Safe from the Sprawl

Attorney Team Helps Nature-Lover Preserve North Texas Land

Nature has always been something I’ve marveled at,” professes Sharon Lane. “In one place, you have oceans, in another place, you have mile-high mountains. It’s just such a wonder.”

Lane was raised in Texas’ rural Rio Grande Valley among a family of farmers and hunters – “I used to take my afternoon naps in the bottom of my mother’s deer blind,” she chuckles. “But my favorite thing was sitting in a tree reading a book.”

As she grew up, Lane had a persistent dream of owning her own ranchland. When it finally became financially feasible for her to do so, Lane happened upon Shadow Mountain Ranch in northwest Navarro County while just driving along some backroads in 2003.

“We saw a sign, called the real estate agent, and when we drove in, we drove directly down to the lake, and it was like, ‘Wow,’” recalls Lane. “The ranch is about 431 acres total, a combination of mesquite scrub land, open pasture, open grassland, and post oak and juniper forests. Then there’s the lake and a wet-weather stream. Shadow Mountain Ranch was part of a 1,200-acre property owned by a wealthy woman in Germany who had bought it as an investment; she was beginning to divest her assets, so she was selling this Texas ranch she had never ever visited. Three months later, I signed the papers, and it was mine.”

Initially, Lane intended to use the property for hunting, fishing, and other recreation. She began attending seminars and workshops to learn how to properly manage the ranch for wildlife, and the more she learned, the more her interest in land conservation deepened.

“I started learning what was native, what was not, and how all the native flora and fauna work together,” Lane remembers. “We’re losing our wild, parcel by parcel – up here, the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is creeping closer every day.”

Over the next 14 years, Lane became a Texas Master Naturalist and worked tirelessly at reversing the overgrazing and habitat loss Shadow Mountain Ranch had suffered. She and her partner, Pat, renovated an existing airplane hangar into a “barn-dominium” (an apartment, two garages, a storage area, and workshop) and moved onto the property. Through brush management, native seed reintroduction, prescribed burns, regenerative grazing, and bird-box installations, Lane slowly restored her land to a native prairie habitat.

“Then, one day, a friend said to me, ‘You can’t take it with you, you know,’” notes Lane. “And I thought, maybe not, but I can protect this piece of it. So that really cemented in my mind the idea of putting the ranch into a conservation easement.”

Lane was unsure of how to begin the process of a conservation easement; none of her neighboring landowners – or even other Navarro County landowners – had done it, so there was no one to get a recommendation or referral from. But over the years, she had subscribed to the Braun & Gresham newsletter and had consistently agreed with the firm’s approach to land management, so she decided to give them a call.

“Natalie always kept me informed, telling me, ‘This is what’s happening, and this is what we’re going to do,’” Lane attests. “When that didn’t work, she said, ‘OK, we’re going to Plan B.’ I think we eventually got to Plan Z. But whenever something was happening, someone at Braun & Gresham let me know. And they guided me without pushing me one way or another – their guidance was gentle, but knowledgeable. All that made the process a lot less painful – the timing was painful, but the process wasn’t.”

“Sharon stuck with it and kept things moving forward,” reciprocates Cavellier. “Having a client who is that patient and engaged was extremely helpful to getting it done.”

Sharon Lane also worked closely with Braun & Gresham Attorney & Counselor Margaret Menicucci, who specializes in estate planning, to incorporate the conservation easement into her posthumous plans. The easement is a vital piece of Lane’s estate plan because it controls the succession of the land ownership and who has access to the ranch.

For now, Lane continues her conservation efforts at Shadow Mountain Ranch, doing all her own work on the land along with Pat. She partners with the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and other organizations to host conservation-based workshops on the property.

Additionally, Lane serves as a board member with the Western Navarro Bobwhite Recovery Initiative (WNBRI), a regional group committed to the recovery of the bobwhite quail and other grassland bird populations through education and land stewardship. An avid birder, Lane notes that her lake provides a wonderful wetland habitat, safe for more than 100 bird species she has personally identified on the ranch.

“If you love your land, then I think one of the most important things you can do is protect it,” asserts Lane. “And if you want to protect your land and keep it for not only your future generations, but for all future generations, then you need a conservation easement. It’s the ultimate protection. And to do it correctly, you need advocates to guide and support you. That’s what the team at Braun & Gresham did for me. Natalie and Margaret are phenomenal. Most of the time, I forget they’re lawyers – they’re really more like friends.

“I urge anyone who has land they care about to work through the process of a conservation easement,” she concludes. “It’s not easy, it’s not fast, but it’s worth it.”