Wyotana: Home of the Second Home

JAGGED mountain peaks pierce the clouds as their nine-million-year-old spires loom above a patch of delicate blue harebells still wet with morning dew. The lake below reflects the shifting colors of the rocks — green at the bottom, gray melding to white at the top — as they stretch toward the infinite blue sky. Off in the distance, a moose slowly makes its way to the water’s edge. A bald eagle soars above, talons ready, looking for breakfast.

Welcome to Wyotana: part State of Wyoming, part State of Montana, part state of mind.

By ANNA BAHNEY NY Times

You won’t find it on any maps, but Wyotana (or Montoming, as it might be dubbed every odd-numbered year when the Montana Legislature is in session) exists nonetheless. It’s the home of the second home for celebrities like Harrison Ford, Tom Brokaw and David Letterman and hundreds of other out-of-staters willing to pay $5 million or more to embrace their inner ranch owner. It’s the land of big sky and big prices.

Thinking about moving in? Before whipping out your checkbook, get out the map. With Yellowstone National Park as its anchor, Wyotana stretches with eminent-domain-like authority over the forested and mountainous regions of northwest Wyoming and central and western Montana. From Sheridan County, Wyo., draw a line slanting down to the Utah-Idaho border. Follow the state line of Idaho upward until it is even with the Flathead Valley, and then go over to Kalispell, Mont. Shoot straight back down to Sheridan, making sure Billings, Mont., is included. Now you have the rough parameters of Wyotana, a 103,300-square-mile enclave of sweeping vistas and storied beauty.

Nora Tygum, 60, who has owned Nora’s Fish Creek Inn in Wilson, Wyo., for 20 years — Vice President Dick Cheney, a longtime Wyoming resident, is a breakfast regular — sees few differences between the two states that make up Wyotana. "I think Wyoming is really compatible with Montana," she said. "We’re horsy people, ranchy people. We’ve got the Levi’s, the big belt buckles, the pickup trucks."

Wyotana’s spiritual capital is Jackson Hole, a sagebrush valley that opens to views of Grand Teton National Park to the north, and its social epicenter is the town of Jackson, where insiders gather at the Snake River Grill to dine on braised antelope shanks, and mingle at the Jackson Rodeo every Wednesday and Saturday night from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Coveted Wyotana invitations are for gatherings at Herb Allen’s sprawling ranch in Cody, Wyo., and for the fund-raising costume ball at the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings.

Membership in the Nature Conservancy is a social calling card, and the creation of a conservation easement on personal property is a status symbol. Lear 35’s and Citation 550 Bravos lie in wait at Arlin’s Aircraft Service at Gallatin Field, near Bozeman, Mont., to ferry their owners back to New York or Washington. Red-letter dates on the Wyotana calendar are March 1, the first day fly-fishing licenses are available; Oct. 1, the opening day in most places for deer, elk and antelope hunting; and the first week in December, when the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort skiing season begins.

The two components of Wyotana do, of course, have their distinctive attributes. "Wyoming is a little drier than Montana — not as many trees, not as green," said Jim Taylor, the president of Hall & Hall Real Estate, a firm that handles property sales and management in both states. He grew up on a 300,000-acre ranch in a part of southern Montana so remote that the family had to drive 50 miles to Sheridan, Wyo., to do their shopping.

"Montana is lusher," he said. "Probably a lot of people will find the ranches in Montana are prettier. But Wyoming is big and open and rough and dramatic."

The two states also attract slightly different crowds: in Wyoming, it’s business types and politicians from the Northeast; in Montana, it’s Silicon Valley dot-comers and Los Angeles entertainment moguls.

There are other, less subtle differences. In Wyoming, there is no state income or inheritance tax; in Montana, no sales tax. Hunting licenses are easier to get in Wyoming, but there is more land under private ownership in Montana.

The options for Wyotana buyers are varied. Those put off by the relative congestion of Jackson might head for the open landscape of the Flathead Valley, dominated by the 28-mile-long Flathead Lake. Or they might build a log home in the lower Bitterroot Valley, between Missoula and Hamilton, with its wide valley surrounded by the Bitterroot National Forest. Looking for some rolling, lush countryside with Yellowstone nearby? Head for Paradise Valley in southern Montana.

But for anyone looking for a second home these days, the choices may depend less on geographical preferences or tax concerns and more on the simple fact of what’s available, and at what price.

Mostly, prices are still strong, although they have begun to soften at the high end of the Jackson market since Sept. 11. Peter Linsey, a vice president and the managing broker at Sotheby’s International Realty Jackson Hole, said that sellers were getting about 20 percent less for houses listed at $5 million or more.

For properties listed at $1 million to $5 million, there is not a lot of availability, Mr. Linsey said. As for anything under $1 million, "it’s hardly on the market — it just gets snatched up," he said.

Right now, in Jackson Hole, Darren Kleiman of Jackson Hole Realty said, buyers can expect to pay about $2 million for a 4,000-square-foot house on 3 to 10 acres of land.

The Jackson Hole market has gotten so overheated, said Bill Bahny, a broker with offices in Helena, the Montana capital, and Broadus, Mont., that "they’ve run the millionaires out of there." Only billionaires can afford Jackson Hole these days, he said.

While one reason for the spike in real estate values in recent years is the sheer natural beauty of the area — an intoxicating expanse of creeks, cliffs, crags and limitless views — another and perhaps more important factor is the relative scarcity of property available for development. Privately owned acres in Wyoming and Montana are not as available as the landscape suggests because of the federal government’s extensive holdings. In the 60-mile-by-20-mile valley of Jackson Hole, for instance, 97 percent of the land is controlled by the National Park Service, the National Forest Service or the federal Bureau of Land Management. That leaves just 3 percent of this highly prized land for 400 real estate agents to scramble over.

The market in Wyotana has been simmering steadily for 20 years. There were several eye-popping sales in the early 80’s, including the one that opened the floodgates: in 1981, the 11,500-acre Forbes family ranch was sold to the Church Universal and Triumphant for $7 million. That price, said Mr. Taylor of Hall & Hall, was roughly 10 times what the land was worth based on how much livestock it could support, a measure that is going the way of grazing land. By the mid-80’s, the Wyoming/Montana market really began to take off, with increasing numbers of people eager to buy land adjacent to Yellowstone. "Basically, people started to pay for view, for fish, for wildlife and access to more desirable towns," Mr. Taylor said. "That’s what pushed the market."

The fact that celebrities were coming didn’t hurt, either. In 1992, Susie Graetz, a writer and photographer in Helena, created the "Montana Celebrity Cookbook" as a fund-raising project for the Intermountain Children’s Home in Helena, with recipes from local homeowners: bean soup as cooked by Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, Michael Keaton’s lemon squares, Glenn Close’s biscuits, Hank Williams Jr.’s vegetable casserole and Tom Brokaw’s granola.

Maybe it’s time for a second edition. Since Ms. Graetz’s book came out, the Montana crowd now includes Mel Gibson, who ranches near Columbus; Connie Chung and Maury Povich, who have a place in the Flathead Valley; and David Letterman, who has a house outside Choteau.

And, Ms. Graetz said, they all want to be treated just like regular folk. "The way that they — meaning celebrities or people in that sort of limelight — are all treated here, they are treated like real people. That word spreads."

Mr. Kleiman of Jackson Hole Realty agreed. "They say, `I’m going to be part of your community, but don’t treat me like I’m anything special,’ " he said. "You can go down to the bar on a Thursday night, and Harrison Ford is kicking back."

Not everyone, though, is quick to embrace the emergence of Wyotana as the home of second homes. David Taylor, a professor and extension specialist in the department of agriculture and applied economics at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, produced a report on the growth of the second-home market in the state based on the 1990 and 2000 censuses. "We aren’t against development," but the matter could use some discussion, said Mr. Taylor, who is known as Tex. "Manage growth, or growth will manage you."

And if there is anything that chafes people who are in the thrall of open spaces, it is being managed. "There are concerns about second-home development in Wyoming," he said. "It tends to be rural, and that leads to effects on open space and wildlife habitat. There are concerns about the cost of county government. Most studies have found that residential developments themselves do not pay for public services. The other concern is the effect on culture and lifestyle."

According to the 2000 census, Wyoming ranked 11th in the nation as the home of second homes, and Montana ranked ninth. Mr. Taylor’s study indicates that the number of second homes in Wyoming increased 30 percent from 1990 to 2000 and that Montana experienced an 18 percent increase in the same period.

While second-home living in Wyoming is certainly not a new development, the study shows that areas like Hot Springs County and Sublette County have really put the "Wyo" in Wyotana, joining Jackson Hole as prime destinations for second-home buyers.

Still, in many ways Teton County, which includes Jackson, reigns supreme. Jonathan Schechter, the executive director of the Charture Institute, which studies growth and change in places of ecological significance, said that Teton has the highest adjusted gross income of any county in the country. The Bureau of Economic Analysis says that in terms of per capita personal income, Teton ranks 14th in the nation. Either way, that indicates a huge concentration of affluence for a county that has no metropolitan area.

"I have people come to me and say, `I’m looking for property that is undervalued.’ " Mr. Kleiman said. "I can only tell them, `It doesn’t exist.’ "

Mr. Bahny, the Montana broker, said that there are some standoffs in the real estate market now as buyers and sellers alike wait to see if there will be some softening in prices. "I have deals that are stuck at a difference of $100,000," he said. "The buyer ain’t coming up, and the seller ain’t coming down. A year and a half ago, I could have made that deal in an afternoon."

So are there any bargains at all? Mr. Bahny has been directing out-of-staters to eastern Montana, where a second-home boom hasn’t quite taken hold. "It’s pretty country out there," Mr. Bahny said.

It may be pretty, but it’s not Wyotana.