For most people, Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch is a fun roadside attraction, a folk art pit stop within a longer Route 66 road trip. The scene is simple enough to grasp from the roadway: A dense forest of bottle ‘trees’ — metal posts with ‘branches’ of old glass bottles — fills the front yard area of a small home in the middle of the high desert northeast of Victorville, along a sun-baked stretch of asphalt long bypassed by Interstate 15.
The ranch has been a popular destination for more than 20 years, attracting visitors from around the world and receiving countless write-ups from travel blogs. Over a thousand blue, green and amber bottles fill the 2-acre property, which also serves as an ad-hoc museum to the high desert and Route 66. The trees are topped with relics found around the desert, from an old city limits sign for Barstow to railroad signs and abandoned red gas pumps. Visitors stream in and out of the free site all day, snapping photos of the bottles and stretching their legs before continuing their journey on the Mother Road.
But for Elliott Long, visiting the ranch is “a miserable experience of reliving everything you’ve ever lost.”
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Rows and rows of bottle trees at Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch on Feb. 15, 2026.
Erin Rode/SFGATE
Street signs from Long Beach, Calif., made their way to Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch off Route 66 in the California desert, seen here on Feb. 15, 2026.
Erin Rode/SFGATE
Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch, seen here on Feb. 15, 2026, was created over many years by Elmer Long with objects found in the surrounding desert.
Erin Rode/SFGATE
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Long became the caretaker of the ranch in 2019, after his father, Elmer Long, died. Elmer spent years building and maintaining the bottle tree ranch in the front yard of the family home (where Elliott and his two brothers grew up), eventually retiring to make it a full-time endeavor.
Elliott, 48, always knew he’d be the one to inherit the task of maintaining the small forest of bottle trees. His two brothers were never as into the “complete total destruction of themselves” that is required when working long days in the desert heat, Elliott said, whereas he could spend hours traversing the land in a Jeep with his dad, having so much fun he’d forget to even drink water.
Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch on Feb. 15, 2026.
Erin Rode/SFGATE
A car door found somewhere in the desert is displayed at Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch in Oro Grande, Calif., on Feb. 15, 2026.
Erin Rode/SFGATE
Still, Elmer’s death in 2019 was sudden and sooner than anticipated. Nearly overnight, Elliott found himself in charge of a quirky roadside attraction 120 miles away from his home in Orange County, and with a baby at home.
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It’s been a struggle to manage the ranch since then.
“Since his passing, We’ve done what we can to care for the Ranch. Some progress has been made—we’ve made small improvements, cleaned up areas in need, and started sharing his story with new audiences online. But I won’t sugarcoat it: the Ranch is suffering. Time, weather, and neglect and the basic cost of running a property for free are catching up with it faster than we can keep up,” Elliott wrote in a recent post on the ranch’s website.
Bottle Tree Ranch is just one of several examples of folk or “outsider” art that have become tourist destinations. In Los Angeles, Simon Rodia spent years constructing the Watts Towers from found objects. Near the Salton Sea, Leonard Knight spent decades using clay and paint to create the colorful Salvation Mountain in the middle of the desert.
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Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch, seen here on Feb. 15, 2026, was created over many years by Elmer Long with objects found in the surrounding desert.
Erin Rode/SFGATE
Objects displayed at Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch were found in the surrounding desert as far back as the 1950s.
Erin Rode/SFGATE
But these works also have something else in common: They each were created by a singular, obsessive visionary. And the problem with such a giant outdoor piece of art is that when the visionary dies, the path forward for the art is often unclear.
Watts Towers was nearly demolished in the 1950s before becoming a state park. Nonprofit Salvation Mountain, Inc., formed to preserve Salvation Mountain after Knight’s death, with volunteers now maintaining the art and fundraising to purchase the land it sits on.
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For three years after Elmer’s death, Elliott Long “didn’t set foot in the place.” A friend moved into the house to help out and remains there now. “I’ve had plenty of time to heal, and it still hurts every second of every day when I’m up there,” said Elliott, who now visits about once a week.
Elmer’s father — Elliott’s grandfather — first started collecting old glass bottles and other found items in the desert in the 1950s. The pair would camp out in the desert and use a metal detector to hunt for treasure. Elmer passed this tradition on to his children, but by then the family had plenty of glass bottles: The search was on for “junk.” When they couldn’t find good junk in the desert, they’d stop by the landfill and dig around in other people’s trash.
Favorite found items are attached to the towering tops of the bottle trees, where it would be harder for a visitor to swipe them as a souvenir. Historic road signs, streetlights and a partial surfboard are just some of the tree toppers.
Old road signs and tires found in the desert are displayed at Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch on Feb. 15, 2026.
Erin Rode/SFGATE
A dense forest of bottle trees at Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch, a roadside attraction created by Elmer Long in Oro Grande, Calif.
Erin Rode/SFGATE
The bottle trees and junk found in the desert aren’t the only things tying together three generations of Long men: Elliott believes a sense of grief has long been present at the ranch, even before his father’s death. Elmer spent several of the same years he was constructing the ranch taking care of his own father, who had Alzheimer’s.
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“He told people that the Bottle Tree Ranch was something he did just for the fun of it. But now that I’m here doing the work he was doing, it was 100% therapy,” Elliott said. “When he was putting up those bottle trees, I guarantee you, all he was thinking about was those desert trips and his dad. And when I put those trees up, or I’m rooting in the dirt looking for an antique to put on a tree, it’s just natural: Every thought I have is about my dad.”
The ranch needs constant maintenance to survive the harsh desert environment. Wind storms barrel through and knock down bottle trees; regular wear and tear builds up quickly. On any given week, Elliott estimates there’s “150 hours” of backlogged work to do.
Elliott “never, ever” wants to charge for entry, but is thinking about offering merchandise or art for sale to help make the property more self-sustaining, which in turn might make it easier to hand off to someone else who could keep it running.
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“I’ve never wanted to be the bottle tree man; that’s my dad,” Elliott said. “I just want to be a tourist and go visit once in a while and marvel at it like the rest of the world.”