Lancer at 55: The Hacienda and the Huntze family archive

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The Hacienda at the Santa Lucia Preserve

Normally in February we send you a note about all the Valentine’s Day stories we have, a reminder of the love stories and sweet romances those Lancer boys keep falling into.

Not this year. This year we’re celebrating a different kind of love, one that’s lasted for the last fifty-five years and is as strong and vibrant as it was in the beginning. Can you believe it’s that long since Lancer was first aired? So many years, and yet, as so many you say, “Lancer lives on!”

We hope we’ll be doing more throughout the year to mark Lancer’s fifty-five years – its emerald anniversary. We’re kicking off, though, by featuring the place it all began: the Rancho San Carlos, near Carmel,CA. The hacienda itself.

Sometimes the gods line up treasures for us. Not emerald, but pure gold.

Earlier this month, out of the blue, Chris Huntze contacted us through the Gateway. My grandparents worked on the Rancho when the filming was going on, he said. We have photos of the Rancho, memories of visits there when I was a kid, cool momentos of them shooting the pilot… would you be interested?

Well, you wouldn’t expect us to say no! So now we have a host of photos and Chris’s recollections, and a far better understanding of how the hacienda was laid out, and how the various parts of it -Moore’s Lake, the old polo fields, the back lawn, the patio courtyard, the guest house lawn – were used during filming both the family-reunited scenes and that wonderful gunfight at the end.

We’ve gathered this all together and organised it into sections to make it easier for you to visualize the hacienda and its grounds, and see how they were used to create the Lancers’ home. Here’s

The Huntze Family Archives
Eleanor and Wes Huntze
The House at Rancho San Carlos
The Rancho’s Grounds
Filming the pilot episode 

And for more information on the Rancho San Carlos, and to help orientate yourself when it comes to the lay out:

The Hacienda main page

Aerial views of the house and environs, taken from Google Earth.

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Oh and the Valentine’s Day stories? They’re HERE.

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Lancer Gateway Team