COLUSA - Gov. Jerry Brown said today he plans to build a house on land his family has owned for generations in Colusa County west of Williams.
The Democratic governor, who has a home in the Oakland hills and a loft in Sacramento, hikes on the Colusa County land and speaks frequently about the ranch his pioneer ancestors founded in the area. He retreated to the ranch to hike on Election Day last year.
"I'm going put some kind of house up there," Brown told reporters after touring a farm show here. "I'm thinking of a house where I can bring my relatives over and we can have Thanksgiving dinner, and I can get a little quiet."
Asked if it would be a retirement house, the 74-year-old governor said, "Who's talking about retirement?"
Brown said, "It's a good place to be, and it's very close to Sacramento ... So, certainly it's a good retreat for a governor."
Brown's maternal great-grandfather, August Schuckman, left Germany in 1848, crossed the Great Plains and eventually settled in California in 1852. Brown said he convinced his mother to give him the deed to the property.
Brown said he owns 27 percent of the 2,700-acre property, and he estimated the land's total worth at a "couple of million." Other family members own an additional 27 percent, Brown said, giving the family a majority interest.
Brown has lived in San Francisco and Los Angeles, among other places. It is unclear when he might start building on the ranch.
"We're planning," he said. "We have to fix on the site. There's a lot of sites, as you can imagine. ... There's one site where I can see Mt. Shasta to the north and the Sierras to the west."
PHOTO CREDIT: Gov. Jerry Brown and first lady Anne Gust Brown attend a farm show breakfast in Colusa. David Siders / The Sacramento Bee
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