Historic 390-acre SLO ranch donated to Cal Poly. Here’s how it will be used

Cal Poly acquired hundreds of acres of working agricultural land after a ranch in San Luis Obispo was donated to the university.

Owned by the Brughelli Estate, the 390-acre Brughelli Ranch located just south of the San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport was donated to Cal Poly to expand its “Learn by Doing” opportunities while honoring family’s longstanding legacy, a Cal Poly news release said on Monday.

Brughelli Ranch is a working agricultural property in SLO, with productive farmland and water resources, the news release said.

For Cal Poly, the gift offers hundreds of acres of farmland near campus where students can apply classroom knowledge in real-world environments and collaborate with growers, industry partners and researchers.

“This is an extraordinary opportunity to provide our students with a place where agriculture, conservation and natural resource stewardship come together,” Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong said in the release. “The ranch has been cared for by generations before us, and now Cal Poly will continue that stewardship while preparing students to care for California’s working landscapes in the future.”

The ranch’s history spans 150 years, supporting agriculture, livestock, irrigated cropland and dry farming with additional plantable acreage available.

According to the release, about 60% of the ranch is defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as prime agricultural land, including 100 acres of irrigated Class I soils that support a broad range of crops that could continue to bring in revenue for the university.

The farmstead fronts Buckley Road and extends between Davenport Creek Road and Jespersen Road and is permanently protected through an agricultural conservation easement, established in 2015 by the Ercole and Naomie Brughelli Trust in partnership with the city of SLO and the Land Conservancy of SLO.

The property is also enrolled in the Williamson Act, reinforcing its long-term agricultural identity.

Its history dates back to 1875 when John Anderson acquired a U.S. government land patent. William Buckley later acquired the ranch, followed by Dave McKeen around 1882. Aurelio Brughelli began working on the ranch in 1928 and acquired it two decades later from the McKeen estate. Since then, the Brughelli family and its estate trustees have managed the land.

“The Brughelli Ranch and Cal Poly both have deep roots in SLO — and when it came time to decide how to ensure our land’s vitality into the future, Cal Poly was the clear choice,” Brughelli Trustee Mark Amos said in the release. “We are excited to see how future Cal Poly students will learn on this land and then take that learning forward into their careers and positively impact California, the nation and the world.”

The 390 acres are the latest addition to Cal Poly’s 10,000 acres of agriculture land.

Cal Poly maintains the largest agricultural holdings of any university in California and is among the largest land-holding universities in the country, which includes several thousand acres of core campus and adjacent agricultural land as well as several nearby ranches in SLO County, the 3,200-acre Swanton Pacific Ranch in Santa Cruz County and the 92 acre Cal Poly Solano Campus, home of the Cal Poly Maritime Academy in Vallejo.