The Balancing Rock landholding is offered at $1,215,000.
The above-listed preseason landholding sale price expires July 15, 2008.
Balancing Rock is named for its southern orientation and exposure, and for its dramatic views of the towering pinnacles of Smith Rock and the unique Balancing Rock of Asterisk Pass, immediately across the Crooked River Canyon. The landholding is comprised of 6.94 acres in total, including a 1.55-acre building and landscape area, and shared ownership of the entire 1,700 acres of Ranch at the Canyons.
Balancing Rock is approached from Canyons Ranch Drive on the west, with the driveway curving gently through lush open meadows, and then through the ancient junipers of the property. The landholding extends from Canyons Ranch Drive to the Crooked River, protecting views in all directions. The western portion of the landholding is comprised of open pasture, irrigated and farmed in hay and managed by the Ranch. The landscape and building envelope rest on a gentle rise of land overlooking the Crooked River and Monkeyface Canyon, and the dramatic escarpments and pinnacles of Smith Rock. Balancing Rock thus offers a dramatic view of the giant obelisk and well-named profile of Monkeyface, as well as the Hands of God, and other pinnacles. Across the meadows to the west the property views the snow-capped peaks of the Cascade Mountains.
The lower section of the landholding reaches across the meadows of Monkeyface Canyon to the Crooked River. This portion of the property includes remarkable rockscapes, dramatic, multi-hued and beautiful, as well as a pioneer orchard. The plantings for this orchard were originally brought to the Oregon Territory and the Willamette Valley by early settlers. Later, in a second wave of immigration, they were carried east across the Cascades and planted in these Ranch meadows early in the 1900s. This area was initially homesteaded by a German family named Wallenberg, who worked and had orchards in the meadow below, and lived and ranched on the rimrock above – a pattern followed by the Ranch today. These heirloom orchards still produce apples, much favored by the deer, and provide stock for plantings on the balance of the Ranch.
Across the road from the entrance to Balancing Rock a stone wall surrounds an historic site. This area was reportedly used as a stagecoach stop when early travelers passed through this area, going from Trail Crossing to the north and to the Crooked River Basin and Prineville to the south and east. This walled area is comprised of several historic foundations with beams and other implements of settlement and agricultural use.