Meet Todd Banks, EAA 1177930.
Located outside of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, near the Missouri border, exists the Banks Ranch; a private oasis and aviation dreamland built by Todd himself, with a little help from his friends.
You may have heard rumors about the Ozarks, or maybe you’ve binged a few episodes of the popular Netflix show, but experiencing it is a whole new world, and the rumors are true — well I can’t speak for Marty Byrde and the gang, but I can attest to the pure beauty and remote strips that all aviators dream about.
The making of Banks Ranch
Todd grew up in Wichita, Kansas, but on the weekends he would go spend quality time with his father on the Arkansas land he began purchasing in 1968.
“Dad would be on the bulldozer making trails because there was little down there but trees,” Todd said. “We had a little trailer house by the highway and a lot of adventure-filled summer weekends.”
About six years ago, Todd had the opportunity to purchase the property. He never imagined that it would be anything like it is today. He knew that he wanted to eventually get into more backcountry-oriented flying, but never dreamed of having a getaway with four grass runways.
“Initially, I wanted to do land clearing vis-a-vis a timber project,” Todd said. “There was some old growth red cedar in the hollow that I thought might make an economic timber project. We did a 15-acre test cut and it turns out, there weren’t any economics. We sold some of our best logs, but we still had a large inventory, saturating the market for Eastern red cedar in the area. So now we had 15 clear-cut acres, and no viable go forward project.”
Matthew Turnage, who had been running the project, came up with the idea of putting in a runway in the cleared hollow area.
“About that time, I would fly down in the Cub every once in a while, and land at a neighbor’s airstrip, and Matthew started getting really interested in aviation,” Todd said. “He says, ‘I think I can make this into a runway for you. You think you could land it here?’ And I’m like, ‘Ah, I don’t think there’s any way I could ever do that.’ But he graded it out, and sure enough, I was able to get the Cub in there, after several tries. So, one idea led to another and before we were done, we made four double runways.”
With a large inventory of lumber leftover, Todd said, “Why not build a hangar.”
“I wanted to try to build an old-style hangar that had a dome top to it, with the straight sides,” Todd said. “I settled on doing this Quonset hut structure, because I could get the shape that I wanted and it was easy to erect. I’d actually seen this project done at a winery up in the Kansas City area, where they had lined the inside of a Quonset hut building so it looked like a wine barrel on the inside. I saw that and I thought I could do something similar, but I’ll do it with red cedar.”
Now they just needed to work out the structural forces to be able to handle that much weight on the inside of the building and a way to fasten it to the metal.
“There’s not a whole lot on the inside of those Quonset hut, metal buildings – they’re hard to work with,” Todd said. “We solved that problem, we were able to line it with insulation and hang the cedar on the inside. We then did a freestanding hydraulic door for the end. So, it was kind of a homebuilt project.”
After four years of clearing trees, grading in runways, and building a hangar Todd’s dreamland came to life. Todd said none of this would have been possible without the operating skill and creative vision that Matthew provided.
“Arkansas has pretty rough soil, it’s a lot of rocks and hills, and to be able to get it graded out that smooth was quite the task,” Todd said. “I don’t want to take credit, I had some ideas and Matthew executed it.”
The hangar Todd built is no ordinary hangar, it’s also designed to be a living space. Upon entering, you will not only find yourself immersed in a heavenly aroma of cedar, but walk a little further and you’ll find yourself playing I Spy as you start to notice all the intricate details throughout the entire hangar and living corridors.
“Building out the living quarters has been kind of my side project for the last year or so,” Todd said. “A lot of the cedars we milled into one by fours, and that’s what we used in the ceilings. Then the hickory, oak, and cherry were the timbers and boards throughout the finished area of the hangar and vertical end walls of the hangar. Much of the finished area inside the living quarters is cherry.”
To add living quarters, Todd tacked on an additional 800 square feet to the back of the hangar.
“Then I thought about, all right, what am I going to do for windows?” Todd said. “So, they are actually storefront windows and doors, like you would typically see on a commercial store. Then we did a big glass garage door on the back, so that you could walk in the front of the hangar and then basically look out through glass on the back and see the view of Beaver Lake.”
Banks Ranch is truly a work of art, and the details are what really makes this place stand out – runway lights were used for lighting the inside the living corridors and the outdoor patio, deer antlers were used a towel hooks in the bathroom, whiskey barrels were cut and made into seating, and old tree stumps and drain piping were used to create a table.
Todd said by sharing his story and creation, he hopes to inspire others to create their own dreams as well.
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