A quiet place in the country has long been one of fame’s favorite escapes. Movie stars bought ranches, musicians disappeared behind hedgerows, and television personalities traded city traffic for villages where everybody still seemed to know everybody. However, arriving with money, privacy concerns, ambitious building plans, or a very different idea of how the landscape should be used could upset that peaceful arrangement quickly. In several of these cases, the disagreement was about something wonderfully ordinary: trees, a fence, a parking lot, a footpath, or the tax assessment on an old farmhouse. Elsewhere, the questions reached much deeper into land rights and local history. Fame could open plenty of doors, but planning boards, neighboring farmers, village residents, and local traditions did not always make exceptions. These celebrities discovered that country life occasionally comes with a committee meeting attached.
#1: Val Kilmer and the Pecos Ranch Dispute
Along the Pecos River in northern New Mexico, fishing holes and access to the land had histories that existed long before a movie star bought thousands of acres nearby. Residents around Rowe eventually found themselves arguing over both when Val Kilmer sought permission to rent guesthouses on his roughly 5,300-acre property. By 2010, objections at the county level had expanded well beyond tourism. Neighbors accused him of restricting access to fishing areas they had traditionally used and brought up magazine comments in which he had spoken harshly about New Mexico residents.
