Two months before billionaire Joe Ricketts abandoned his controversial plan to build a 230,000-square-foot luxury resort in the middle of a migration corridor near Bondurant, Wyoming, the Chicago Cubs owner and Ameritrade founder was buying a new piece of exclusive property with lots of conservation value.
That property is the Granite Creek Ranch near Jackson, just downstream from where an iconic scene in the 1992 movie “A River Runs Through It” was filmed.
While most of that movie was filmed in Montana, an iconic scene where the boys steal a rowboat and take it over a waterfall was filmed at Granite Falls, just a mile or two from Granite Creek Ranch in Teton County.
The ranch is a stunning property, nestled in the southern Gros Ventre Mountains with Granite Creek fronting the ranch. It hit the market last year for the unbelievably low price of about $9 million. The inholding — one of just seven in that area — is in the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
In fact, the U.S. Forest Service was trying to acquire the property, according to the listing agent, Latham Jenkins, a broker with Live Water Properties.
“They had kind of started the preliminary process of becoming a buyer,” Jenkins told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday. “They were very interested in the process. But with a public acquisition, it just takes a much longer period.”
Jenkins said he doesn’t know what Ricketts’ plans for the property might be.
“I do think it’s going to be something low-key and very fitting for the property,” he said. “And I think it will enable continued public access, which I personally feel is just vital to enabling others to come and experience what we love about the region.”
Granite Creek has several outstanding amenities, Jenkins added.
“There’s great hiking and horseback riding trails, and it’s always been a fun, family destination for myself with my kids growing up,” he said. “And I think whatever the future might hold, Mr. Ricketts is probably going to do something very tasteful there.”
Little Jackson Hole 2.0?
Not everyone is so certain that Ricketts’ plans for Granite Creek Ranch will be tasteful, particularly in light of his recently abandoned efforts to rebrand Bondurant as Little Jackson Hole — over and above the objections of those living there — and build a huge, swanky resort in the midst of a wildlife migration corridor.
Homestead Resort was to have been a “premium resort experience with a mission-driven focus on protecting, preserving and enjoying the natural beauty of the Hoback region,” according to media statements sent out by Ricketts’ public relations team to Cowboy State Daily.
A spokesperson for Joe Ricketts confirmed that he bought the Granite Creek property months ago and is still determining his plans for it. The spokesperson also said in an email that the Granite Creek property is unrelated to his Sublette County property.
Residents of the Hoback River valley near Bondurant, where Ricketts had planned to build the Homestead Resort, tell stories of Ricketts buying up land all around them to, in their opinion, drive out neighbors who objected to his plans.
Some were also getting mail addressed to “Little Jackson Hole,” even though their official mailing address was still Bondurant.
Ricketts told Sublette County commissioners prior to abandoning the project that the shortened construction season was going to add between $60 million to $100 million to the costs of building the resort, as well as extend its construction timeline by six years. He asked commissioners to lift the restrictions, proposing several mitigation strategies that Wyoming Game and Fish Department had signed off on, but his request was rejected in June on a tight 3-2 vote.
While neighbors were unhappy with Ricketts’ resort plans, others were disappointed to see the project end, seeing it as an economic boon for a part of Sublette County that particularly needs it.
A Close Eye Warranted
Ricketts’ new neighbors include state Rep. Andrew Byron, R-Jackson, who lives about 15 minutes from the ranch. He said he doesn’t have any particular concerns about the purchase of Granite Creek Ranch at this point, but agrees it merits attention.
“I think it’s right for all of us who are paying attention to wonder, given his, I would say abrupt ending to the Little Jackson Hole project that we all kind of witnessed this summer,” he said. “I’m a former river guide and an avid river user. So, any of these projects that land in and around watersheds are always concerning to me.”
There’s already been some history of property owners failing to respect the history and conservation value of historic inholdings, he added.
“I’m glad that advocacy groups such as the Snake River Fund is keeping a close eye on these,” he said. “It is something we really have to respect and beyond that, I mean it is a pretty cool, beautiful slice of Wyoming.”
The conservation value is what attracted the attention of the Bridger-Teton National Forest, Jackson District Ranger Todd Stiles told Cowboy State Daily.
“We did look at it, mainly because it’s a pretty large inholding, surrounded by National Forest system lands and it is in a priority drainage,” Stiles said. “It’s a wild and scenic river, Granite Creek, and then you have the Gros Ventre wilderness and the Shoal Creek Wilderness study area nearby.”
Unlikely Prospects For A Homestead Flip
While there is some concern that Ricketts could be transferring his aspirations from the Bondurant Valley to Granite Creek Ranch, officials with both the Forest Service and Teton County told Cowboy State Daily it would not be simple to flip the Homestead Ranch plans to Granite Creek.
For one, Granite Creek Ranch has limited access to outfitter permits. The upper limit for the property, which would be very difficult to change, is 100 backpacking days and 200 day-use hiking days.
“The way that works is if one person goes on a hike that day, whether it is for eight hours or a half hour, it’s one service day,” he said. “So, if a family of five went out for five hours, that would be five service days.”
Getting more days added to a permit would not be a simple matter of asking for them.
“If all of a sudden we were to offer some new use, like more snowmobiling in Granite Creek or something, we know other outfitters would be interested in that,” Stiles said. “So, we would have to do a full open prospectus process and put out a request for proposals. We’d have to a have a fair evaluation criterion that everyone would be evaluated against. It’s a pretty big process.”
New outfitter and guide use is uncommon, given all the existing outfitter and guide service that already exists.
“It would have to be a very well-defined public interest for us to pursue that,” he said.
The Forest Service would likely also provide feedback to Teton County on any new ambitious development plans for the property, particularly if the proposal would seriously affect current uses or the watershed of the river that fronts the property.
“Any sort of proposals to plow the road or something like that, obviously, would be met with a serious evaluation process,” Stiles said. “Because that would completely, fundamentally change the way the public has always enjoyed and accessed Granite Creek. Things like that, we would comment on.”
The Forest Service would also be the administering agency for the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, Stiles said, which protects Granite Creek.
Teton County Not Looking For Isolated Resorts
Teton County would have a larger role to play in what happens on the property and is the entity that issued its current conditional use permits to previous owners.
Teton County Commission Chairman Luther Propst told Cowboy State Daily it’s highly unlikely the Homestead Resort, at a size of 220,000 square feet with underground parking, a restaurant, and a workout center, would at all translate to Granite Creek Ranch.
“That’s only a 33-acre parcel,” Propst said. “It’s very isolated and our zoning I think would only allow up to 22,000 square feet total.”
For a development like the Homestead Resort, Ricketts would also have to come back to Teton County for a whole new zoning classification, one that would be incompatible with the existing comprehensive plan.
“With the isolation, it’s in an area that’s prone to wildfire and an area that’s high in wildlife value,” Propst said. “It’s hard to see how a resort development such as was proposed at (Bondurant) could happen up there.”
Propst added that Teton County Commissioners in general have recognized the value of resources like Granite Creek to the area and have tried to encourage developments to move toward town, rather than to isolated areas with special resources and tourism amenities like the Granite Creek area.
“As we learn more about wildlife movement and water quality and wastewater treatment, it’s harder and harder to envision intensive development on these outlying parcels,” he said. “And a good example is the Kelly parcel, where the public all over the state, not just in Jackson, but also Cody and Casper and Cheyenne have expressed they’re very interested in seeing those parcels protected.”
Turning inholdings that lie within national forest lands into another “Big Sky,” Propost said, is not generally seen as desirable in Teton County. Big Sky is a resort in Big Sky, Montana.
“I think that the county commissioners will be sensitive to that kind of public input,” Propst said. “We’re not looking to build isolated resorts.”
This story has been updated to include a statement from a spokesperson for Joe Ricketts.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
