The Land Was Always the Plan

Long before we owned this ranch, Jen was dreaming it.

A working ranch with real horses. A ranch house you could actually cook in. Gardens that fed people. A place her family would gather for generations. Enough quiet to hear the woods.

The dream sat in the background for a long time. Jen and I had our three girls — the twins Savannah and Olivia, and Layla — and spent the next twenty years building kids, companies and careers. Somewhere in there we stopped talking about the ranch. Life makes you practical.

But it never actually went away.

Why Jacksonville

Jen's family moved to Jacksonville when her brother Tony Boselli was drafted by the Jaguars. Ever since, we've been coming down for Thanksgiving (deep-fried turkeys included), football games, and long stretches at the beach. We eventually bought a place on the sand in Jax Beach, and it slowly stopped feeling like we were visiting.

In 2021 we moved down half-time when our oldest daughter Savannah chose the University of Florida to study soil science. After graduation Savannah moved to Dallas to try out as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader — and then chose farming and a family instead, marrying Abraham Sargent. She's the one running the agricultural program at the ranch: the gardens, the food plots, the working land Jen dreamed about thirty years ago. Watching your daughter step into the exact life you'd once quietly imagined for your family is a particular kind of full circle.

Olivia, Savannah's twin, is a nurse — moving to Jacksonville later this year as an ICU nurse at one of the region's best hospitals. She's also the artist behind the River & Roots logo you see burned into wood and stamped on signs across the property. She drew it. Every time a guest asks about the mark, we get to point back to her.

Layla, our youngest, is an aerospace engineer. The horse program we're building at the ranch is a blatant attempt to lure her to Florida — she's been around horses since she could walk, and when she first rode one at three she was a natural. She is hoping the rocket company she interned for will do more launches at Cape Canaveral, and she can be reunited with her favorite horse, Mantequilla. Our on-site manager Megan runs the day-to-day and is the reason the program actually functions. Between Layla's eye for what a great horse operation should feel like and Megan's steadiness on the property, the ranch is finally getting the equine program Jen has been quietly sketching for years.

Jen is also building something of her own here. She opened Drench'd, her Mat Pilates studio in Jacksonville, in August. It's taken off — packed classes, a real community forming around it, and more locations already in the works. You can watch it happen at @getdrenchdjax.

What the ranch actually is

River & Roots Ranch is 246 acres along the St. Marys River in Bryceville, forty minutes from downtown Jacksonville and forty minutes from the coast. A handcrafted cypress log ranch house with a chef's kitchen, a soaring stone fireplace, four bedrooms, and roughly 3,900 square feet of covered wraparound porches that make you want to sit down and stay a while. Hardwood hammock and open pasture. Cypress stands. Food plots. A mile-plus of river frontage. Resident horses. Miles of soft trails. Some of the darkest night skies left in Northeast Florida.

It is a working ranch. It is also, on purpose, a place built to hold people.

What we've learned hosting groups

Two things we didn't fully understand until we started welcoming people onto the land.

The first: teams that come here get quiet fast. Not because we tell them to. Because the land does the work. The drive in is genuinely rural. The gate closes behind you. And by the time you're on the porch, the meeting you were about to have has already shifted register. It's easier to say the true thing here than in a conference room.

The second: the same features that make it right for a corporate offsite make it right for a faith leadership retreat, a family celebration, or a wedding. This fall alone the ranch hosts a corporate day retreat for one of the region's largest health systems and a three-night group rental for a church leadership team. Different missions. Same land. Same reason it works.

What we offer

Full-ranch buyout for groups from small teams through about forty. The ranch house sleeps fourteen; on-site camping and RV space extend capacity for larger gatherings. Meals from a farm-to-table catering partner, or use of the chef's kitchen for self-catered groups. Guided experiences on the property — nature walks, archery, fishing, horseback, sunset kayak, forest bathing, morning yoga. Space, quiet, and hospitality for the conversations that matter.

For weddings and celebrations, the same land holds an entirely different kind of memory. Sunset over the pasture. Dinner under string lights. A river in the background. A house that sleeps the wedding party.

What we hope you'll come here for

Our family is excited to have you. For a two-day team offsite that resets a leadership team. For a three-night faith retreat that anchors the year. For a wedding weekend that your family will still talk about in twenty years. For any gathering that deserves a place that makes the moment easier to hold.

To inquire about corporate retreats, group rentals, weddings, or special occasions, reach out at ben@riverandrootsranch.com or through riverandrootsranch.com.

The land was always the plan. We're grateful to share it.

— Ben, Jen, and the Wright family