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*Our Story, The Enriquez Family*
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with this story.
ORO GRANDE It is what each Enriquez wanted:
The Double R Bar Ranch.
As reported by Jim Radcliffe
in The Orange County Register
For three decades, it was an escape from Hollywood for Roy Rogers, the singing cowboy known for his 1940s and '50s box-office hits and wholesome values. Here he raised palominos and grapes and hunted for rabbits with a shotgun and a grandson.
Eric Enriquez, a 35-year-old Mission Viejo entrepreneur smitten with Roy Rogers' values, knew he had to have the Double R Bar when the 67-acre ranch went on the block.
So Eric and his wife bought it!
A family drama is playing out as the Enriquez clan struggles to define how they'll care for the land and heritage of an American icon. Will the Double R Bar be solely a place for the family to live and hone their values and bring Roy Rogers' cowboy code to life?
Eric envisions Roy Rogers and Dale Evans fans flocking here, to eat up mesquite-grilled food and take in a petting zoo, with Roy Rogers & Gabby Hayes impersonators, tours, and "Happy Trails" horse rides. Some of his siblings would prefer a more low-key operation, where they board horses and their father wouldn't have to work so hard.
But four years to the day after Roy Rogers died at 86, the Enriquezes on July 6. 2002 shuttled visitors for free from the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans museum in Victorville to the ranch. The cost is the time it takes to complete a survey:
What would tourists like to do on the ranch,
and how much would they pay to do it?
Whatever the answers, Eric's parents are to end up here, Mexican immigrants with their first piece of American soil on land once owned by Roy Rogers, where Eric's father once groomed the star cowboy's horse. Like Carlos Enriquez, Roy Rogers was deeply religious, a devoted family man, honorable, a regular cowboy.
Eric and his wife, Anne, didn't set out to buy the ranch but the allure of linking their lives and values to Roy Rogers proved too strong.
"It's almost like my dad and Roy Rogers are the same," Eric said. "I'm saying, My God, Roy Rogers is dead. But his spirit is here. Now my father has the chance to bring it back to life.' "
A half-century ago, Roy Rogers was bigger than any movie star today, in one hit Western after another, receiving 1 million fan letters a year. From atop his horse, Trigger, he went after the bad guys and caught them without cursing or drinking in the saloon.
The singing cowboy with his own golden rules for children (No 8: "Eat all your food and never waste any.") came from a far-away land but
Eric's Dad, Carlos Enriquez, related to him.
Carlos followed Roy Rogers in his movies and in serial novels from Jalostotitlan, a farming town in Jalisco, Mexico.
"Oh, yeah, he was my hero," recalled Carlos, now 58. "I'm a farmer and those horses. He'd chase those banditos. I grew up with him."
A decade later, fate tugged Carlos north and onto a trail that eventually led to Roy Rogers himself.
He left construction work in Tijuana for a job clearing away barbed wire, pipes and the skeletons of sheds on a stretch in San Diego County. He became manager of the place, Fairbrook Farm.
After the owner died, in 1977, Carlos moved on to manage Silver Lake Farm, in a remote stretch of the Mojave. He still lives there with his wife, Alicia.
Carlos raised his family and oversaw agricultural fields and the boarding of racehorses. Soon he learned that his boyhood hero lived in nearby Apple Valley and that he owned a ranch just down the National Trails Highway, once U.S. Route 66.
Tall, thin and somewhat taciturn, Carlos didn't approach Rogers. The star sought him.
In 1978, Rogers needed some horses shoed, learned that Carlos could do it, and asked him to come by the Double R Bar. Rogers made small talk, asking where Carlos learned his cowboy skills.
"He would shake my hand and put his arm around me. I always felt real nice being around him," Carlos said. "Of course, somebody else was holding the horse. He'd go away and come back. He wrote me a check. I thought,
Wow, a check from Roy Rogers.' "
UP CLOSE
Soon, Carlo's' children got to meet Roy Rogers.
Roy and Dale at The Silverlake Ranch
(where Eric grew up with his family).
Roy and Dale came to visit them
on this sunny day in 1979.
Eric was 12 & he's standing next to Dale.
Photo Description:
Back row left to right:
Roy with baby of a friend of family,
mother of the baby(friend),
Eric's Mom (Alicia),
another friend,
Dale Evans Rogers & Eric(age12).
Front row left to right:
Eric's Brother Carlos.
Humberto Covarrubias and Cristian Covarrubias, brothers, grew up at Silver Lake Farm from age 4 until age 18.
Shown also is a friend & then Bertha (Eric's sister).
The aging Hollywood star and Dale Evans, his leading lady on-screen and in real life, went to Silver Lake Farm, where Carlos worked and his family lived.
Roy Rogers boarded horses there.
The Enriquezes and neighborhood children gathered. Eric, then 12, wore his boots and hitched his pants above his waist.
It was a powerful moment for Eric. The cowboy couple he had admired from afar was up close, and the same as they seemed on screen: friendly, down-to-earth. Eric cannot recall a single word from that day, but the glow of admiration is still with him.
"I just remember what I felt."
As a teenager at Victor Valley High, his friends knew about the aging stars and their local ranch. But Eric was drawn to them by nostalgia and the deep-seated, straight arrow values that Roy Rogers and Dale Evans personified.
He left the desert, graduated from Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles, and, he said, soon was making good money selling advertisements for a telephone directory. He looked around for a challenge and bought a roofing company, Best Value Roofing Co. of Santa Ana.
In the small hours of an October 2000 night, Eric took his first steps toward reconnecting with Roy Rogers.
Eric sat at his home computer and tapped out his future:
*Revenue benchmarks for his roofing company,
*how he and his wife would continue to work out and eat right and among other things.....
*How he would someday buy a ranch where his parents could retire.
HORSE TRAINER
Eric's brother, Jesus Enriquez, 29, is a Los Alamitos Race Course trainer. He wants to board his clients' horses at the Double R Bar. Tourists Eric's plan could be a distraction.
Bertha Enriquez, 33, the sister from Rancho Santa Margarita, worries that adding tourism would saddle their dad with too big a burden.
The disagreements tug a bit, but do no tear, the family fabric.
"We might get to parts where it's tough, but we'll get over it," Jesus said.
Said Carlos: "The only thing, I hope my kids stay as enthusiastic as they are today. You know how it is when you get a new toy. This is the only thing I worry about. Because I can't do it all."
"I am probably the one he fears most, because I become detached just move on," Eric said. "In this case, I have a lot more here. This isn't mine it's for my family.
"I have a responsibility to this place. I have a lot more people involved. I will fight tooth and nail to keep this going."
PLAIN-JANE PROPERTY
Roy Rogers bought his 67-acre ranch in the late 60s and named it after the San Fernando Valley property where his 50s television show was filmed.
The desert property is plain-Jane, cradling a traditional-looking barn, a pair of small houses, 17 stables, a bunkhouse, several corrals, a practice race track and fields.
"That was kind of his get-away," said one of Roy Rogers grandsons, Dustin Rogers, who runs a museum and gift shop in Victorville named for his grandfather. "He went out there in jeans and T-shirts he was very laid back, just like you and me. Grandma didn't go out there much."
In 1998, the year Roy Rogers died and three years before Dale Evans did, the family sold the Double R Bar to Keith Ferrell, who envisioned a Roy Rogers-themed dude ranch.
His plans fizzled.
The Enriquezes are charging ahead, shoulder-to-shoulder, rubbing out years of neglect at the ranch casting aside the troubles others have had in tying a project to an American legend fewer and fewer remember.
Carlos goes out to the ranch most days after his Silver Lake Farm chores.
Carlos is back to the same work he found when he first came to the United States clearing debris from land.
The family has trucked about 80 tons of trash fences and sheds, refrigerators and pipes to the dump. They've spread about 150 gallons of paint onto the barn and other ranch buildings. They gutted and modernized one of the two ranch houses.
This time, it is Carlos' family land.
"I see my kids talking about how to do things with the project," he said. "It feels good. Like with Eric I'd see him every two, three months. Now, I see him every week. He comes with his kids.
"I think what you are looking for
is peace.
Your home.
Where everybody can say,
Our place.' 
Come Back to Simpler Times!
Double R Bar Ranch
Click here to see Sharlene's Gallery
Photos of the Roy Rogers Ranch below
Copyright ©2003-2009 Website Owner & Proprietor The Enriquez Family & ©2003-2009 Webmaster Painted Pony*All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Eric or Painted Pony is prohibited. This site is Owned by Proprietor The Enriquez Family & Operated by Painted Pony.
Roy at the Roy Rogers & Dale Evans Museum in 1992-Victorville, CA.
Left to right:
Eric's Mom(Alicia),
her friend,
Eric's Brother Miguel,
Roy Rogers,
Eric's Aunt Rebecca.
Rebecca is Alicia's Sister from Mexico
and her niece, Maria, from Mexico.
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Roy at the Roy Rogers & Dale Evans Museum in 1992-Victorville, CA. Eric's Mom(Alicia), her friend, Eric's Brother Miguel, Roy Rogers, Eric's Aunt Rebecca. Rebecca is Alicia's Sister from Mexico and her niece, Maria, from Mexico. |
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