On a drive through Promised Land Ranch, Kelly and Ali Meeks point out a landscape that requires a little imagination. Brush and young trees fill places they envision as pasture. Rocks pulled from a waterline trench lie beside the road. Gaps in the trees offer glimpses toward the Tennessee River Gorge.
“Use your imagination,” Ali says, “because right now, it’s nothing but brush.”
About 35 minutes from Chattanooga, on the northeast end of Sand Mountain in Tennessee, the ranch occupies land local people know as the Big Woods. Much of it still answers to that name: dense stands of slender trees, wooded hollows and rough roads winding through 2,100 contiguous acres.
The Meeks want to establish a working ranch here while conserving much of the property and opening it to people who could benefit from time outdoors. Their vision includes veterans, first responders and young people, with room for rest, mentoring and practical work.
It’s a project they expect to outlast them.
“I’m not too old to start,” Kelly, who’s in his sixties, says. “I might finish it, but someone else will come along and carry it forward.”
A place for healing
The idea began on another piece of land with a friend and a cup of coffee.
Kelly had bought Coal City Hollow, a hunting property about two miles away, as a place to spend time with his sons. He also shared the land with a high school friend who had served multiple deployments in the Middle East and was struggling with PTSD. The two often hunted and worked on the property together.
They built small shooting houses with room for two, and Kelly’s friend would sometimes call to ask where he planned to hunt and whether he could join him. But more often than not, hunting took a back seat to conversation.
“We’d set our guns aside and sit there drinking coffee and talking,” Kelly says. “Sometimes, we never actually hunted.”
He remembers the cold, their breath visible in the air, and the pleasure of being together. His friend told him those visits helped.
“A lot of healing took place on that property, and that’s what inspired the idea for Promised Land Ranch,” Kelly says. “I told Ali, ‘We need to do this for other people. I feel like God is calling us to do this.’”
His friend later died in a motorcycle accident, but the change Kelly had witnessed remained with him.
“Seeing how much it changed his life really moved me,” he says. “I realized we could do the same for others, over and over again.”
Two paths converge
The couple brought different backgrounds to that shared purpose. Ali attended college in Texas, earning degrees in biology and fisheries biology. Summer work at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico introduced her to ranch life.
She went on to spend about 12 years working on shoreline and aquatic restoration projects in the Seattle area. Kelly, a Soddy Daisy native and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga engineering graduate, built an environmental consulting business in Decatur, Alabama.
Their careers brought them together during the response to the 2010 BP oil spill.
“We wound up sitting next to each other while working on the BP oil spill response with the Coast Guard,” Ali says. “That’s how we met.”
They married in October 2011 and settled in Decatur. Ali later started a swimming and triathlon coaching business. Both had experience building businesses from small beginnings, experience they would draw on at the ranch.
Horses became part of their marriage almost immediately. They honeymooned at a dude ranch out West, expecting to hike, fish and perhaps try a ride. Instead, they rode almost every chance they had.
“I was struck by the horses’ athleticism and their ability to take you places you couldn’t reach any other way,” Kelly says. “It was a feeling of pure freedom.”
They returned for their fifth anniversary.
“We came home with horse fever that time,” he says, “and we never got over it.”
They began buying horses, and a postponed consulting project gave Kelly a year to ride daily with cutting-horse trainer Mike Legg.
“I started with his slowest, most patient horse,” Kelly says. “By the end of the year, I’d ridden every horse he had. I ate, slept and breathed horses that entire year.”
Finding the promised land
The horses eventually became part of the ranch vision, but finding the land took a different course. Coal City Hollow was large, yet other owners held parcels within it, complicating Kelly’s plans. An attempt to buy an adjoining property with a house failed.
“When things like that happen, you start asking yourself, ‘Lord, what’s going on? I thought this was what you wanted us to do,’” he says.
Kelly’s search eventually led him to a 2,100-acre tract owned by a land trust that had initially envisioned turning it into a park. But the organization found the remote property difficult to manage, and when a development deal fell through, Kelly saw an opportunity. He offered to buy the land for half the price of the previous contract.
He also explained what he hoped to do with it.
“I want to preserve this land for future generations,” Kelly recalls telling the land trust’s president. “I want to give young people, veterans and first responders opportunities to connect with nature and learn from it.”
She asked him to put the vision in writing for the board, which accepted his offer. But Kelly still needed to finance the purchase. Two properties he already owned were for sale, including one that had been on the market for 10 years. Both sold in time.
“The way it all came together was amazing,” Ali says. “It’s an important part of our story because we never could have made it happen on our own.”
A vision takes shape
They established Promised Land Ranch as a nonprofit, with Ali serving as executive director and Kelly as operations director. Kelly says the large tract remains personally owned, with plans to lease it to the organization. He donated an adjoining subdivision lot to the nonprofit, which built the house where the couple lives and hosts gatherings.
The home’s open interior gives them somewhere to begin while larger facilities remain in the planning stage. Retreats have brought 30 to 40 people into the space.
“We’d love to build retreat cabins for young people, ministry leaders and first responders,” Ali says. “We also envision a barn and arena, along with a community center where we could host events and prepare meals in a commercial kitchen.”
Those plans will take time and money. Meanwhile, they can invite people to experience the land and make use of what’s already there.
For young people, that might mean learning to use tools, maintain equipment or care for animals. Building the ranch itself offers opportunities to learn alongside someone doing the work.
“I want them to discover skills they never knew they had or thought they could master,” Kelly says.
Ali sees hospitality as her contribution.
“I bring warmth, enthusiasm and energy, along with that ‘y’all come on in’ spirit,” she says. “Kelly handles the hands-on work, while I take care of the administration and make sure everyone feels welcome.”
The couple is talking with organizations that serve veterans and first responders to learn how the ranch might help. Sometimes, the need could be as simple as a private place to walk with a supervisor or wellness coordinator after a difficult day.
“Sometimes, all you need is a walk in the woods,” Ali says.
Horses could eventually play a role, too. Although the ranch doesn’t offer trail rides or equine therapy, the couple hopes to teach visitors how to care for and interact with horses. A future barn and arena could also accommodate a qualified equine therapy provider.
Ali wants visitors to have room to be themselves, without feeling pressured to disclose their troubles.
“People aren’t projects,” she says. “We simply want to love them and walk alongside them.”
Restoring the land
Out on the land, the scale of the undertaking comes into view. Kelly points toward openings in the canopy where pasture is planned. The couple hopes to establish 200 acres of pasture, using the gentler slopes and leaving wooded hollows intact.
A fencing contractor once asked whether they had anything against straight lines.
“No,” Kelly told him, “but the terrain does.”
Their environmental backgrounds inform those choices. They’re working with USDA and extension staff on fencing, water and land management, trying to limit erosion and protect creeks within the Tennessee River watershed. Their plans include rotational grazing and habitat restoration on property that was once strip-mined.
“Part of our vision is to restore not only people, but the land itself,” Ali says.
Evidence of the work lines the road: displaced rocks, equipment and a trench where Kelly has installed nearly a mile of waterline, much of it during August’s sweltering heat. Even the location of future buildings remains uncertain as the couple works to secure reliable water sources.
“With 2,100 acres, there’s a lot to consider,” Kelly says. “Once you build something, it becomes a permanent part of the landscape.”
As the road continues through the woods, he notices leaves beginning to turn.
“It’s gorgeous,” he says. “Every time I drive to work, I think, ‘Goodness gracious, I love working here.’”
For all the activity, the Meeks understand they’re laying groundwork. Ali recalls a friend’s observation that ranches are built in generations.
“It takes time,” she says. “You have to spend time on the land, work with it, understand its needs and figure out what works best.”
Kelly’s two adult sons appreciate the vision, but he says they don’t feel called to carry it forward. The next generation of the ranch might therefore be people the founders have yet to meet.
Kelly doesn’t plan to retire. He wants to stay healthy, keep working and begin what someone else can continue.
“Our motto has become, ‘Do all we can with what we have,’” Kelly says. “As God provides more, we’ll do more.”