‘The X-Files’ and ‘Millennium’ creator Chris Carter recently sold this ranch in Santa Ynez, California, a property that had provided a getaway for the creative for nearly two decades. Carter had owned the estate for about twenty years when it went to a new buyer in August of this year for $6.5 million; he purchased it as his opus of a television series was winding down.

The estate’s grounds occupy some 130 acres in the San Rafael Wilderness. Carter renovated the home in 2002, giving it the same stamp left on his Malibu properties: meditative, generally free from flourish, simple. In this case a farmhouse rusticity prevails, however, with plank, clapboard and tongue-and-groove walls and ceilings, and cottage design elements.

Highlights of this house include the office and library, the creative studio, the master suite, and the kitchen, which features a potently-flavored farmhouse-inspired ceiling. But the real star of the show is of course the acreage, a green expanse of oak-dotted pasture and lawn.