Notes from the host
Sunrise Ridge
Summary:
Sunrise Ridge: Relax Inside or Outside. Newly Built Home. Three Miles from Terlingua Ranch Pool.
• Modern Home Spacious Southwestern Style
• Open Kitchen, Dining, and Living Room
• Screened in Dining Porch
• Large Porches with Mountain Views
The Space:
EXTRA FEES MAY APPLY. These might not appear in quote and will be added if applicable.
Dog Fees: $200 for one or two dogs. No more than two dogs allowed.
Sunrise Ridge is a custom built, modern vacation rental. Built in 2017 by a couple that loves the Big Bend and wanted the perfect vacation home for themselves and to share with others.
Wonderful home, built in 2017, nestled into a gentle valley bordering the Christmas Mountains. Get away from everything with incredible, always-changing views in all directions, while still enjoying many modern amenities and easy access to Terlingua Ranch Headquarters, the surrounding towns, and Big Bend National Park.
Sunrise Ridge is designed to be open and welcoming, maximizing comfort and offering multiple outdoor spaces that connect you with the magic of the Chihuahuan Desert. An enormous covered porch with stunning views of the Corazones Peaks often offers a breeze even in the warmest months, inviting you to relax in a rocking chair or nap in the double hammock. French doors lead to a cozy screened porch in back with lovely views into the Christmas Mountains. Inside, high ceilings, Saltillo tile floors and exposed wooden beams in the spacious living room provide an attractive space to sit and socialize or simply relax and read when you're not out exploring the area. Central air-conditioning and ceiling fans keep you cool in summer and warm in winter.
Across an amazing granite-topped island, the modern kitchen has stainless steel appliances, including dishwasher. It is fully stocked with all the equipment you need, whether putting together snacks for a hike or cooking dinner for everyone. An outdoor gas grill is also available for use.
Two bedrooms occupy the back of the house, each with access to an outdoor porch. One contains a queen bed and the other has two twin beds, all with Tuft and Needle custom foam mattresses. Like the living room, each bedroom has its own individually controlled central A/C and ceiling fan to keep things comfortable. A Jack-and-Jill bathroom offers privacy for each bedroom's residents, with a large Saltillo tile shower in the middle.
A half mile away from the closest neighbor, Sunrise Ridge offers sublime quiet and solitude. From the moment, the sun comes up over the eastern ridge of the valley, which has a pristine view of the Chisos Mountains and Big Bend National Park, the desert valley comes alive with wildlife and color, and there's enough space for hours of hiking to enjoy it all. As evening approaches, enjoy magnificent displays of shifting color and light as the sun sets on the other side of the valley, making way for a night so bright with stars that the Milky Way literally lights up the desert.
From Sunrise Ridge, you are well-positioned for day trips across the West Texas area. To the North, you can drive to Fort Davis and the McDonald Observatory, Marfa and the Chinati Art Foundation, or Alpine and Sul Ross University's Museum of the Big Bend. Drive south and you'll find Terlingua Ghost Town, the south entrance to Big Bend National Park (about 50 minutes away), and the Big Bend Ranch State Park. Closer to home, about two miles from the house, is Terlingua Ranch Headquarters, where you can grab some grub and maybe some live music at the Bad Rabbit Cafe, before retreating back to the valley and the quiet of your desert home.
Being isolated doesn't mean being out of touch, though, and Sunrise Ridge has high-speed satellite internet and phone service to keep you plugged in, should you need it when you're not taking in all the other marvels that the Chihuahuan Desert and West Texas have to offer. We welcome you to share in the wonders of this unique and restorative place.
The Neighborhood:
TERLINGUA RANCH: Located between Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park and including much of the town of Terlingua, Terlingua Ranch is a private subdivision of over 190,000 acres, divided into 9,500 tracts owned by about 5,000 individuals and crisscrossed by 1,100 miles of dirt and rock roads. Tracts range from five acres to several hundred acres. It is some of the most rugged and scenic land in Texas.
Back in the 1960’s, the Ghost Town and much of what later became “Terlingua Ranch” was owned by racing legend and car designer extraordinaire, Carol Shelby and some of his friends. The decided to promote the area by holding a chili cook-off in the then abandoned Ghost Town. That little stunt of a cook-off grew into CASI (Chili Appreciation Society International) which now hosts nearly 500 chili cook-offs around the nation and internationally, all leading up the championship cook-off every year in Terlingua. Shelby and friends later subdivided the Ranch and started selling it off to hunters and rugged naturalists. Over the decades, the area was reborn and an eclectic community of nature lovers, artists, musicians, adventurers, and folks just wanting to escape from “civilization” has grown and started to resettle this rough country.
People have come and gone. New buildings have risen while others have fallen, Dreams have been realized and others crushed. Through it all, the land remains. The harsh desert and vast openness encourages positive development and slowly swallows up and recovers from past abuses. The old cinnabar mine sites and ranching outposts persist as relics and ghost towns, some redeveloped, some carefully preserved, and others dissolving back into the desert. Abandoned dreams eventually become points of interests for those of us that stumble upon them decades later. Terlingua Ranch is a bizarre mix of old and new, good and bad, growth and decline, all completely unregulated. Modern homes with high values and stunning designs stand beside dilapidated do-it-yourself mistakes and abandoned ruins of the 1800’s and early 1900’s.
The landscape is even more varied than the people and the structures. Rugged mountains, deep canyons, wild arroyos, dry and wet creeks, peaceful valleys, breathtaking badlands, moonscape like mud flats, the remains of ancient volcanoes, and fossilized ancient seabeds. All of it nurturing a vast array of plant life and wildlife. Around every corner and over every hill lies new and unexpected surprises.
The Ranch is now home to a few hundred hardy souls. It is also dotted with a diverse array of vacation rental lodging options and campsites. Like the diverse land, they range in quality, style, value, and price. A few are amazing dream destinations. Some are good places to sleep. Others are the stuff of nightmares. (We don’t manage any in the nightmare category.)
Big Bend Vacation Rentals started out in 2007 and initially managed three of the first four vacation rentals in the Terlingua and Terlingua Ranch area. We now manage dozens out of a couple of hundred options. We represent dozens of property owners and have hosted tens of thousands of guests. You can trust us as managers, and you can rely on the properties that we manage. We have become very selective about the properties and the property owners that we add to our portfolio. Visit our website at www.BigBendVacations.com.
Interaction with Guests:
We manage several properties and live few miles away. We are available by phone, text, email, or messages through Airbnb. We are typically only on site for cleaning or maintenance issues.
