Metallica's James Hetfield and his wife have dedicated 1,000 acres of his rural Northern California property to the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, a non-profit dedicated to preservation and open-space initiatives, reports The Mercury News. The agreement, signed by the Marin County Board of Supervisors yesterday, February 27th, re-designates nearly 90 percent of the Hetfields' 1,150-acre property in scenic Lucas Valley as open space.
Hetfield had a somewhat rocky relationship with his Marin neighbors since purchasing the property in 1999. The singer-guitarist drew considerable ire after constructing a 300-foot-long fence around the tract — which bridges two existing open space preserves in 2008 — forcing county officials to cough up $650,000 for a new trail to bypass it. He filed pre-applications to build more homes on the property earlier in the decade, but nothing came of the deeds.
Now, don't go lacing up your hiking boots in the hopes of catching Papa Het in the wild just yet: the Hetfields moved to Vail, Colorado, in 2016, possibly in part because the Metallica frontman — an avid hunter — felt out of place in the Bay Area.
"I kind of got sick of the Bay Area, the attitudes of the people there, a little bit. They talk about how diverse they are, and things like that, and it's fine if you're diverse like them," Hetfield admitted in an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that year. "But showing up with a deer on the bumper doesn't fly in Marin County. My form of eating organic doesn't vibe with theirs."
Below, watch Metallica's rousing rendition of Judas Priest's "Rapid Fire" with special guest Rob Halford, live at the 2013 Golden Gods:
