In the 1970s, actor Robert Stack owned California acreage that included a private game preserve; his unusual landholding offered a glimpse into Hollywood’s forgotten ranch culture | World News

In the 1970s, while Robert Stack was already a familiar face on American television, the actor owned an unusual piece of California real estate far removed from Hollywood’s studio lots and city life. Stack had acreage in the Sacramento area that included a private game preserve and duck club, according to a 1971 United Press International report. The property was not simply a celebrity retreat acquired for prestige. It had been part of Stack’s family for decades, with his father purchasing it in 1925 and later leaving it to Robert and his brother Jim. Stack had grown up hunting there and remained closely connected to the property as an adult. His landholding also reflected a broader chapter in Hollywood history, when stars accumulated ranches, farms and rural retreats across California and the American West.

Robert Stack’s unusual California landholding

The 1971 UPI report placed Stack among a generation of Hollywood figures who owned substantial ranches and farmland outside the entertainment capital. While the article discussed celebrities who acquired land for investment, retirement or recreation, it specifically said Stack owned acreage in the Sacramento area that included a game preserve and duck club. The property gave the actor access to hunting grounds away from Los Angeles and reflected an interest that had been part of his life since childhood. Rather than being a piece of land purchased simply as a status symbol, the preserve had a family history and a practical purpose tied to Stack’s enthusiasm for hunting and shooting sports.Stack’s connection to the Sacramento-area property stretched back decades before his television fame. A 1963 profile published in Guns Magazine reported that his father purchased the property in 1925 and eventually left it to Robert and his brother Jim Stack. The brothers continued to own the land, with Stack saying they intended to keep it in the family so their children could enjoy it as they had. He also recalled beginning to hunt there when he was only seven years old. The detail adds a personal dimension to what might otherwise appear to be an unusual celebrity landholding. The property was not something Stack suddenly acquired after becoming famous. It was part of his family’s life and had been associated with him since childhood.

The property was near Colusa in the Sacramento Valley

The 1963 profile identified Stack’s private duck club as being near Colusa in California’s Sacramento Valley, an area known for wetlands and migratory waterfowl. The magazine described the property as a place where Stack could pursue his passion for duck hunting, with ducks, pheasants and other game birds present on the land. Hunting was carried out according to established seasons and regulations. The location was a world away from the Hollywood environment in which Stack spent much of his professional life. Instead of film sets and television studios, the property offered open countryside, wildlife and the kind of outdoor recreation that had interested him from an early age.

Stack was a serious competitive shooter

His interest in the property was closely connected to a much broader passion for shooting sports. Stack was not simply an actor who occasionally went hunting. He became a highly accomplished competitive skeet shooter, earning recognition at national and international levels. A 1963 Guns Magazine profile detailed his achievements and described how his acting career increasingly limited the amount of time he could devote to competition. Even as his Hollywood workload grew, however, shooting and hunting remained important interests. His private duck club therefore fitted naturally into a lifestyle that combined entertainment with serious outdoor pursuits.

Hollywood stars were buying ranches and farmland

Stack’s property was part of a much wider phenomenon. The 1971 UPI report described numerous Hollywood stars who had acquired substantial amounts of land across California and the American West. Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Jimmy Stewart, Randolph Scott, Jim Nabors, Buddy Ebsen, Jim Arness, Joel McCrea and other actors were among the celebrities associated with ranches, farms or large rural holdings. Their motivations varied. Some treated land as an investment, while others planned to retire there, farm it, raise livestock or simply use it as a private escape. The report provides a snapshot of a period when Hollywood wealth could translate into vast stretches of countryside rather than only expensive homes in Los Angeles.

Rural land offered an escape from Hollywood

The attraction of these properties went beyond financial value. For celebrities living under intense public attention, rural land provided privacy and a chance to pursue interests away from cameras and crowds. The 1971 report noted that some stars purchased land specifically as a refuge from city life, while others saw it as a long-term investment. The contrast between Hollywood and the countryside was significant. A star could spend the week working on film or television productions in Los Angeles and then retreat to a ranch, farm or hunting property surrounded by open land. Stack’s duck club represented precisely this kind of alternative world, allowing him to return to an environment associated with his childhood and sporting interests.

Stack’s property was rooted in family rather than fame

The family history makes Stack’s landholding different from the stereotypical image of a celebrity buying an enormous estate after achieving success. His father had acquired the property decades earlier, and Stack inherited it with his brother. The actor’s memories of hunting there as a child suggest that the land was part of his identity long before he became one of Hollywood’s recognisable faces. His reported desire to preserve the property for the next generation also points towards a sense of family continuity. In that respect, the game preserve was less a symbol of Hollywood excess than an inherited piece of countryside that had remained connected to the Stack family for decades.

Stack was also linked to a much larger California ranch

Stack had another documented connection to a major California property, although it should not be confused with his Sacramento-area duck club. In 1990, the Los Angeles Times reported that El Rancho Tajiguas, a roughly 3,600-acre ranch near Santa Barbara, had been owned at different times by Danny Kaye, Robert Stack, Robert Mitchum and John Travolta. The property included a nearly 200-year-old house as well as extensive agricultural land growing avocados, persimmons, oranges, lemons, peaches, plums, figs and cherimoyas. The report shows that Stack’s relationship with substantial California land extended beyond the hunting property associated with his family.

A forgotten chapter of Hollywood’s ranch culture

What makes Stack’s story particularly revealing is the larger culture surrounding celebrity landownership during the middle of the 20th century. Hollywood stars could accumulate rural properties that served as working farms, cattle ranches, hunting retreats or investments, creating private worlds far removed from the glamour of Los Angeles. The 1971 UPI report captured this trend at a time when many of those properties were still active parts of celebrities’ lives. Stack’s game preserve was therefore not an isolated curiosity. It was one example of a broader relationship between Hollywood fame and California’s countryside, when successful actors often used their wealth to acquire land rather than confining their fortunes to urban real estate.

The actor had a life far beyond the screen

Stack became famous for playing Eliot Ness in The Untouchables and later reached another generation of viewers as the host of Unsolved Mysteries. Yet his life away from the screen included competitive shooting, duck hunting and a longstanding connection to family land in Northern California. The Sacramento-area property helps reveal a side of Stack that was largely invisible to television audiences. Behind the Hollywood actor was a lifelong sportsman who had inherited a piece of California countryside and continued to use it for the activities he had enjoyed since childhood.

A private game preserve that captured a vanished era

Robert Stack’s California landholding offers more than an unusual footnote to his biography. It provides a glimpse into a period when Hollywood success could lead not only to mansions and celebrity estates but also to ranches, farms and private hunting grounds scattered across the American West. Stack’s family had acquired his Sacramento-area property in 1925, he had hunted there since childhood, and by the 1970s it was being reported as acreage containing a game preserve and duck club. That combination of family inheritance, outdoor recreation and celebrity wealth reflects a form of Hollywood life that has become increasingly difficult to imagine.