He had his own 214-acre movie ranch, located in the San Fernando Valley
in California. He purchased the property in 1935 and called it Farm
Lake Ranch, but the film industry always knew it as the Rowland V. Lee
Ranch, with its pale brown hills of barley chaff and olive and
eucalyptus trees and two scenic lakes, but for some reason it wasn't
used much for westerns. For
La gran pasión (1946), Republic Pictures built an
extensive farmhouse and barn set. It also constructed a stone and wood
bridge over one of the lakes, which would usually be photographed as a
river. The farmhouse set would be adapted and modified over the years.
RKO used it as a period French farmhouse for its modest swashbuckler
Los hijos de los mosqueteros (1952). Its most famous use was as an Indiana Quaker family farm
during the Civil War in Allied Artists'
La gran prueba (1956). To give it that
"Indiana look", director
William Wyler had cornfields planted, sycamore trees
brought in and huge areas covered with green grass. The wooden
farmhouse was also given a fake stone facade. You'll also see the ranch
used to great effect in
Alfred Hitchcock's
Extraños en un tren (1951) and in
Charles Laughton's
La noche del cazador (1955).
After Lee died in 1975, the ranch was developed into an expensive gated
community called Hidden Lake Estates.
