Since September of 1978, the film director George Lucas has been assembling, and building on, a massive estate north of San Francisco known as Skywalker Ranch. Lucas now owns more than 4,700 acres, after spending upwards of $100M, but has only built on 15 of those acres. The existing ranch includes a barn, vineyards, a private restaurant, a swimming pool, fitness center with racquetball courts, a man-made lake, an observatory, a 300-seat movie theater, and underground parking. This private resort has also become the de facto headquarters of his production company, LucasFilm, and that role is set to expand if Marin County approves his plans to construct a "263,701 square foot Mission-style three-story building that would cover an area the size of two football fields and hold 340 employees." Naturally, the neighbors—who, ironically, live in a development called Lucas Valley Estates, named not for George, but for an unrelated early landowner in the area—are objecting to this proposal, but they're standing on shaky ground considering the county approved a 1995 plan for the same site that, while never constructed, would have been even larger.
· Marin County Residents Not Feeling the Force [Curbed SF]
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