Hidden in the hills of California sits a 708-acre ranch that the Disney company tries to keep secret from devoted fans who want to peek behind its gates.
The Gold Oak ranch in Placerita Canyon is used as a film set and testing ground for amusement park rides, just about 25 miles north of the company’s largest studio in Burbank.
Unlike the Disney Burbank Studio, the Gold Oak ranch is completely off-limits, lined with no trespassing signs to keep the company’s future plans secret.
‘They go out of their way to limit access because once you open the door, the floodgates just would be unleashed by all the Disney fans,’ Bill Cotter, a former Disney employee, told SFGATE.
The ranch is closely guarded to keep filming hidden, and plans for future rides private, noted the outlet.
While access is off-limits to the public, diehard fans have likely seen inside the mysterious ranch while watching projects such as The Apple Dumpling Gang, The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit, Follow Me, Boys!, and The Parent Trap.
Walt Disney purchased the studio, which was only 315 acres, in 1959 for just $300,000 after spending time there while filming the Spin and Marty serials, the SF Gate noted.
‘The rugged canyons and oak-lined meadows, as well as its proximity to the Studio in Burbank, made the Golden Oak Ranch the perfect place to film Walt’s increasing slate of film and television productions,’ according to the Walt Disney Family Museum.
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