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RLV group photo ca. 1968
Early photo of the Lodge & surroundings
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About
In 1967 a group of artists, largely affiliated with the University of Arizona, decided to create a community in the high desert where they could live with their families and pursue their creative visions.
Spearheaded by artist and teacher Charles Littler, the Rancho Linda Vista arts community was born the following year. Taking over an old cattle and guest ranch in the northern foothills of the Catalinas, the first residents set about restoring the adobe houses, putting in electricity, and converting the barns to studios and a gallery.
From its inception, Rancho Linda Vista has provided a place for artists, artisans, designers, writers, thinkers and their families to live, share ideas and immerse themselves in the creative process. The Ranch has sponsored hundreds of art events – some planned, some impromptu – as well as offered month-long residencies to artists from around the world. Its own artists exhibit and perform widely, as well as teach in and contribute to the larger community.
Today Rancho Linda Vista is home to approximately 14 families, along with several dogs, cats, a burro and a random assortment of javelinas, coyotes, owls, hawks, cactus wrens, lizards (and one too many rattler and scorpion). We also enjoy the company of a wide range of artists and friends, a number of whom return here to visit every year.
Still have questions? Find answers on our FAQs page.
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Cowboys & guests riding by the corrals
Film still from Lonesome Cowboys
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Past Days
The original Rancho Linda Vista was founded in 1910 by George Wilson on what had once been a 19th century homestead and stagecoach stop. Wilson's cattle ranch eventually covered some 100,000 acres.
When ranch visitor Harold Bell Wright sold the movie rights to his book The Mine with the Iron Door (1925), the Hollywood producers agreed to Bell’s request that the film be made on location in Oracle. Providing bed and board for the cast and crew inspired Wilson to open what was possibly Arizona’s first dude ranch. Soon the ranch played host to such Hollywood notables as Rita Hayworth, George Sanders and Gary Cooper.
The post-war period saw the decline of the dude ranch industry. Nevertheless, at the start of its phase as an artist community, Andy Warhol decided to make his one and only Western film, Lonesome Cowboys here, an occurence that greatly scandalized the denizens of Oracle.
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