MacGregor Ranch, the longtime preserve adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park, hosted dozens of recreational vehicle owners last weekend in an event that may have violated the terms of the property’s governing trust.
The number of vehicles and people at the EarthRoamer Owner’s Rally is not known.
Rebecca Everette, the Larimer County community development director, said in a September 5 email that she denied a special event permit for the rally and that its organizer informed her that not enough attendees to require the permit were expected.
The superintendent of Rocky Mountain National Park, Gary Ingram, asked for the denial. In a Sept. 3, 2024 letter to Denise Roybal, a county zoning specialist, Ingram wrote that the proposed rally was “not in accordance with the terms of the Conservation Easement.”
Ingram referred to a 1983 National Park Service easement on the ranch lands where the rally occurred. That easement prohibits “all “commercial, industrial, or residential uses” except those that contribute to “educational, cattle ranching and museum purposes, as may be prescribed by the Trustees of the MacGregor Trust” (see PDF below).
“[T]he proposed event is not in accordance with the terms of the Conservation Easement,” Ingram wrote. “We do not see a connection between the proposed event – a gathering of luxury overland vehicles organized by a commercial entity – and the limited educational, ranching, and museum uses allowed under the Conservation Easement.”
According to an EarthRoamer website, the event included “food, music, classes, campfires, and plenty of other fun activities.” Whether they comply with a requirement of the Muriel L. MacGregor Charitable Trust to dedicate the ranch only to “charitable and educational purposes” consistent with the federal income tax code is not clear.
“Guidelines are not specific,” said Rebecca Urquhart, a local attorney, in an email message. “But for decades, the Board complied with those mission directions by maintaining the museum, providing tours, maintaining an authentic farmhouse garden, providing day camps for school children,and allowing camping by scouts and youth groups.”
Urquhart referred to the MacGregor Ranch Museum, in operation since 1973.
“The big question: what does an RV rally, weddings, film production, etc. have to do with maintaining the herd and educational activities?,” Urquhart continued. “Where are the charitable contributions that the Ranch was to promote or fund?”
Todd Jirsa, a member of the MacGregor trust’s board of trustees, declined to respond in a telephone interview to a question about whether the RV rally is consistent with the MacGregor trust purposes.
“I’ve been down this road,” he said. “I know the people that are involved and the naysaying. I know the rumors that are being spread.”
The former Estes Park mayor said he wanted to examine the trust document and the associated conservation easement obtained from the National Park Service before expressing a view about whether the RV rally is permissible.
“It’s an interesting concern,” he said. “I think I can address it.”
The MacGregor trust includes a history of trustees skirting restrictions on the use of the ranch. In 1973 the state’s attorney general obtained an amendment to the trust that forbids self-dealing by the guardians of the ranch.
Urquhart said the current attorney general, Phil Weiser, declined to investigate the use of the ranch after the 2022 EarthRoamers Owner’s Rally.
She asked Weiser to launch a probe of improper uses of the ranch, including weddings and movie production, and alleged self-dealing by trustees. Urquhuart claimed that trustee William VanHorn and Jirsa have used ranch assets as their own, that he and Jirsa have used it as a private hunting ground, and that trustee and former Estes Park city council member Cody Walker’s children were the recipients of trust-sponsored college scholarships.
Urquhart also alleged that Walker benefits from a contract between the trust and Sombrero Stables, which is owned by his family.
Besides Jirsa, VanHorn, and Walker, the MacGregor Ranch trustees include VanHorn’s son John Howell and son-in-law Brian Killion.
Trustee meetings are evidently not publicized and minutes of those meetings are not apparently available to the public.
The Estes Valley Voice is pleased to welcome Hank Lacey to our writing team. Lacey is a lawyer and a journalist. He will be covering legal affairs and environmental stories for the Estes Valley Voice. His writings have appeared in the New York Daily News, Steamboat Pilot & Today, Sterling Journal-Advocate, Law Week Colorado, the Denver Voice and the Law of the West.
This is great
Do you still work there?
Please allow me to make 3 simple comments.
1. Reporter, Phil Weiser was invited to the MacGregor Ranch Office to personally review Muriel’s Last Will and Testament, Trust Document, Conservation Agreement with RMNP and the Ranch’s position related to a Larimer County Event Permit. He declined!
2. Rebecca Urquhart made these exact same claims to the State Attorney General after the 2022 Rally. Attorney General, Phil Weiser “declined to investigate the use of the ranch”.
3. In the last 3 years, EarthRoamer has made 3 donations to the ranch that support the Muriel L. MacGregor High School Scholarship. In 2024 alone, their donation was $25,000!
Why is this article in existence?Sounds like a witch hunt.
McGregor Ranch is a working ranch. Rasing cattle isn’t cheap. If the ranch does little events here and there to make ends meet I could care less.
I think there are other pressing qconcerns we face as a community we could focus on.
I don’t drive by the Ranch all that often and I have never noticed large groups of Motor Homes of any size taking over any of the meadows or pasture land. I agree that there is a need for income other than the sale of beef to support the operations. Because the Trust is private, the public is not privy to what kind of assets generate funds to maintain the herd and the property. I believe that the Trustees serve as non-compensated volunteers but I do know that several people who donated a lot of their time and service to keeping the MacGregor family legacy, especially Miss Muriel’s last wishes, alive and serving as a link to our past, have “retired” or more likely been eased out in the last decade or so.
Bad cut and paste job on my part with the reporters name. Should read:
1. Reporter, Hank Lacey was invited…
My apologies!
In my opinion, This use of the ranch for rallys was not within the spirit if the original will and agreement with the park service. The board of trustees is lopsided with 3 members of the vanhorn family in place. The make up of the board should be reconsidered. This land is a jewel to the estes valley
i’ve often wondered how they have been allowed to host private events there.
Just because the scholarship award is large, it was given to friends and family of the trustees. How is that beneficial to the trust? This need to be investigated thoroughly as using this property for personal use should not be allowed. If they want to change to a tax rate status then this would be a different issue.
Should a non-profit board really be made up of a small group of cronies with histories of what’s-in-it-for-me activities and public decisions?