The universe that Buzbee built
As a young cadet at Texas A&M, Tony Buzbee was taught to greet his superiors by stating his name and hometown. He would proudly answer, “I’m Tony Buzbee and I’m from the center of the universe.” And for that young man, fresh from Queen City High School, Cass County was his whole world.
“Before I went to college, I really hadn’t been anywhere,” he said. “The Marines took me all around the world, but home has always been here.”
And “here” is where he has been spending the majority of his time lately. His main residence on River Oaks Boulevard in Houston is in the process of being totally renovated – under the guidance of new fiancé Frances Moody.
That Houston residence is just one of several – he also has homes in Montana, Los Angeles and New York City – and is where his Buzbee Law Firm is located.
The man who was once called a “super lawyer” by the New York Times for bringing oil companies to their knees has spent his career defending the underdog. He has made a fortune suing corporations on behalf of clients that give him not one penny to do so.
In this year of the pandemic, he has still managed to attend over 200 depositions with the help of modern technology. A recent tour of his 7,000-acre ranch in the Antioch community close to Lake Wright Patman was scheduled between virtual office times.
What used to be a place to visit family on holidays and invite the boys for Fall hunting weekends has evolved into a sprawling ranch complete with spring-fed lakes, towering oak trees, cows, horses, goats, pigs, chickens, donkeys, exotic deer, camels, alpacas and even zebras. Several of the animals were bought at the Cass County livestock show in November.
“I think I spent about $50,000 there,” Tony said, laughing. “Frances wanted to save all of the animals.”
It’s important to note that Frances is a vegetarian and a big lover of all animals. She puts hats on donkeys and bows on pigs. She hugs all the cows and kisses all the horses. She exudes contagious joy and light. She is the yin to Tony’s yang, and he’s tickled pink over it.
“This is definitely Frances’ influence. It just continues to grow. I don’t know where the end point is – it’s almost obsessive-compulsive,” he said of the ranch. “We already had some cows here – the longhorns - and we had some horses; and we have a couple of alligators. Then we decided to rescue one horse, which turned into seven horses and eight donkeys. We get so much enjoyment from the donkeys – especially her (Frances), she’s the donkey-whisperer.”
“They are just so much fun,” she interjects, adding “they’re just like big dogs.”
In researching the donkeys, they learned of their protective nature and divvyed them up, placing some in each field. Then they decided to get some chickens so they could have fresh eggs.
“So then we went to the livestock show. When she found out that some of these animals were going to be eaten, I said well lets get a little pig. And one pig turned into a bunch of pigs and goats,” he recalled. “ I spent $10,000 on the grand champion goat, so I thought I could just take it home. They said ‘no, we’re going to keep it and show it in Houston.’ I thought once you bought it you got it.”
Even though Tony participated in FFA during high school it seems he forgot how the shows work. But Frances is the researcher of the two, and decided they need more than just the basic farm animals.
“So we had so much fun with the cows and the pigs and the goats, that I decided to buy the piece of property across the road and have a high fence put around it,” Tony explained. “I’ve been saying for many years I ought to section off a portion of this to maybe put some big deer in it. But I really don’t care about hunting anymore; There’s really no sport to it here. If you’re having trouble getting a deer in Cass County you really ought to assess your hunting skills, because they’re all over the place.”
Tony and Frances, along with family friend Jared Stringer, did some research and found several species that might thrive on the land. What they ended up with can be described as a safari of rare and endangered animals. So far the menagerie consists of zebras, oryx, gemsbok, the critically endangered addax (or white antelope), wildebeest, camels and alpacas.
The newest additions include the biggest Red Stag in the United States that Tony bought for $30,000 from a farm in Minnesota. Another delivery brought two camels and four alpacas.
“We’ve been putting different animals out there, making sure they can coexist peacefully and not require too much care. I want to make sure we’re doing everything right. I don’t want to lose one of them. Not only are they incredibly expensive, endangered and hard to find,” said Tony. “You can pay a hunting ranch to go kill one, or you can pay to bring it over here and let it live forever. They charge you the same either way.”
“I personally find it repulsive and it’s not fair,” said Frances. “If you hunt it should be a fair game, but with these exotics it’s not. I love cows. Cows are my favorite. We don’t breed or eat them. They are our pets.”
“You don’t need a license in Texas to buy or own exotic animals. If I put domestic breeds out there, the state would monitor me and require me to allow inspections; but since it’s just exotics, they have no authority whatsoever,” Tony said. “I don’t want to bring anything out here that’s high maintenance.”
Texas Parks and Wildlife Code Sec. 62.015, Hunting and Possession of Exotic Animals, states: (a) In this section, “exotic animal” means exotic livestock or exotic fowl as defined by Section 161.001 (Definitions)(a), Agriculture Code, aoudad sheep, or elk; (b) No person on a public road or on the right-of-way of a public road may hunt an exotic animal; (c) No person may hunt on the land of another for an exotic animal without the express consent of the owner of the land to hunt for exotic animals.
Jared did the leg work by travelling to other ranches, talking to state agents and visiting the A&M Vet school. He found that most of the ranches doing this are hunting ranches, but there will be no hunting on Buzbee Ranch.
“We’ve got high electrical fencing and security cameras. I see people all the time stopping to take pictures of them, and that’s fine,” Tony said. “But nobody’s hunting them on my ranch. Anybody shoots anything on my ranch they’re going to have a major problem.”
While Frances considers all the animals to be rescues, there are many true rescues on Buzbee land. Pippen the horse, for instance; Pippen had been left to graze alone with his bridle on too long. When he was found, the bridle had squeezed his face and left it misshapen. Even the barn cats are rescues; feral cats from the wild Houston alleys were brought to the ranch and a cat house was built inside the barn to acclimate them.
“We kept them in their barn home for two weeks and fed them there to keep them from running away,” explained Frances.
Future plans are being researched to bring children from Houston’s 3 rd Ward to the ranch to see the animals. When Tony mentions that it’s Frances’ project, she gives him props, saying “I wouldn’t be able to do that if it weren’t for Tony.”
When Tony ran for mayor of Houston last year, he met most of the Black preachers in the city and saw firsthand the plight of the needy in his own city. It gave him a renewed spirit to for community involvement.
Frances, who grew up in Galveston and attended Friendswood schools, has always been involved in charity work through her family’s foundation and organizations. Her grandfather founded Moody Gardens® in the mid-1980s inspired by a son who had been left disabled after a wreck caused by a drunk driver.
It started as a horse barn, a riding arena with a hippotherapy riding program for people with head injuries and an extraordinary vision to create an island tourist destination. Today Moody Gardens® is one of the premier educational/leisure facilities in the Southwest. It also provides horticultural therapy, education and employment for persons with a wide range of physical and emotional disabilities.
The two philanthropists met when a client of Tony’s sued the Moody’s over a business dispute. He won and soon was sought out by the Moody’s and hired to represent them. He also sat on the board of a Friendswood bank with her father and got to know her then.
Frances’ mother is from Norway and she usually goes to visit family there each year but couldn’t go this year due to COVID. “We come from very different backgrounds,” she stated, “but we share a lot of the same beliefs. We are all about living an authentic life.”
Aside from the animals, there are many amenities at the ranch including an outdoor ping-pong table, infinity pool and hot tub, outdoor kitchen and patio area, a fire tower, many ponds and lakes and plenty of motorized toys. But in the midst of all the opulence, stands a humble stone chapel, about a mile from the main home.
There is no electricity in the small, but beautiful building. The stain glass panels are on barndoor runners and sit in front of each window. They are over 100 years old and were carefully recovered from an old Catholic church. Tony ordered the 1873 Bible and 18 th century hand-carved bible box from a rare book collector.
In February Tony’s parents, Glenn and Patti Buzbee, will be renewing their vows here. Tony will be officiating the ceremony.
“Okay, so my parents asked me to officiate. Then a friend in Florida asked me to officiate his wedding, and told me how to get the certificate online. So I go to Florida in March. And one of Frances’s classmates asked if I would officiate her samesex wedding in Houston,” Tony said. “I’m just gonna be a traveling preacher.”
“A lot of exciting things are happening here and I’m so happy to be a part of it. I love Atlanta. I love it so much here,” said Frances. “Even before dating Tony I loved his story. He’s the American dream. It’s incredible. To come from nothing in a small town with no connections at all, and now owning all of this. He’s so smart and he has a very kind heart.”
“This is a work in progress. I’ll be here around more now, will just be back and forth to Houston. I even bought a smaller plane just to land at the Atlanta Airport so I wouldn’t have to land in Texarkana and drive.”
As far as the how much bigger the “center of the universe is going to be” he says he really isn’t sure.
“I would go to Brooks hospital for physicals in school and he would say ‘I don’t want to buy all the property, just the property that adjoins mine,’” he said.
It appears the center of the universe will just keep on growing.