by Dan Ichikawa, 24 January 1999

I finally went out of my way to check out the Tanque Verde Guest Ranch. After seeing it, I have to wonder if this was ever really the Bar None.

Actually, we all now know what happened to the original Bar None Ranch. It's at the end of this article, or you can skip right to it.

This ad was in the Arizona Republic newspaper (Sunday Travel section) during the first few weeks of 1999. Looks like Mr. Ernst got into the right business!

Finding the Tanque Verde Guest Ranch was very easy. Coming from Phoenix, we took the Speedway exit off of I-10 and took the road east to the end of the line. There's a public hiking trailhead at the entrance to the TVGR. Turn left (north) and you're in!

Before parking the car, we drove down every side road we could. We were compromised by two factors: 1) One road was gated, and 2) some roads turned into gravel, not good for the Honda Prelude we were driving. But we drove as much as we could, but, regardless, there was surprisingly little road to travel. From the car, we couldn't see anything familiar, so we parked it on the main lot (ample parking available).

On foot, again, very little looked familiar insofar as Hey Dude is concerned. I saw the buildings pictured on the official Tanque Verde web site, but nothing that resembled what I've seen in Hey Dude.

Except for the outdoor pool. Finally, something I've seen on television! There was the diving board that Brad stood on! The program's cameramen did a good job of hiding the big lodge that abuts the pool's "left" end. That explains why we only saw the "right" end of the pool. Amusingly, there's a prominent sign that says "No Lifeguard on Duty". Poor Melody, a victim of downsizing?

But that's it. We saw a lot of things that were never shown in Hey Dude, like the tennis courts and a number of riding arenas, corrals, and round pens. The basketball court was being used as tarp storage or something. We saw a lot of guestrooms, but they were all pink adobe type structures that were never seen in Hey Dude.

Still on foot, we crossed the road and hiked into the picnic and nature trail areas (this was through the gated road). There was a lake (big pond), but I'll be damned if this was the same one seen in Hey Dude. The size looked about right, maybe a little small, but there was no mini pier. There was just a very old, decrepit, micro pier that looked unsafe (the wood was warped and gray). The lake itself was an opaque, putrid purplish-brown color. There was a sign that allowed fishing, but I would recommend the use of rubber gloves when throwing back what you caught.

The outdoor picnic area again was different than any seen in Hey Dude. There were about two dozen redwood picnic benches bunched in a wooded clearing that looked wholly unfamiliar. Not another soul was seen in this back part of the property.

We crisscrossed many times and somehow ended back in the main area. It was getting hot, hitting almost eighty degrees today!

Really puzzled, we went back into the main area again and systematically scoured the grounds. There was a gift shop that had the same ol' tourist crap you find anywhere else in this state. But not a single item related to Hey Dude. The main office was much fancier than the one in which Mr. Ernst did business. The corral and horse wrangler areas looked nothing like the little ones in Hey Dude. (Some of the corral fencing was similar in construction: double vertical log posts that held piled lateral posts. However, the fences in Hey Dude looked only one log thick, while those at the TVGR were several posts thick and baled together with wire.)

Apart from the pool, I could not find one structure that even resembled what was shown in the program.

• Most telling, the TVGR possesses no large central dirt courtyard with a bell tower as seen in many episodes. I can't believe such a courtyard would be located in some hidden, back section of the ranch. The main courtyard at the TVGR is a well-manicured lawn that opens up into the parking lot. And the only place you'll see non-landscaped dirt is in the horse arenas and corrals.

• The guestrooms and bunkhouses in Hey Dude were of basic wood construction. All TVGR guestrooms are adobe style construction. The guestrooms that the Hey Dude kids cleaned, like the building Ted's English teacher stayed in, were nowhere to be seen. There were no wood porches at the TVGR. There were row and U-shaped guestrooms, but many more were the casita type. The TVGR U-shaped buildings had lawn courtyards, paved paths, and fountains, very un-Bar Nonish.

• There were no water-filled troughs, ramadas, windmills, etc., in sight. OK, there were ramadas along the nature trail, but none in the main courtyard.

I've come to the conclusion this was not the primary shooting location for Hey Dude. I could be wrong. Hell, I could have missed a large chunk of the ranch. But I doubt it.

And even though the show is ten years old, I can't believe the TVGR could have been completely razed and rebuilt in that time span. I mean, places like this pride themselves on how long they've been established (unless there was a big fire or something, but nothing I've read or seen has hinted at such an occurrence).

I theorize that the end credits mention the TVGR for the use of their swimming pool. And/Or perhaps the TVGR put up the show's cast and crew during production. Everybody assumes the TVGR was the Bar None shooting location because of the credits mention, but has anyone ever verfied this assumption from another source? Probably not. The actual shooting ranch might have cut a deal with the producers that precluded their own promotion of their business.

Again, from what I saw, I just don't see how the Tanque Verde Guest Ranch was ever the Bar None proper. No way.

That, of course, leads to the question: Which real life dude ranch was the Bar None?

I received the following e-mail from Eugene Frederick:

Fri, 5 Feb 1999

About five years ago I stopped by the Tanque Verde Ranch so My daughter could see the Site of Hey Dude. At that time there was nothing that looked like the set from the show on the ranch, so the wife and I went to the front desk and asked the desk clerk about the TV show set. I was told that all the buildings from the set were torn down after the last shows were filmed. That was done by the production company's choice.

Hope that helps,
Eugene Frederick

Well, that pretty much explains it! In retrospect, there were some hints that the setting was quasi-makeshift (specifically, rows of freshly laid sod -- established grass is seasonally re-seeded). But the structures that were used seemed to have an authentic well-worn look, and certainly some charm. Argh, it's really a shame the buildings no longer exist, but I guess that's that.

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