Events and Curated Experiences
Film Location and Photo Shoots.
Production ready locations, perfect for your scene.
Wonderfully secluded, AMORanch-Arkansas is a 245-acre film ranch in the heart of the Ozark Mountains.
The newly constructed barn is a 1600 square foot soundstage. The interior is finished in an 1800's backwoods style.
We have multiple locations on site available for film and photo shoots. Schedule a tour of our property today to see how we can help make your film project a cinematic success.
The traditional Ozark homestead is anchored by a simple white cedar-sided 2-story farmhouse that is decorated with European and American antiques, chandeliers and art. The period-appropriate homestead buildings include a root cellar, a hand-hewn log smokehouse, a prolific spring pouring from the base of an oak tree, a large vegetable garden and two backwoods style cedar-sided chicken houses.
The property lends itself to period/historical pieces, especially Civil War films. There are several long cleared pastures that serve well for battle scenes, and equally as well for ranch/pasture and hunting shots complete with horses and cattle, hunt blinds and game (deer, etc.).
All four seasons are expressed at AMORanch-Arkansas, with winter snow and ice, frozen waterfalls, and icy fairy forests; spring brings the forests bursting with dogwood, catalpa and redbud and every sort of old fashioned bulb and flower in the domestic homestead gardens; summer brings the fireflies and the magnolia blossoms and the pond teeming with dragonflies and frogs; and the fall colors defy explanation. The lighting at the ranch is magnificent.
There is zero light pollution at AMORanch, and the night sky is spectacular. In the evening at the main pond, it is impossible to tell whether it is the thousands of fireflies or shooting stars darting overhead... typically it is both.
Parking: There is a large pasture/parking area at the property entrance for truck and trailer parking and equipment staging. Access to the property is from two locations. There is also a large equipment yard and a large flat paddock on either side of The Barn Soundstage, for parking and equipment.
Access: The nearest airport to AMORanch-Arkansas is XNA, one hour away. From XNA or any direction, the ranch is accessible via state highways to within 4 miles, and then by well-maintained gravel roads. Once on-site, the gravel driveway descends through the forest to the bottom of the hollow where the soundstage and homestead are located. An alternate access at the bottom of the valley is available via a nearby county road.
There is an expansive network of forest/logging roads throughout the entire 245 acre property that access the multiple pastures, forested areas, ponds, creeks and bluffs.
Accommodations: The large, flat, accessible pasture at the property entrance is used for RV and trailer parking (no hook-ups). The immediate area within 15 minutes from the property offers many short-term rental cabins, RV parks and lodges.
History: AMORanch - Arkansas, is located in a hollow just below the old county road (CR Madison 3625) that connects historical Kingston to the Boxley Valley, where there were two Civil War engagements. Local old-timers tell that multiple skirmishes occurred along the road that runs across the southern rim of the hollow, where the Confederate guerrillas ambushed the wagon trains that traversed between Kingston and the saltpeter mines in Boxley Valley after the Union seized the mines (that had provided the South with gunpowder) from the locals. The Trail of Tears also ran along the Kings River that flows through Kingston.
The local old-timers tell many stories of their time in this hollow, that was originally deeded from the US Government (under Teddy Roosevelt) in 1907 to William H. Bowen, as part of the Homestead Act of 1862 signed by Abraham Lincoln. The land has passed through the hands of many of the original settlers in this area, and the names on the property chain of title are a roll call of the old time families who still populate the area. The property, known locally as the Gunn Place, is considered the prize of Bearney Mountain, because of its prolific springs, and in particular the spring that flows from the base of an ancient white oak tree and shows evidence of being used by homesteaders in this hollow through multiple generations. Overall-clad old-timers have sat on the lawn telling of their early days making moonshine from that spring and of gathering the now near-extinct Chinquapin (native chestnuts) from the trees that still line its creek.
Multiple arrowheads and artifacts have been found on the property and there is a network of bluffs that encircle the hollow with overhangs and caves. A local chief of the Metis tribe visited the property and said that Native Americans certainly had a settlement near the primary spring.
Productions: AMORanch-Arkansas is currently contracted as a location for a Christmas film that is scheduled to begin shooting in late-winter 2024 (entirely in the soundstage). The property was also scouted by Red Clay Studios as the Arkansas location for Paramount's Bass Reeves.
