“We are losing our culture,” said Devere Dressler, 55, a fifth-generation rancher whose family has sold off all but 150 acres here in the Carson Valley in northern Nevada, home to some of the state’s oldest ranches and some of the newest mansions.

Once, the Dresslers owned 20,000 acres, but economic realities clashed with romantic ideals, and family members have sold most of the land, including large chunks for a housing development called, with a bit of paradox, Gardnerville Ranchos.