NBA veteran George Hill bought 850 acres in the Texas Hill Country in 2017; within three years he turned the property into a private ranch with six zebras, kangaroos, wildebeests, oryx, moose and ostriches

During the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone had to take a break. From stealthy workaholics to adventurous vacationers, everyone was trapped in their homes. At that time, NBA legend George Hill decided to live at Scenic Hills Ranch. A sprawling 850-acre private property in the Texas Hill Country that is home to over 1,000 exotic animals.In August 2017, he bought a huge piece of land here in the Texas Hill Country, a 35-minute drive north of his family’s off-season home in San Antonio. Over time, the property was bulldozed, carved up and landscaped into a sprawling ranch. Soon after the announcement that the games would be suspended on March 11, 2020, Hill, his wife Samantha, and their 4-year-old son Zayden and 2-year-old daughter Zoe flew from Milwaukee to Texas. “I just think it’s great for my kids to see,” Hill told ESPN. “And for them to have something different. Everyone has a dog or a cat… I just choose different animals,” he said at the time.

Make a ranch

In August 2017, he purchased a huge piece of land here in the Texas Hill Country

Danes were the first animals Hill introduced to his property. Then he added sable, a 500-pound brown and white antelope native to Africa. Now he has dozens of different kinds of animals. Hill owns a saber oryx, a brownish-white creature that also belongs to the antelope family, with curved, pointed horns and a large belly. It has an Arabian oryx and a red lechwe. There are New Zealand red deer, kudu and ostrich.Hill said he purchased his animals from licensed specialty breeders based in Texas. According to Lonesome Bull Ranch, an exotic wildlife breeder in Corpus Christi, zebras range from $3,950 to $5,750. The most expensive animals on Hill’s property are female sable antelope and kudu, which cost between $20,000 and $25,000 each. It breeds only herbivores that can nibble on grass, roots and bushes.Animals have enough space to roam. Hill’s 850-acre ranch is huge, dwarfing the largest zoos in the country: the Texas Zoo in Victoria, 130 miles southwest of the Hill Country, has 106 acres, the Bronx Zoo has 265 acres, and the Minnesota Zoo has 485 acres. “Most (of the animals) were out there relaxing and breeding,” Hill said.In Texas, it is legal to own exotic animals such as zebras and kangaroos. Texas residents need permits for “dangerous wild animals” such as lions, tigers, cougars, leopards and cheetahs, among others, under state health and safety regulations.For Hill, such a place was a dream of the summer. While playing for the Indiana Pacers in the mid-2010s, he often talked about his dream with friend and teammate CJ Miles. “He was a country boy back in the Indiana days. I knew it was only a matter of time before he found a place to disappear to,” Miles said.

The beginning of a dream

There are more than 1000 different animals on the property including impala, zebra, elk, deer, antelope, sable, deer, kangaroo, oryx, ostrich, horse, red lechwe and more.

It all started with a horse named Ropey. When Hill was a teenager in Indianapolis, his father bought two pintos who were brothers. Hill named one of the horses “Ropey” after the rope that was slung around the corner of his saddle. “We drove around,” he said.Hill’s father, who loved horses, bought a modest plot of land near Wes Montgomery Park. “He never had (a horse) or really seen people from the hood that had horses,” Hill said of his father. “So he wanted to step out of the box.Hill went to the barn, threw a pad and saddle over Ropey’s back, and took him down the road to his neighborhood. In Indianapolis, a 20-minute drive away, the picturesque downtown gives way to cornfields and farmland. During the summer, Ropey would ride to Washington Park to play basketball. He stuffed plastic gallon jugs of water into side bags that swung over Ropey’s faucet. When Hill got to the park, he poured water into a bucket, tied Ropey’s leash to a tree, and played on the outdoor playground.While he is a skilled hunter, the animals on his ranch are not for hunting. “The only thing I hunt on my property is feral hogs and coyotes because they cause so much trouble,” Hill said in 2020. He said the hogs can dig under fences and eat corn and grass meant for his animals, while coyotes can come in and kill his deer.After the 2022-23 season with the Milwaukee Bucks and Indiana Pacers, Hill ended his 15-year career in the league. Now he lives peacefully on his ranch. There are more than 1000 different animals on the property including impala, zebra, elk, deer, antelope, sable, deer, kangaroo, oryx, ostrich, horse, red lechwe and more.“I don’t want to leave my kids in debt. I want to leave my kids something that starts a generational (wealth). Start them off better and on a better career path. So I’m going to own a ranch and put it in a trust for my kids. And it’s going to be a family ranch forever. That’s how it came about,” Hill2 said. he scouted about 15 different locations in the Hill Country before finding his 900-acre lot to buy. He was given a wish to buy land that was “plain, raw and bare” with no houses or other buildings.The property has a two-storey house and stables for horses. Hill also has a modern home that includes a deck overlooking a nearby pond. Just behind the house is an NBA basketball court that is completely fenced off to keep wildlife out.The Hill family has another home closer to San Antonio and stays at the ranch house on select weekends and during the summer.