AGOURA HILLS : ‘Quinn’ to Stay at Paramount Ranch Site

Buoyed by the success of its popular TV show “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” filmed at the Paramount Ranch in a rural area south of Agoura Hills, CBS Entertainment Productions has signed a five-year agreement with the National Park Service to continue filming at the ranch.

CBS officials, representatives of the Park Service and the show’s star, Jane Seymour, celebrated the agreement with a reception Friday at the historic movie-making site in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, a unit of the Park Service.

The ranch, according to the Park Service, has been used for location filming since 1927, when Paramount Studios purchased its 2,700 acres. The Park Service acquired the land in 1980.

Paramount Ranch is also the site for numerous non-film events, including the Calabasas Days Pumpkin Festival, which takes place in late October.

“It’s a wonderful place to be able to work, in the unspoiled wilderness of the Santa Monica Mountains,” said Seymour, who plays Dr. Michaela Quinn on the show. “And it’s very convenient, it’s within minutes of the city.”

CBS renovated an old meeting hall and mill at the site, according to Tim Johnson, the show’s producer. The production unit now uses the meeting hall as an office and the mill has been made into a shop for set construction.

CBS spent about $650,000 on the renovations and the building of a school house and church in an old Western town at the site, he said.

The show’s producers had originally considered filming in Colorado but changed their minds after they saw Paramount Ranch, said Andrew Hill, president of CBS Entertainment Productions. They were attracted by area’s wide-open spaces and its close proximity to Los Angeles.

“It’s obviously a lot easier to stay in town, for all the actors, because they don’t have to uproot their families,” Hill said. “And this show looks as good as any show on TV, and it’s shot right here in Southern California.”

The site is open seven days a week to the public from dawn to dusk. As part of the agreement, the studio allows the public onto the ranch during filming, but visitors can be sequestered from certain areas so that filming can proceed without interference.

One benefit to the Park Service is that the renovations make the ranch more attractive to visitors, said David E. Gackenbach, superintendent of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

The area near the ranch benefits, too, according to Patti Archuletta, director of the California Film Commission. Officials at the state agency said that the “Dr. Quinn” film crew spends about $460,000 a year locally on lumber, gasoline, food and other items.