John W. Carpenter, a Dallas businessman with an interest in agriculture, especially horse and cattle breeding, purchased a 200-acre ranch along Hackberry Creek in northwest Dallas County in 1928. With an eye toward the future, he expanded it to 1,500 acres by 1948, and in its early years the Carpenter family used the working ranch as a summer country retreat. His wife, Flossie Carpenter, nicknamed the property "El Ranchito de Las Colinas" (Little Ranch of the Hills). John Carpenter's oldest surviving son, Ben, and Ben's wife, Betty, lived at the ranch from 1948 until 1997, and Ben and his brother-in-law, Dan Williams, enlarged it to 6,000 acres by 1959. Ben Carpenter later envisioned a world-class master-planned community and business center called Las Colinas on the ranch land, unveiled the master plan in 1973, and began development soon afterward. The ranch house stood near today's intersection of Hidden Ridge Drive and Carpenter Ranch Road until 1999, when the Carpenter family sold the last portion of the ranch. Development of Las Colinas continued, reaching 50,000 residents and 28 million square feet of office space in 2020.