectacular mountains, gorgeous rivers and so much wide-open land. It just kept going and going and going,” says Luter, the chairman and CEO of Smithfield Foods. “I told myself I’d be a fool not to buy something here.”
Shortly
after that trip, Luter became the owner of a 25,000-acre
estancia, or ranch,
that featured four miles of frontage on
the Rio
Limay, which flows east from
Lago Nahuel
Huapi through
the dry steppe
of northern Patagonia.
It is an
internationally renowned
fly-fishing
haven and home
to monstrous brown, rainbow and
brook trout. Luter says
neighbor
and media
titan Ted Turner
owns a
55,000-acre spread nearby.
“When people ask me
what
Patagonia
is like,
I tell them to think of
Colorado 150 years
ago,”
says
Luter, who has
since bought a
second
property, a
50,000-acre working ranch and
fly-fishing
lodge near
Esquel, a
few hundred
miles to the south.
“It’s the
most beautiful
place
I’ve ever seen.”
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Stretching nearly a thousand miles, from the Rio Colorado in central Argentina, south to Tierra del Fuego, and enveloping parts of neighboring Chile, Patagonia is fabled for its remote and rugged splendor. Adventurers have long traveled here to experience some of the world’s best mountain climbing, skiing, trekking and river rafting. And in recent years, the unspoiled region has been a big draw for affluent North Americans and Europeans looking to buy something that is in short supply elsewhere—vast tracts of ranchland at prices that are a fraction of those found in prime locations such as Wyoming, Montana or Colorado.
Austral Real Estate
Ken Mirr: 303.888.0907, kenmirr@yahoo.com
Jeff Wells: 303.888.9785, innonut@aol.com
www.australrealestate.com
