Back in the 40's and 50's,

Mexico's Baja peninsula was a rugged,remote area with few roads, and evenfewer tourists. Cabo San Lucas was asleepy fishing village, and mostAmericans had never even heardof the East Cape. Wealthy sportsmenand adventurers would fly down intheir private aircraft, land on roughdirt airstrips carved out of the desert,and return with wild stories of the bigfish they caught here.

Gil Powell was one of these hearty souls who fell in love with the area.He was a wildlife cinematographer by profession and related to actorWilliam Powell. Around 1950 he found and purchased a 300 acre pieceof paradise located on the beach just south of Buena Vista. Gil wascontinually going off to Africa to shoot movies - hence the locals gavehim the nickname "El Leonero", which roughly translates to "The OneWho Knows Lions". During this time his ranch became known as "RanchoEl Leonero", and over the years has been shortened to "Rancho Leonero".

During those wild west days before paved roads and civilization came toBaja, Hollywood's "bad boys" would fly down in their private planes for some R&R where they could escape from the notoriety of their publiclives and just hang out. The likes of John Wayne, Bing Crosby, and ErrolFlynn were all frequent visitors here.

After Gil's death in 1974, Rancho Leonero languished for a number ofyears until John Ireland stumbled upon it in 1979. Instantly falling inlove with the area, John spent the next two years trying to acquire theproperty, and finally succeeded in 1981. In 1984 he started constructionof the original five rooms of what was to become "The Inn at RanchoLeonero". The original ranch house became the bar and office for thecurrent resort. In 1986 the Inn opened to it's first guests. From thisinauspicious birth (in 1986 we had 1 cruiser with an oar-poweredshore boat), the resort has grown to become arguably the best facility onthe East Cape. In 1989 we added a fleet of fast bullet cruisers, in 1990the second wing of 6 additional rooms were completed, in 1991 the pooland first of our super pangas were added, in 1992 the first 6 of ourfabulous bungalows were finished, and in 2000 our new 2-story complexwas added.