Controversial Montana Land Developer Has A New Big Project, But No Land

It was named after a busted Montana mining town, Diamond City, and was an ambitious development proposed for the North Hills outside Helena. Developer Robert V. Rule says it caught the attention of country music star Blake Shelton. 

But it was never built. 

Real estate was on the rise in 2009, but the market wasn’t booming enough to sustain Diamond City’s ambitions: 5,500 luxury residences, a four-star Radisson hotel, a five-star restaurant, a world-class equestrian center and a golf course designed by Arnold Palmer.

Fifteen years later, Rule is back with an even bolder plan that has some Montana landowners skeptical that he’s making more grandiose promises that will never happen. 

Rule, who heads up Gideon Land Developers, is proposing a project called Old Town Sheridan in Sheridan, Montana. He’s pitching it as a veteran-centered, faith-based community with everything from light manufacturing to an equine center and a golf club. 

Part veterans center, part manufacturing hub, part golf course, Old Town Sheridan as proposed by Rule “will consist of nearly 800 residences and townhomes — focused around a newly designed golf course, clubhouse and equestrian center surrounded by hundreds of thousands of acres of equestrian bliss.” 

There’s only one problem: He has no land.

Instead Rule, a noncombat veteran of the U.S. Air Force, hopes that he can sell his idealistic vision for a real estate development built with the intention of supporting veterans. That’s his pitch to landowners and investors, including some he said he’s meeting with in Wyoming next month. 

One major landowner in Sheridan, Montana, called the whole plan “bullshit.” And a county commissioner said he scolded Rule, telling him not to bother the Madison County Planning Department until he actually owned the land he hoped to develop. 

Skeptics of Old Town Sheridan also point to the negative press that swirled around Rule and the failed Diamond City project in 2011. 

Rule said his pitch for a large-scale real estate development is buoyed by Montana’s continued boom times. A 2024 report from multiple listing service Houzeo.com showed growth in the Montana housing market remains steady, as the number of homes for sale across the state increased by 29.1% in July. But can Montana’s market and the small bucolic community sustain what brochures for Old Town Sheridan promises to be 300 luxury ranchettes and a 60-room bed and breakfast dude ranch? 

Just like with Diamond City, the plan for Old Town Sheridan is so grandiose it forces the question — Is Rule’s vision realistic or fool’s gold?

Rule’s team insists big developments start with big ideas, and if there’s a way to use real estate development to support American heroes, why not try? 

God’s Country

When he was working to get Diamond City off the ground outside Helena, Rule said he convinced country music star Blake Shelton to come pick out a scenic residential lot.

“We had done a huge wildlife study and found all the natural path travel corridors for elk. And that's where I chose a lot that gave him a good view of the elk crossing back and forth every morning, every night,” recalled Rule, adding that he was so sure that Shelton would buy in, “We marked on the map, ‘Blake's lot.’”

While driving Shelton around the North Hills, said Rule, “We got to a certain point and he grabbed ahold of the dash and he goes, ‘Stop, stop, stop.’ He ran over to this point, looked around, he goes, ‘I want this lot. I want this lot.’ And I said, ‘Blake, come here. Let me show you something. I have to roll out the map on my hood. And I said, ‘What does it say next to my finger?’ And he saw it said ‘Blake’s Lot.’ He chose the exact lot that I already chose for him, knowing his personality.”

Cowboy State Daily reached out to Shelton’s publicist to try and verify this account and did not hear back. 

Offering a vision for what undeveloped land could become is what Rule continues to do after stints in California and Las Vegas.

Diamond City in Rule’s hometown of Helena fizzled out because “we ran out of money,” said Rule. In a follow up interview, Rule added that he encountered “government resistance fearing it would turn Helena into Bozeman.

Rule was also the subject of unflattering press coverage at the time. Back in 2011, press coverage detailed bankruptcies and other alleged legal issues. Today, Rule admits to past bankruptcy trouble, but insists he’s sometimes confused with another Robert Rule who lived in Great Falls. 

In 2019, the same year Shelton came out with the song “God’s Country” with the lyrics—“I got a deed to the land, but it ain’t my ground, this is God’s country”—Rule started approaching landowners in Sheridan about his latest pitch, Old Town Sheridan. Six years later, Rule still doesn’t have a deed to any ground in the town, but he does have big plans. 

Welcome To Old Town Sheridan

“This community aims to blend luxury living with sustainability, offering a unique lifestyle that respects the natural environment while providing essential services, particularly for veterans,” is how Rule explains his vision in sales copy found in an Old Town Sheridan brochure. 

That’s the dream. As for the reality of the situation, the landowner with the most property included in the proposal said he’s not interested. 

“It'll never happen and not with him and or anybody else,” insisted Beau Bradley, who runs Bradley Livestock and owns a big swath of ranchland in and around Sheridan. 

“I have never agreed to it, and I mean it's not for sale now at any price,” stated Bradley in a phone interview this month. “You know, there's a lot of these promoters out there, and they're trying to raise money and have great ideas.” 

The vet center, the golf course, the equine facility and the luxury homes envisioned for Old Town Sheridan—as currently visualized in Gideon Land Developers’ promotional materials—depends on including land Bradley owns. But his disinterest in the project isn’t deterring the Gideon Land Developers team. 

“This is a common situation. If one door closes, another one will open,” offered Tim Donahue, who lives in Sheridan, Wyoming, is affiliated with Sheridan College and teamed up with Rule because both are veterans and they are on a shared mission to help other veterans.

Donahue was part of the Veterans Business Outreach Center in Billings. That’s crucial for Old Town Sheridan as dreamed up by Rule because unlike Diamond City — which proposed to name its wellness center after actress Lindsay Wagner aka “The Bionic Woman”— Old Town Sheridan will be headlined by veterans, not celebrities. 

At the core of it all, said Rule and Donahue, is the Center for Warriors, a nonprofit group that’s partnering with Old Town Sherida and is already taking on the tragic problem of veteran suicide.  

In September, the Center for Warriors Foundation put on an archery elk camp, said Rule, “about 25 miles west, northwest of Helena.” The Foundation provided two disabled veterans an Action Trackchair, which allowed him to be mobile in the backcountry. 

On a Nov. 22 Zoom call with the Gideon Land Developers team, Rule, Donahue and Livingston Realtor Suzy Barnett answered questions about Old Town Sheridan, including its take on workforce housing and upgrades to Sheridan’s water and sewer system. 

“This project has got to be funded by people with money in order for us to be able to create the affordable housing for the people who live there,” said Barnett, one of the real estate professionals on the Gideon Land Developers team and the owner of Yellowstone Real Estate Group. “Affordable housing for the twentysomethings that want to stay in Montana because they've lived there all their lives. I mean, that's our plan. Our goal is not to reach out and build stuff for a bunch of billionaires. That's not our goal.”

Dream Or Reality? 

“In looking at the Old Town Sheridan maps, it looks as if the project overlays multiple privately owned properties, including Bradley Livestock,” said Madison County Planning Director Cody Marxer. “The most important point I can hammer is that this project, as detailed on the website map, would require subdivision review by both the county and the town of Sheridan, as it contains property within both jurisdictions; an application has not, to date, been received by either jurisdiction. Therefore, no approvals are in place.”

All true, but you have to start somewhere, said Missoula Architect Mike Morgan, who drew up the “Preliminary Master Plan” for Old Town Sheridan. 

“Projects are difficult challenges. They are always ambitious. They're always complicated. And the bigger they get, the more so,” offered Morgan, who warned against believing everything out there on the internet about Rob Rule, referring to past bad press. 

As Rule’s architect, Morgan said he remains hopeful about working with Gideon Land Developers. 

“I've done lots of developments, large ones. So I'm not skeptical,” continued Morgan. “It just takes a lot of money. Yeah, and it takes support and reviews, all the public reviews and approval process.”

If the investors show up and approvals are secured one day, Rule said Old Town Sheridan or something like it will try to harness the free market power of real estate development to help vets. It will fire the local economic engine, while also reducing veteran suicide and building a community for both wage-earning locals and wealthy retirees. 

Somehow, there will be something for everyone. 

Rule remains resolute about the appeal of Old Town Sheridan to those living in current town Sheridan, where so far, the proposal has met with mostly skepticism. Still, Rule keeps pitching, keeps dreaming, keeps looking for an in—for some land to buy and investors to impress.

When it comes to the Sheridan community right now, “They have multiple dreams on their wish list,” said Rule, referring to how the town is buckling under the pressure of boom times. It needs a new sewer system, more affordable housing and more local jobs. “And we are responding to every one of them.”