Rowland Vance Lee was born into a show business family. Both his parents were stage actors, and Rowland began his career as a child actor in stock and on Broadway. He suspended his career briefly to become a Wall Street stockbroker, but returned to the stage after a couple of years. Lee's prolific career in cinema stretched back to the Silent Era when Thomas H. Ince hired him in 1915. He worked in various capacities, as an actor, writer, producer and director, often simultaneously. Lee’s screen-acting career was interrupted by his service in World War I, but Ince re-hired him as a director upon his return home. Lee directed many films in a variety of genres. Some of his more memorable films include Tower of London (1939), Son of Frankenstein (1939), The Son of Monte Cristo (1940), and The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944). His last directorial film was Captain Kidd (1945) starring Charles Laughton and Randolph Scott. The latter, although potentially a first class adventure, was disadvantaged by its low budget. His last screen production was The Big Fisherman (1959) starring Howard Keel and John Saxon. Based on Lloyd Douglas' book about the life of Simon Peter, Lee’s sprawling religious epic was overshadowed by Ben-Hur (1959) and Spartacus (1960), which were released before and after it. The Arabian Desert scenes of The Big Fisherman were shot at La Quinta near Palm Springs, and the Sea of Galilee sequences were filmed on a lake at Lee's own ranch in the San Fernando Valley. Overlooking Lee's “Sea of Galilee” on the other side of the hill is the Rocketdyne plant, a building which definitely would not pass as a first century edifice. According to John Hayes of Wide Screen Movies Magazine, filming of The Big Fisherman was frequently interrupted by Rocketdyne’s testing of rocket fuels, which sent huge clouds of black smoke into the air.

Lee's movie ranch lent itself well to a rural setting. It had two small, scenic lakes and was surrounded by rolling pale brown hills covered with barley and spotted with olive and eucalyptus trees. For I’ve Always Loved You (1946), Republic Pictures' lavish romance with a classical music score that starred Philip Dorn and Catherine McLeod, the studio's set designer, John McCarthy, built an extensive farmhouse and barn set. A stone and wood bridge was also built over one of the lakes, which usually doubled as a river. Over the years, the Republic-built farmhouse set would be modified for different films. It became a period French farmhouse in At Swords Point (1952), RKO's likable variation on The Three Musketeers starring Cornel Wilde and Maureen O'Hara. In Friendly Persuasion (1956) starring Gary Cooper and Dorothy McGuire, William Wyler's screen adaptation of Jessamyn West's novel about a Quaker family struggling to maintain its identity amid the confusion of Civil War, the wooden farmhouse was given a fake stone façade. To give the farm a more Midwestern appearance, Wyler ordered cornfields planted, brought in sycamore trees and covered huge areas with green grass. The ranch can also be seen in the merry-go-round carnival scene of Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951) starring Farley Granger and Robert Walker, and in Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955) starring Robert Mitchum and Shelley Winters. Although most of the footage for Walt Disney's Technicolor adventure-filled, live action drama The Light in the Forest (1958), starring Fess Parker and James MacArthur, was shot on location about twenty miles outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee, the movie’s Indian camp was built alongside one of the Rowland V. Lee Ranch lakes. This authentic-looking Delaware Indian village of 17 elm-bark huts and the genuine set decorations of furs, pottery, baskets, weapons and hides were erected under the technical supervision of Iron Eyes Cody, an authority on Native American culture.

Rowland V. Lee was married to Eleanor Worthington. He died from a heart attack on December 21, 1975. After Lee's death, the ranch was developed and subdivided into an exclusive gated community called Hidden Lake Estates. To reach Lee's original ranch site from Los Angeles, take Ventura Freeway 101 north (west), exit Topanga Canyon Boulevard and turn right (north). Turn left on Roscoe Boulevard. The approximate location of the original ranch, where one lake still remains, starts near Fallbrook Avenue. The entrance to Hidden Lake Estates will be on the right. The remaining lake is surrounded by a small private recreation area and clubhouse that are bounded by Samra Drive and Sedan Avenue.