Brandie McNamee and her family live on a fifth-generation cattle ranch in Antelope Valley, which is best known for its connection to the Rajneesh community that inhabited the valley in the 1980’s. With deep roots in this place, Brandie was disheartened to see the town’s only cafe close in 2017; the cafe was the bedrock of Antelope’s social fabric, long serving as a gathering place for residents. After speaking with leaders in the tourism industry, Brandie realized there were resources available that could help bring her ideas for revitalizing Antelope and its rural economy to life.
Can you tell me about life in Antelope?
My husband’s family were original homesteaders in Antelope Valley. He’s a rancher and I’m a Certified Public Accountant, working remotely from the ranch. We have three children who go to school with the other 14 children that live in the valley. If you study and analyze ranching family generations, a lot of kids don’t come back to the family ranch these days. So, when I say we’re invested in this place, I mean not only for us but for the youth who live here. Antelope is home, and we want it to be a fun and fulfilling place for them to be. A place where they can find a summer job, for example, and enjoy a social life.
And what about the town itself?
About 200 people live in the greater valley, but the town of Antelope has a population of 37. Those of us who live in the valley have to go to town to pick up our mail at the post office. The café used to be the heart of the community where the old-time ranchers would sit at the bar and talk when they came into town. It was a gathering place. When the café closed in 2017, the town lost its social fabric and collaborative spirit.
How did you get the idea to revitalize the café and the camping area?
After a failed attempt to reopen the cafe was thwarted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the two-acre property, which also includes an RV park, went into tax foreclosure through Wasco County. I got in contact with the investment firm who purchased it and learned they were open to offers. We closed on the property in February 2023 and with the help of other ranching families, we cleaned it up in June.
When K’Lynn Lane, former executive director of Oregon Frontier Chamber of Commerce, came to Antelope for a community visioning session, we drew pictures of what we wanted the town to look like. The one thing that K’Lynn emphasized was to look at the assets the town currently has and that’s when we realized we’re on the northern border of Oregon’s Dark Sky Area. And that was something we could promote. Additionally, Antelope is on the Oregon Outback Trail and the Pan-American Highway, so we get a lot of cyclists riding through town with up to 60-70% of them being international visitors. There’s also the Young Life camp in the area which draws 17,000 kids to the valley each summer, including ours. So, we thought hey—these things are unique to Antelope and could be the basis of a real tourism economy. In a town with next to no tax revenue, you have to capitalize on assets that don’t cost anything.
So that’s when you decided to pursue the Dark Sky Community designation?
Yes, we began working with Dark Sky Oregon to become the first certified Dark Sky Community in Oregon. The Dark Sky application was a tremendous amount of work. I learned so much, and now I want to take it to the next level. I want our lodging cabins to be the first lodging facility accredited by Dark Sky International.
As we were pursuing that designation, we discovered that the Young Life camp wanted to get rid of the old A-frame Rajneesh cabins. We thought they’d be perfect to create a bike camp for cyclists and others who want a true dark sky experience. That way we can offer more than dry camping—we could build a pavilion with restrooms and people could sleep in the cabins.
Can you tell me more about your plans for the lodging facility?
We want to keep it low key and genuine to align with our community culture, and we hope to open this summer. There will be a Dark Sky-certified lit pathway, a pavilion with restrooms, 10 ADA-accessible cabins with twin beds, dry camping and RV spaces, a café and a parking lot for people to leave their cars overnight. Due to being a stop on bike trails, we’ll have a lot of cyclists—bicycles, motorcycles, enduro-riders—staying with us.
We also want to have an ADA-accessible Dark Sky viewing experience on the property with an automatically calibrating telescope and an indoor/outdoor projector hooked up to the telescope. With a smart telescope, I’d be skilled enough to offer a stargazing experience myself without needing an astronomer. And the projector will enable folks to see the dark sky who might not be able to look through a telescope due to various mobility challenges. We want it to be accessible to everyone.
What about funding?
When we realized the support available from the tourism industry, it felt like it was meant to be. We got a Future Fund grant from Visit Central Oregon and a grant from Cycle Oregon to fund the pavilion with restrooms. We secured a Travel Oregon Competitive Grant to fund the concrete work to subgrade the cabins and make the cabins ADA-accessible, and we plan to apply for another Travel Oregon Competitive Grant during the 2025 cycle. I feel so blessed by the level of support and resources out there to make these ideas come to life. It wouldn’t have been possible without the grants we’ve gotten from the tourism industry and others.
What are your long-term goals?
We’re a local ranching family—we live here and we’re not trying to change the culture. But we realize we need tourism to build the economy here and to create jobs. I’ve created a transient room tax (TRT) with the City of Antelope, so I’ll be remitting TRT money to the state and city. My goal for now is to create two full-time jobs—a lodging attendant/bike mechanic and a café operator—and, ultimately, to bring in more TRT to Antelope than the general population creates in property taxes so we can truly contribute to strengthening our rural economy.
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