“Stand here and simply rotate,” Jon Pedotti, an owner of Rancho Arbolado, said while pointing beyond the fencelines. “Every direction is open. In a state where so much has changed, that’s an extraordinary thing. I feel incredibly lucky to be part of the legacy that’s kept this landscape intact.”
From the highest point on Rancho Arbolado, the Pacific Ocean stretches west toward the Channel Islands, visible on a clear day. Yet it is what lies in every other direction that truly sets this place apart—a view that remains entirely of uninterrupted working cattle country extending to the horizon.
According to the Gaviota Coast Plan, this stretch of 76 miles of shoreline is one of the last great expanses of undeveloped coastline in the state. While much of California’s coast has given way to subdivisions, resorts and highways, these historic ranches have remained remarkably intact. That legacy is woven into the landscape itself, telling the story of generations of ranching families who have balanced the demands of a working ranch with a commitment to stewardship.
Today, Rancho Arbolado represents the next chapter in that story. By permanently protecting their ranch through a conservation easement with the California Rangeland Trust, the Pedotti family is preserving not only their agricultural heritage and way of life, but also critical wildlife habitat and open space.
In 1948, Helen and Pida Pedotti purchased the original 1,000 acres of what would become Rancho Arbolado. Though they were drawn to the ranching life, neither had deep roots in the industry. Instead, the ranch offered a way to embrace a different kind of life, one where they could raise their children, Jon, Chico, Tina, and Holly, on the land. A few years later, when a neighboring ranch came on the market, the Pedottis purchased that property as well, expanding their holdings to what is now the approximately 2,500-acre ranch.
Over time, the family built a life around the land. Cattle became the ranch’s primary enterprise, providing both a livelihood and a way to actively manage the landscape. For the siblings, however, Rancho Arbolado was more than a working property. It was home. Each found a different connection to the ranch, carrying the experiences and lessons they gained there into their own lives and, eventually, their own operations.
For many years, Pida and Chico ran the ranch together. In 1994, when Chico purchased his own ranch near Alturas, Jon stepped in, running his cattle on Rancho Arbolado.
By then, a new generation was finding its own connection to the land, building memories on the same landscape that had shaped their parents and grandparents.
After Helen and Pida passed away, Chico, Jon, Tina and Holly began considering how they could protect the ranch their family had built together. After conversations with their own families and inspired by the success of conservation projects elsewhere in the local ranching community, the siblings approached the Rangeland Trust about placing a conservation easement on Rancho Arbolado.
For the next generation of Pedottis, the decision felt like a natural continuation of what came before.
“I think everyone from our generation was pretty gung-ho from the get-go about conserving the ranch,” said Wendy Pedotti Scribner, one of Jon’s daughters and the current lessee on the ranch. “To us, it just feels like exactly what our grandparents would have wanted. It is a gift to the past and to the future for our kids.”
The conservation easement is nearing completion, with support from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, the California Department of Conservation’s Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation (SALC) Program*, the John S. Kiewit Memorial Foundation, the Santa Barbara Foundation, and the SMART Foundation. The agreement permanently protects the ranch from future subdivision and development while allowing the land to remain a working agricultural operation.
The value of Rancho Arbolado, however, extends far beyond the Pedotti family. Long before the Pedottis purchased the ranch, Santa Barbara County’s ranching culture was influenced by the Spanish and Mexican land grants and the traditions of the vaqueros who worked these vast landscapes.
That history remains embedded in the region’s working ranches, not just as remnants of the past, but a living cultural landscape the community is built on.
For José Baer, Holly’s son, who lived on the ranch for 20 years while raising his own two children there, the decision to conserve the ranch is truly about preserving that relationship between land, community, and history.
“My grandparents raised us to have a mindset that if we retain the land, we will retain the relationship to it,” José said. “But I think conserving it goes beyond retaining the relationship for our family and extends to the broader community as well. This community was built from ranching culture, and preserving that is important to its identity and history.”
Rancho Arbolado is a part of a broader conservation movement that has taken shape across the Gaviota Coast. The Rangeland Trust has also partnered with the owners of the neighboring 13,000-acre Hanson Ranch and 870-acre El Chorro Ranch to conserve their properties. The property also adjoins the protected Hollister Ranch and other protected lands, creating a broader patchwork of working ranchland.
Together, these lands form something far greater than any single ranch. They help preserve one of the last places in California where vast expanses of working rangeland remain connected, stretching from the inland hills toward the coast.
For the Pedotti family, however, the conservation of Rancho Arbolado brings the story back to where it began. Nearly 80 years after Helen and Pida first purchased the land to build a life and raise their children, their family has made a commitment to ensure that future generations will have the chance to do the same.
And so, from the highest point on the ranch, there will always be the opportunity to stand and turn in a circle, taking in vast, open views—because generations of people have intentionally chosen to care for it and keep it that way.
*SALC is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that uses Cap-and-Trade funds to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen the economy, and improve public health and the environment—particularly in disadvantaged communities.
California Rangeland Trust is a nonprofit, tax-exempt charitable organization (tax identification number 31-1631453) under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Donations are tax-deductible as allowed by law.
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