Crazy Wells Ranch

08/18/2012

08/17/2012

Sorry I haven't posted in a while but I'm still working very hard to get Crazy Wells Ranch going. I have put up a shop on Etsy and the profits from all the items I sell will be used to help pay architects for the master plan design of the park. Then I will have something from which to develop a financial plan that can be presented to potential investors. For those of you who don't know what Etsy is, it is a site where artists and designers can sell their work. Mine is at www.etsy.com/shop/factory3d. I hope you will support Crazy Wells Ranch by buying from my shop. All the profits will be used to further develop our park. Thanks for your continued support.

07/03/2012

Thanks to Dianna and all the other Kiwanians for letting me speak about Crazy Wells Ranch and your support. If anyone else would like me to speak to their group, please let me know. The more the word gets out, the better it is.

07/02/2012

Speaking to the Kiwanis Club tomorrow about the benefits of Crazy Wells Ranch to Mineral Wells. I'm so excited.

06/30/2012

This is for Lindsay and others.

Crazy Wells Ranch is my idea. It comes from years of my being a theme park designer in Los Angeles for Disney, Universal, and a few other places. I was always on the creative side of things and have a career’s worth of experience in design and working with vendors who build theme parks. When I turned 65, I was laid off so I moved to Mineral Wells to a house I inherited. My family goes back to the late 1800’s in Palo Pinto County and I was born near here so I’m sort of coming back home.

Since I feel like I still have a lot to contribute to society, I started looking around at what I might be able to do with my skills and talents to help the community. I looked first at the Baker and what was going on there and even talked to Thiele and Thiele, the designers on that project. When I found the progress on that was stalled, I started thinking of what else could be done. Because I think in terms of theme park design, I thought a really great water park could help boost the economy here and maybe even help kick start the resurrection of the Baker. Since MW started out as a resort town, it made sense to me that it should reclaim that heritage. So I did the drawings and some of the basic design work you see on this page trying to incorporate some of that history and decided to run it up the flag pole so to speak.

I’m surprised at the support the page has gotten with over 800 likes in just a couple of months. In case that’s confusing because there are only about 400 likes on the Crazy Wells Ranch page, there was a page called the Crazy Water Ranch up for a month which was changed so as not to confuse it with anything else called Crazy Water. That page got over 500 likes in that short amount of time. I have combined the two pages cross referencing names so there are no double entries. Last count on Monday was 834 likes.

Other things I’ve done are joined the Chamber of Commerce, created posters and flyers and I try to get out as much as I can to talk to people about the how a destination type attraction could help us like Schlitterbahn has helped New Brunfels. All of the money and effort has come from me alone and since I’m not very well off financially, I can only do so much. I am hoping to get enough support on the page that it will reach someone with the business acumen and connections that can see the economic potential Mineral Wells has and wants the challenge of building the financial side of the project. Of course there may not be anyone like that so all my effort will be in vain. That’s always the gamble but that’s ok.

Another question people have is where is it going to be. All I can say on that is that I want it to be in Palo Pinto County and on the north, west or south side of the city so people have to come through downtown past the Baker when coming from DFW. That lets out any place east of Woody’s Bar.

I think when most people hear there is no money yet attached to the Crazy Wells Ranch they just dismiss it but I’m sure of one thing. If I don’t get the idea out of my head, it will never happen. Hope that answers some of the questions and you still support the project.

06/29/2012

I’m not a writer so I don’t make as many posts as I would like. And since I’m the only person currently working on this project, I can’t delegate the job to someone else. So forgive me for not posting more often.
I just read in the Index about the Baker Hotel project and how it is still on hold. While I agree with the general premise that restoration of this historic old building would be a great economic boost for the city, I think there needs to be an initial step that would spark this resurrection. I believe increasing tourism to Mineral Wells with a great destination venue like Crazy Wells Ranch Water Park would be a great catalytic project towards that ultimate restoration goal. With the increased tourism there would be a greater demand for hotel rooms and meeting and convention spaces making it easier to promote the resurrection of the Baker to investors. Granted several million dollars would have to be raised to build the park but it would only be about a third as much as would be needed for the Baker restoration. With some creative real estate investing, parcels of land around the park could be sold or leased at a premium to companies that would greatly benefit from being next to a water park thus helping to recoup some of the investment capital. Fees could also be charged to food and drink vendors as well as many other types of merchants for rights to sell in the park. There are many other ways this park could create revenue, too numerous to put in this post. Believe me, I don’t want to compete with the restoration of the Baker, I want to figure out a way to accelerate its refurbishment since I own property nearby and it would increase its value substantially. After all, if you ask a kid if he or she would rather stay in a historic hotel or go to the hottest new water park in the country, I think you know what the answer would be.

06/16/2012

Just found out I’m giving a presentation to some important people in a couple of weeks. Can’t say anything about it right now but keep your fingers crossed.

06/15/2012

Congratulations to Nita, Mr. Bennett and all the others at Bennett's Brazos Printing who have been doing an outstanding job of printing posters and flyers for Crazy Wells Ranch. Ah to be 50 years old again!

06/13/2012

I had a wonderful time last night meeting members of the Chamber at the new Bluebonnet Hall at the Texas Star RV Resort. It was so nice to meet some of the great people who support the Crazy Wells Ranch and introducing it to others. I was really surprised at how many already new about it though. A really delicious dinner was provided by the Texas Star so thanks for the wonderful hospitality and support. Anyone having an event that's too big for your livingroom or back yard, this is a terrific place to have it. BTW, between the old page and the new page, we have over 710 supporters.

06/11/2012

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. Large projects like this have an ebb and flow to them and progress has been slow on this one for the past few weeks. There has been tremendous popular support for the project and everyone I talk to can see the benefit to the community. So I’m still in there trying to get the word to the right ears. It’s still very important that everyone support the page.
There are a couple of ways this project could play out. One is having an entertainment company that has a lot of parks all over the country pony up for building and running the park. That is fine but they will take all the profits away from the community and will have final say over the look and operation of the park. A second way that I would prefer is to have a group of local investors create a production company that could build the park and run it locally with the flavor and history of the community designed into it. Then, some of the profits could be used in the community, some could be reinvested back into the park and the rest could go back to the investors. This is a much more difficult way to do it because there may not even be investors with the necessary capital in this area to create a project of this scope. But whether it works out in one of these ways or some other way, I still think an attraction of this type could be a huge boon to Mineral Wells for now and well into the future. Thanks to all for your continued support.

05/22/2012

Just met the wonderful folks at IntregraCare Home Health. Thanks so much for your support of the Crazy Wells Ranch and putting up a poster to tell others about it.