An iron gate secured with chains and padlocks blocks the entrance to Fortitude Ranch in central Wisconsin, where I’m visiting after agreeing not to reveal its exact location. Now preparing to sell franchises, Fortitude Ranch is a members-only compound built to survive the end of the world—and a tour shows that’s an epic task.
Eric Parker, ranch manager, bikes up the half-mile gravel driveway to let me in. A former Navy man, he displays a no-nonsense attitude and the resourcefulness needed to build a community from scratch whose members could ride out a disaster of any kind for as long as a couple of years.
“We acquired it last year, it was an RV park,” Parker says about the 18-acre property on a sparkling lake where other parcels go for $750,000 to $1.5 million, although they got a deal for this piece. “I’ve been fixing and repairing and bringing it up to snuff,” by himself until recently, when he got a few staff reinforcements.
So far this Fortitude Ranch looks like what it is: a rundown lake property with a few leftover RVs; a main building that was once a bar and grill, now being demolished; three cabins waiting for renovation; plus a greenhouse “going gangbusters” and a garden and a chicken coop.
There’s a twin septic system with one mound, water and electricity, one solar panel with another to be built. “In nice times, members can come up and vacation,” he said, and he hopes to sign up to 150 members; so far there are just a handful.
Parker points out a giant culvert that will be buried under a proposed building, to use as a shelter and root cellar. It will sit beneath a planned two-story, 60-by-140-square-foot building with an atrium on the south/southwest side. “I would like to raise rabbits for heat. They’re hot little buggers,” Parker said.
Plus, rabbits procreate like, well, rabbits, so they’d be a good food source in a disaster. By contract, Fortitude Ranch members must be supplied with 2,000 calories per day, much of which they’ll need to hunt or grow themselves.
COO Steve Rene, left, and Eric Parker, ranch manager, at Fortitude Ranch in central Wisconsin, with the survivalist compound’s chickens.
Self-reliance is ‘backbone’ of business
“The key for long-term survivability is to create your own ecosystem,” Parker said, which is why all Fortitude Ranch managers must have a military or law enforcement background; he also has construction experience, a plus. “There are too few people that know how to be self-sufficient.”
Adds Steve Rene, COO of Fortitude Ranch who in mid-July was part way through a tour of all five of their properties, “Self-reliance is the backbone behind the business. In the past, media has portrayed us as gun nuts or doomsday preppers. I did 18 years of humanitarian aid in Belarus. For me, that was the next step,” to get involved in Fortitude Ranch. “It’s an offshoot of that, more than being one guy with a gun alone in the woods.”
In a disaster, “you can’t think others are going to do it. It doesn’t work unless everybody pitches in,” Rene said. “For me it’s an extension of humanitarian aid.”
Rene oversees the Fortitude Ranch in West Virginia, which has been operational for four years and is profitable, he said. They’re building a concrete shelter underground with 10 rooms that would help members survive a nuclear blast—as long as it’s not right on top of them.
“Ground zero is ground zero and there’s nothing you can do about that, but anything else” they could withstand. “We do have Geiger counters” in the ranch, along with a gazebo that could double as a guard tower and stockpiles of weapons and food.
Rene said he and Drew Miller, CEO and founder of Fortitude Ranch, often make media appearances. “I’ve been on Fox a few times. We take the hit. Somebody has to be out there and explain we’re rational, normal folks.”
Once COVID-19 hit, “that woke people up. Then the civil unrest, that’s where our business boomed,” Rene said. Added Parker, “Yeah, we’re not such nut cases anymore.”
That also led to the idea to franchise the concept; Miller said the franchise disclosure document is nearly ready to publish. Rene said one obstacle will be financing for potential franchisees. “You can’t go to a bank because of the mindset: ‘Why would I want to back that? The world’s going to end.’ But survival is plan B. We hope the disaster never happens.”
He said the West Virginia property was full over the 4th of July, with many members coming down from Washington, D.C., to escape the concrete jungle on vacation. The average cost for members is $1,000 per person per year, with five-figure upfront fees used to build out the facilities.
“Our goal is that no one’s more than a gas tank away” from a Fortitude Ranch, but that will be a long time coming. Five Fortitude Ranches exist today, with a sixth in the land-purchase phase, in Tennessee. The other existing ranches are in Nevada, Texas and Colorado.
‘This isn’t your average job’
The trickiest part of the Fortitude Ranch model is getting the right members, who they believe could get along with each other in a disaster despite basic human nature and our increasingly polarized times. “We never vet for that,” Rene said, referring to political beliefs, but “we don’t allow aggressive militia. Three Percenters or Oath Keepers, nope,” he said, referring to two militia groups. The same goes for doomsday-predictors.
Fortitude Ranch’s Steve Rene, left, and Eric Parker, with an old tepee on the property, a former RV park.
“A woman called last year begging for a membership. Her guru told her it was a nuclear strike on August 8,” and the Fortitude Ranch salesperson didn’t know how to respond. Rene told him, “You say, it’s full.”
Parker said managing the members during a disaster will take great skill, not unlike getting along with people on a Navy ship. “If you step out of line, especially if you pull a firearm on someone, you’re gone,” he said. “There comes a point at which, that’s it, you’re done. We’ve been around the block a few times.” Adds Rene, “There’s kind of a learning curve. This isn’t your average job.”
True, but Rene and Parker joke around just like any co-workers as they pose for photos on the property—at the rotting wooden tepee, built by the former RV Park owners for kids to play in, in front of the chicken coop, on the dock where members can use three boats they own.
Rene smooths his shirt, branded with a Fortitude Ranch patch and a bit wrinkled because it was in his suitcase on his several-day tour. “Yeah, I didn’t have my survival iron,” he says with a laugh.
As for Parker, he enjoys the solitude of his job. “I was stationed in Alaska” for a time. “I wanted to move back but my ex wouldn’t let me.” At Fortitude Ranch, in that undisclosed Wisconsin location, “I don’t mind it. I have a dog, and my dog loves me unconditionally.”