Ted Turner, the media mogul who created CNN and other lodestars of cable TV, died at his ranch in Jefferson County, Florida – his retreat from Atlanta and the media spotlight the opinionated and visionary philanthropist attracted. He died May 6 at the age of 87.
Turner had purchased Avalon, a 8,000-acre former cotton plantation near Capps, about 25 miles from the state capital, in 1985. He and Jane Fonda married there on Christmas 1991 and the couple became a somewhat familiar presence in Tallahassee.
Turner also delivered a 2006 lecture at Florida A&M University, in which he argued that climate change and resource depletion were existential issues. It was a theme that resonated in his management of Avalon. Indeed, he left behind a local legacy that blends celebrity politics with environmental stewardship.
The couple’s visits were typically low-key, but their appearances in Tallahassee that included private meetings and out-on-the-town sightings became part of local lore.
They would mingle with hunters purchasing equipment at local shops or wait in line (briefly) with other diners on a busy Saturday night.
Sometimes, they could be seen enjoying a burger at the Ted’s Montana Grill on Capital Circle Northeast, the restaurant chain Turner founded to promote sustainable ranching and popularize bison meat.
Turner, Fonda became local, national ‘power couple’
Turner and Fonda were the ultimate power couple of the 1990s, and their time at Avalon drew national attention to north Florida.
Turner purchased the property to create a working landscape tied to wildlife management and habitat restoration. At the time he said the idea was “a bit of a stretch for me.”
Nonetheless, Turner added more than 500 acres to the property. He managed it with a commitment to environmental preservation. He believed large contiguous tracts gave land a chance to function as a system rather than exist as a collection of fragments. He followed prescribed burnings, native grass restoration and longleaf pine management of his land.
Also, nearly three dozen endangered red cockaded woodpeckers were released on the property in the late 1990s.
And in 2014 nine rehabilitated gopher tortoises were relocated within the property’s longleaf pine ecosystem.
Architectural Digest highlighted Turner’s ‘sprawling’ house
In 2004, Architectural Digest published a feature on Turner’s home at Avalon, built in 1938 and described as a “sprawling … 15,000-square-foot Colonial Revival plantation house.”
“With its white multicolumned façade and curving twin wings, (it) betokens all manner of graces as well as all graces of manor,” the magazine reported.
“Behind the house are three tiers of formal gardens and a 300-acre natural lake (there’s another, man-made lake a mile and a half away, which he keeps stocked with bass and bream),” it went on.
“Tellingly, there is no pool in sight. ‘I’m not into pools,’ (Turner) says.”
As for the estate itself, it’s “situated in the Red Hills region of north Florida, (and) is not only a naturalist’s paradise but a historic property, established as the Welaunee cotton plantation by a member of the distinguished Gamble family of Virginia in 1826.”
“My first thought was to call it Camelot,” Turner says in the article, “but on second thought, that was a little too corny, so I gave it another Arthurian name – Avalon. My Avalon is also a mystical place.”
James Call is a member of the USA TODAY Network’s Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com and is on X as @CallTallahassee.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Ted Turner, CNN founder, died at his ranch near Tallahassee
Reporting by James Call, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
