Photograph by John and Geanine Henebry
Home All-Stars: The Sporting Life
January 1, 2006
A sporting community begins with a collection of luxury vacation homes that provide owners access to world-class outdoor pursuits, from golfing to skiing to boating. Beyond this, what every true sporting community offers is a way to reconnect with family. Joining the club means creating a home where multiple generations can engage in outdoor games and recreation together. Whether that means convening on a Florida golf course, on a Montana ski mountain or in a Wyoming trout river, the sporting community concept is about interacting with the most important people in your life. What follows is a look at six communities that make it easy to master the art of togetherness.
Yellowstone Club
Located in the Montana Rockies near Big Sky, Yellowstone
Club is unquestionably the most exclusive ski and golf community in the world. Founded by timber baron Tim
Blixseth and his wife, Edra, the 14,000-acre compound offers 2,200 acres of impeccably groomed
terrain, an area larger than that found at Deer Valley. Yellowstone Club is a mountain
that could accommodate 20,000 skiers but reserves its private powder slopes for just 864
members. They enjoy more than 60 trails, 13 lifts and trails spread across two mountain
areas. The club’s 130,000-square-foot Warren Miller Lodge will soon be completed.
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In the summer there is hiking, fly-fishing and top-notch golf; former British Open champ Tom Weiskopf designed the private golf course. All 18 holes opened in 2005, and Hank Kashiwa, the former U.S. Olympic skier who is now the club’s vice president of marketing, calls it “the ultimate in private courses. Our members may have originally come here for winter sports, but once they experience Montana in the summertime, their lives are changed forever.”
Membership at Yellowstone Club is by invitation only and requires the final approval of the club’s owners and a $250,000 right-to-use deposit. “It attracts energetic younger families who want a community atmosphere,” Kashiwa says. “They come from 26 states, from Canada, Europe and even New Zealand.”
Members must purchase property at the club. Home sites ranging from one to six acres, some with ski-in/ski-out access, are priced from $2 million to $3.5 million; 160-acre ranch sites start at $8 million. Custom-built homes range in price from $3 million to $13 million, and 5,000-square-foot, on-mountain chalets start at $6 million. Annual membership dues are $16,000. While their homes are being built, members can stay at the cabins adjacent to the Rainbow Lodge, one of four lodges at the club.
Yellowstone Club
888.700.7748
www.theyellowstoneclub.com
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