Wyoming Landowner Builds Golf Course Around Charles Kuralt’s ‘Mistress Cabin’

It's the kind of place Charles Kuralt would have stopped and profiled for his hit CBS series "On the Road," which explored the curious corners of this country and the characters who live there. 

It’s a ranch along Montana's storied Big Hole River, where a new golf course soon will be officially ready for play.

It's built around a structure known as the Mistress Cabin because that's where a previous owner lived part-time with his mistress and second family. 

There’s a restored schoolhouse, lots of wildlife and blue-ribbon trout waters flowing through the property.

It’s not the kind of place those traveling the local gravel ranch road expect to encounter.

As visitors arrive from the nearby town of Twin Bridges, they crest a rise in the road and see unfurled before them Scottish-style links with pin flags waving in the breeze. 

When construction on the course began last summer, some locals raised concerns about losing the agricultural character of the community and how much water the course might guzzle. 

Others argued the golf course violated the original vision of a previous owner — Charles Kuralt.

Fans of the famed journalist learned after his death in 1997 that the Mistress Cabin on the Big Hole River actually belonged to Kuralt, and he had built it in the style of mountain cabins found in his home state of North Carolina. 

The truth about Kuralt's double life emerged in court documents and news reports following his death.

"For 29 years … he apparently kept a mistress and maintained a second family,” According to a 1999 Salon magazine story. “While his wife remained at their home in the concrete canyons of New York City, he nurtured his secret life along a rushing trout stream in Montana."

Now, after more than a year of custom shaping and engineering, the course appears ready to play, with cliff swallows flicking around in the evening light and sandhill cranes calling from the river bottom.

The property is a dream come true for new owner Buzz Warner, who has gradually won over initial skeptics. 

The golf course-ranch is now a bird preserve, and Warner is emerging as a pitch-in-for-the-community kind of guy.

This week, while offering an update about his private course, Warner told Cowboy State Daily that, "We are nearing completion. A couple more weeks."

Wyoming Connection

In 2019, the Wyoming Game & Fish Department named the Warner family Landowners of the Year for their work at Sage Creek Ranch in southeastern Uinta County.

According to the department, Warner "has worked to make it one of the most wildlife-friendly landscapes in Wyoming."

The department noted that, “The amount of time, money and effort Mr. Warner has given to the wildlife of Wyoming in just 10 years far exceeds what most people do in a lifetime." 

Warner replaced "nearly every fence on the ranch with wildlife-friendly fencing" and limited livestock grazing to just 80 pairs on the entire 6,100-acre ranch.

Those good vibes were conspicuously absent in July 2024, when KXLF TV in Butte broke the story about the new course, with critics sounding the alarm about transforming Montana ranchland into something inspired by the great links of Scotland.

But Pedro Marques, executive director of the Big Hole Watershed Committee, has watched opinions soften since then. 

"The folks that were making a stink about how awful it's going to be seemed to quiet down quite a bit" after Warner showed them around and explained his conservation efforts, Marques told Cowboy State Daily. 

Warner approached Marques with his plans early in the process. 

"This golf course is happening and all the laws regarding stream discharge and water rights are all being followed," Marques said. "Given the irrigation that was happening on the land, that is now being converted to golf, it's looking like there's going to be a net conservation of water from this new use."

In fact, said Marques, "Warner closed an irrigation intake ditch and now there are 3 million gallons of water a day remaining in the river and not used for ag irrigation."

Warner's conservation-minded approach extends beyond water savings. 

"I'm huge on wildlife, fish, conservation, then golf," Warner said in 2024.

He kept the golf course "totally away from the river" and left the entire riparian area undeveloped.

"We could have built some really, really neat golf holes down there," Warner said. "But we didn't."

This conservation focus represents a stark contrast to another previous owner of the property: former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. 

Warner said Rumsfeld "tried to engineer a hot spring by drawing 95-degree water out of the ground on the ranch." 

When Warner bought the property from Rumsfeld, he plugged the hot water flow "because it was the obvious thing to do to protect a river already battling high temperatures."

Warner continues contributing to local conservation efforts. 

"At every step, he's just very generous. He offers up his guys and his equipment and downed trees that he has on his property to use for some check dams," Marques said. Warner is helping with "a sediment project, a big gully that's dumping sediment out into the river.

"He's been very much trying to fall into kind of the community and a partnership based way that we do things in the Big Hole.”

Trucks To Turf

Warner's path to golf course development began after his family sold Warner Truck Centers in Utah to Penske Automotive Group in 2019. 

"I was out cutting hay one day in that spot and thought, 'Man, we are wasting a ton of water to continue to flood irrigate this,'" Warner recalled in 2024. "There's a lack of golf in Madison County. So easy decision."

The course is designed to be walkable only, which allows for fescue grass that requires 30% to 40% less water than bluegrass. Warner hired lead designer Kye Goalby, whose father won the Masters in the 1960s, to create a Scottish-style links course comparable to Brora in Scotland.

For the first year, Warner said locals will play for free one day a week. He's even floated the idea of hosting the Montana High School golf championships.

A Different Course

Warner's community-focused approach stands in contrast to another Montana golf course project embroiled in legal controversy. 

The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation filed a complaint for injunctive relief and civil penalties against CMR Ranch Owner LLC on July 11, alleging the ranch irrigated about 35.25 acres of golf course turf without proper water rights.

According to the complaint, CMR "constructed conveyance facilities that expanded impoundment capacities to Rock Creek that were not authorized by the Department" and "appropriated water without Department approval since June 2024." 

The case involves potential fines of up to $1,000 per day for each violation. 

CMR stands for Crazy Mountain Ranch, and is owned by the Lone Mountain Land Company (LMLC), which is a subsidiary of CrossHarbor Capital Partners. It also owns the ultra-exclusive Yellowstone Club. 

LMLC bought the ranch in 2021 from the Philip Morris Corp., which had owned and operated it as a guest ranch for about 22 years to reward loyal Marlboro cigarette customers. 

Visitors could save Marlboro coupons to earn invitations as part of promotional campaigns. The ranch featured many authentic Western-themed activities and buildings, creating a unique guest experience tied to the Marlboro Man image from Philip Morris advertising.

Like the Marlboro Ranch, cowboy boots are recommended at Warner’s new Scottish-style course on the Big Hole River. Anyone scampering around the grounds is advised about rattlesnakes, as the course cuts through prime snake habitat. 

Warner has heard the idea pitched that it might make sense for players to wear a new kind of hybrid footwear — something with the snake-bite protection of a cowboy boot and the spikes of a golf shoe.

This kind of Americana mashup of shoe styles is another detail Kuralt would have relished.

David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.