SKYWALKER RANCH (California): Nestled in hills dotted with cows and olive trees north of San Francisco is a serene rebel base built by Star Wars creator George Lucas as a refuge from the Hollywood movie empire.

Lucas bought a coastal ranch on aptly named Lucas Valley Road in Marin County, California, and gave it his “Skywalker” brand in 1981 after his independently-produced “Star Wars” films became culture-altering phenomenon.

“The idea behind Skywalker Ranch was to create a film-makers’ utopia,” Lucasfilm spokeswoman Tracy Cannobbio said while providing news reporters a rare glimpse of the sanctuary.

“He doesn’t like to work in Hollywood and he never really has. This place is not Hollywood at all. It is very elegant, beautiful, and relaxed.” The entrance on a serpentine two-lane road is a remote-controlled, unadorned wooden gate. One drives a while along the access road before encountering a solitary a guard booth.

The ranch’s 14-member fire department tends to security needs that seldom amount to more than occasionally informing uninvited film fans that there are no public tours of the property.

Even a request to visit Skywalker Ranch by Ronald Reagan while he was US president was refused, perhaps in part due to his naming a planned space-based weapons system the “Star Wars” initiative.

There is a distinct absence of things Star Wars on the expansive grounds.

Workers tend a vineyard in front of a two-story brick sound editing building. Inside, hallways are lined with Italian movie posters and bright with sunlight shining on lush indoor foliage.

An acoustically engineered theatre capable of seating 4,000 people doubles as a place where film makers edit sound tracks while seeing how films look on an actual theatre screen. Flanking the screen are statues of a hooded man and a helmeted one that decorated Emperor Palpatine’s office.

Across from Skywalker Sound studio is Lake Ewok. Set among hills in the distance is a stately white Victorian house that serves as Lucas’s office.

“I think of it as a combination of Southern Plantation, Victorian and artsy craftsman,” said Janice Clement, who oversees a “VIP” dining room in a corner of the first floor.

A covered porch rings the house, which features dark wainscoting, a broad redwood staircase, stained glass windows, antiques, a solarium, and a private film theatre.

A library with wall shelves climbing two stories to a stain-glass dome holds some 15,000 reference works.

“If a film-maker wants to know how men dressed in the 1950s or what a city in China looked like centuries ago, or if people creating science fiction want inspiration, we find it,” a researcher said.

“We have a lot of obscure stuff here.” Tucked among trees behind

the house are guest apartments themed in tribute to people that inspired Lucas.

An apartment honouring film maker Akira Kurosawa is decorated with Japanese antiques. One dedicated to director John Ford is done in leather.

Elsewhere on the grounds are stables with horses, burrows, goats, and a pair of chinchilla.

Lucas levelled all the original buildings and built anew after buying the property. The stables were made to hold animals Lucas received as gifts.

“When you are at that level you get a different kind of gift than normal people get,” Cannobbio quipped while striding past stalls. “You get a horse.” Among the gifts is a herd of 40 long-horn cattle.

Star Wars fans can sate appetites for movie memorabilia at the Letterman Digital Arts Center that Lucas opened in 2005 at the former Presidio Army base in San Francisco.

About 1,700 Lucas employees work at the arts centre while 200 are at Skywalker Ranch and another 200 at Big Rock Ranch, which Lucas opened on Lucas Valley Road a few years ago.

“At the end of the day, Star Wars became such a huge success he just became known for that,” Cannobbio said of Lucas.

“But he has some other stories to tell that aren’t anything like Star Wars. Hopefully, now we will be able to tell them.”—AFP