MINDEN, Nev.: To the locals, it is known as "that ranch." Most have never set foot on it, kept out by warning signs and careful surveillance.

The Flying-M Ranch is a million-acre spread owned by the hotel magnate William Barron Hilton about 90 miles southeast of Reno. Mr. Hilton, whose granddaughters Paris and Nicky are now more famous than he, is a 79-year-old outdoors enthusiast with a penchant for playing host to his many celebrity friends.

Right now, the ranch's most prominent guest is Peggy Fossett, wife of Steve Fossett, the millionaire adventurer who took off Monday in one of Mr. Hilton's single-engine two-seater planes and never returned. The couple had planned to leave the ranch midday Monday.

The search for Mr. Fossett, which is now covering 17,000 square miles along the Nevada-California border, entered its fifth day Friday, but officials reported no progress.

In addition to the Fossetts, who goes to Mr. Hilton's ranch?

"Really, really important rich people," said Maj. Cynthia S. Ryan of the Civilian Air Patrol Nevada Wing. "It's essentially a fishing and gun club. He has some of the most prime Walker River fly-fishing area in the whole state."

Mr. Hilton owns 20,000 acres and leases the rest from the federal government. He bought the ranch in the mid-1960s to cater to high-roller customers in Las Vegas and Reno. It was already called the Flying-M after its previous owner, Stanfield Murphy. Mr. Hilton said he did not change the name because his wife, who died in 2004, was named Marilyn.

In addition to prime fishing and hunting lands, the ranch has a mile-long airstrip and a long list of recreational aircraft that Mr. Hilton lends to guests. He is host of an annual soaring competition, the Barron Hilton Cup, and allows the winner to stay at the retreat for a week. (In soaring, an aircraft is towed into the sky by another plane and then released to glide through the sky without an engine.)

Past guests include aviation heroes like Buzz Aldrin and Chuck Yeager, and actors like Morgan Freeman and Cliff Robertson, whose poem posted on a wall in the main dining room calls the ranch "a place of magic."

A 15-minute video about the property that is played in the compound's movie theater features the singer John Denver - an amateur pilot who died in 1997 while flying an experimental plane - talking about a song he wrote while staying at the Flying-M, according to Di Freeze, a writer based in Denver and a 2003 visitor to the ranch. Ms. Freeze, editor in chief of a chain of 10 aviation magazines, could not recall which song it was.

"By the end of that weekend, I was telling people it was Disneyland for pilots," said Ms. Freeze, who said Peter V. Ueberroth, the United States Olympic Committee chairman, and John W. Myers, a longtime Northrop chief test pilot, were among the guests when she was there. "Barron is such a wonderful host. You can understand why people go there. I don't think there's another place like it in the world."

Ms. Freeze said she was taken to the ranch from the Reno airport by a vintage small plane, and flew in six different aircraft, including gliders and hot-air balloons, in her two-day stay. The accommodations were minimalist and rustic, she said, but dinners at a long table in a room with green-plaid wallpaper were provided by chefs brought in from Hilton hotels.

Her favorite moments, she said, were the after-dinner chats in which veteran aviators sat around in a lounge and talked.

"I just kept thinking that if I had my tape recorder running and could be there when Dick Rutan or Steve Fossett were there, it would make an amazing book," Ms. Freeze said.