Fifth-generation land-owners put own stamp on Nevada

By John M. Glionna, Las Vegas Review-Journal, January 4, 2016

PHOTOGRAPHS by Randilynn Beach

FALLON, Nev. — Even as a boy, Colby Frey knew there was something special about his house, the grand old home that anchors the family ranch in Northern Nevada’s expansive Lahontan Valley.

Perched out in the growing fields, amid the crops and livestock, the three-story structure with ornate wooden floors and crown window moldings maintained its own stately style, the urban sensibility of some visiting city dignitary.

But what the young Frey liked most were all those hiding spots.

“I knew it was old and had a lot of history,” he said. “And when I visited my friends, nobody else had all those secret hiding places under the stairs.”

But there was more to the place, much more. The ranch is one of the state’s oldest, operated continuously since the Civil War, back when Nevada was a western territory. One of its earlier owners, Robert L. Douglass was an entrepreneur and politician who owned the first automobile in Churchill County, before Frey’s grandfather bought the land in 1944.

But it’s the house that stands apart. Built in 1917, designed by famed Nevada architect Frederick J. DeLongchamps, the centerpiece structure is rare in Nevada for it is designed in the Midwest Prairie-style architecture popularized by Frank Lloyd Wright in the early 1900s.

Now the so-called Douglass-Frey ranch has been singled out for preservation. In November, its core structures became Nevada’s latest addition to the National Register of Historic Places compiled by the U.S. Park Service.

Said Jim Bertolini, National Register coordinator for Nevada: “The main house is one of the few examples of Prairie architecture in the state, designed by one of its premier architects.”

Frey’s mother, Debbie Frey, said the house exudes personal charm. She recalls driving down Dodge Lane, under towering elms, to reach the soul of the ranch. “I’d get out of my car and say to myself, ‘I’m just the luckiest person in the world to be able to live in this house,’ ” she said. “It’s the best-built house you ever saw, a jewel out there in the middle of a farm.”

The ranch’s history is a story of surviving hard times with the pluck and rugged individualism for which western settlers are famous. The land was first settled in the 1860s by William Bailey, one of the earliest settlers in the Lahontan Valley.

Following several harsh winters, Bailey sold much of his land in 1891 to Joseph Douglass, whose nephew Robert later took over operations, developing the ranch headquarters in 1917.

Frey’s grandfather Charles P. Frey Sr. bought the ranch in 1944. Now 31, Frey is a fifth-generation Nevada rancher — his family owned Carson City-area property as early as the 1840s — and is the third Frey generation to make a living on the Fallon-area land.

“You have to adapt to stay relevant,” he said, dressed in blue jeans and a old Carhart vest, his slate-blue eyes scanning the snowcapped Stillwater Mountains. “A lot of other ranch families are gone; the ones who didn’t adapt.”

Each generation of Frey had its own strategy for survival, he said. His grandfather, following a few hard years in the 1950s, bought some cows and built a dairy to supplement his income.

Decades later, Charles Frey Jr. faced his own reckoning with the land. In 2001, after several years of drought, he planted more water-efficient grapes for the newly formed Churchill Vineyards. “I remember my dad saying, ‘This is not going to be the last drought here. We have to make a change,’ ” Frey said.

When his brother and two sisters decided to pursue other professions, he took the reins of the ranch with his wife, Ashley, growing alfalfa, wheat and corn.

One harvest season, he saw a program on the History Channel that changed their lives. The couple started a distillery, making alcohol with grains grown on the ranch land. He traveled to Kentucky to have a specially made still, learning the conditions that made the state perfect for producing spirits.

“You need four seasons, cold winters and hot summers, and we have all of that here,” he said.

Now, the family each sells 10,000 cases of vodka, gin and brandy — growing the base grains all summer and turning into distillers during the winter months after the harvest is done. They also sell 1,000 cases of wine a year.

This latest Frey generation has put a stamp on the land the original owners never imagined.

They turned some old horse stables into a state-of-the-art distillery and tasting room. Ashley Frey runs things from in front of her Apple computer inside the windowed office Douglass once used as his study. She’s probably the first ranch wife here with braces.

In a December chill, Frey walked past a barking beagle named Jack, to his boyhood house.

Outside was the mammoth cast-iron bell the cook used to ring to summon the ranch hands to their meals. He worked the bell, its clang still heard for miles around, and then made his way to an old red barn straight out of Hollywood central casting, one popular with locals as a backdrop for family portraits.

He looked out across his 1,400-acre operation. “We’re farmers first,” he said. “Everything else comes afterwards.”

Now retired, Charles Frey still helps his son with the chores, unable to abandon the land, which has soared in value. Purchased for $60,000, the place is valued at $8 million today.

But it’s not for sale. The young couple has a daughter named Alice and a son on the way. They dream of one day turning over the ranch to a new generation, with perhaps their son running the distillery and Alice operating the winery.

In 2017, the old ranch house will celebrate its 100th anniversary. The milestone is significant, but so too is a bit of knowledge Frey holds close.

“I know my gramps would be proud of what we’ve done here.”