What It’s Like To Stay At The Ultra-Luxury Brush Creek Ranch In Southern Wyoming

Modern legends don’t start with "once upon a time" anymore. More likely than not, these days they start with a road trip. 

That’s true for most visitors to Brush Creek Ranch, which is bounded by the Medicine Bow and Sierra Madre mountains in southern Wyoming. 

The closest public airport to Brush Creek is in Laramie, which means a lot of travelers end up driving through the Snowy Range to get to this legendary Wyoming place.

The Snowy Range is shorter and more scenic than the stretch of Interstate 80 to the Saratoga exit, but probably not the right choice in November at night. 

This is learned after successfully — but just barely — dodging a huge deer in Centennial that pops out of hiding to say hello.

Perhaps you hoped to see deer during your trip to Brush Creek Ranch — just not right then.

By day, the Snowy Range is a glorious approach to one of America’s most exclusive ranch stays, which start at $900 a night with a locals discount available for Wyoming residents. 

For the rest of the world, a stay ranges from $2,400 a night for a room at the Trailhead Lodge on up to $150,000 for an exclusive four-night ski trip for eight on Green Mountain. 

The Magee Homestead, meanwhile, runs between $75,000 and $175,000, depending on details like number of guests and length of stay. 

Brush Creek Ranch is a five-star experience that has repeatedly beaten the luxurious Amangani resort in Jackson for Condé Nast's nod as the No. 1 stay in America, as well as attracting all sorts of celebrities and political figures. 

Ivanka Trump’s family went glamping there two years in a row, while “Girls” star Allison Williams married her beau, Ricky Van Veen, there.

It doesn’t take long to see why Brush Creek Ranch is such a favorite, even for celebrities. 

A stay at Brush Creek starts well before you arrive. Staff will call to learn your interests and talk about your goals. 

Next thing you know, a thoughtful itinerary has landed in your inbox — one that considers everything, including dinner, just after you arrive.

While you dine on a succulent, perfectly crisped salmon fillet with chewy wild rice and steamed broccolini, someone whisks away your pesky luggage without your knowledge, carrying it to your room.

Meanwhile, your wine glass during this late-night feast is never empty. If it gets even close to the next-to-last sip, your hostess appears with a beaming smile to refill it. 

The moment the salmon is gone, a dessert menu appears in the same eager fashion. 

These desserts are not standard fare. Things like fresh-sliced strawberries arranged in a huge floral rose atop an orange vanilla custard, spooned into a light-yet-crunchy, crust. 

The chef for the night, named Logan, comes out to tell you about the dishes he prepared. 

He talks about fresh greens grown in greenhouses at The Farm, as well as how much of the menu is locally sourced.

What about that artistic strawberry delight you just finished?

“It only takes me a minute,” he says with a charming smile.

But you know better. The assembly may have taken a minute, but not the individual ingredients prepared ahead of time for this fleeting moment of golden time, which somehow feels like eternity itself has come to lay its head at your feet. 

The hosts are gracious to a fault. While late, there is never a hint at all that anyone has overstayed their welcome. 

There is only more wine, and small talk too, if you’re so inclined. 

Windows On The Past

After dinner, you're handed off to the next guide, who takes you to your room and shows you around the lodge. 

The space is grand but unpretentious, with huge, rugged logs framing the dining hall space where you eat breakfast the next day. 

A floor-to-ceiling fireplace made from local stone is a stunning backdrop. 

Cowhide chairs and antler chandeliers complete this look of rustic, fancy-not-fancy elegance. 

There’s a wine cellar along the way, where guests may request a bottle of any of the all-inclusive wines. There's also sparkling water, among other non-alcoholic options.

You take some of the Saratoga water from the help-yourself refrigerator. 

Down the hallway to your room, your eyes are caught by all the black-and-white photos on the walls. They are a window on the ranch’s past. 

There’s Florence Yoakum feeding chickens at Brush Creek Ranch in 1917. 

"Pioneer ranch women often raised chickens to sell for extra 'egg money' as well as to eat," the caption says. 

The woman has her back to a stone cliff, while a flock of 50 or so chickens, no doubt in every resplendent color of feather, mills around her. 

Her clothing is plain and homespun. The nearby shed is hand-hewn, and humble. But she seems to be smiling.

She is happy in that little window on the past with a wealth of spirit that cannot be bought in the modern world, not for any amount of gold.

And that’s repeated in photo after photo, all the way to your room.

They are an emblem of the simpler times most crave and what Brush Creek promises to deliver — after a good night’s rest in what you are soon to discover may be the world’s fluffiest pillows.

Disconnect To Reconnect

One of the first things guests staying at the Lodge will notice is that television and other electronic screens are few and far between. 

There is one lonely television in a side lounge.  

This is by design. The idea is to free people from electronic gadgets and immerse them in experiences at the ranch.

The entire stay, from Friday night to Sunday morning, nobody is seen in front of that television. It is nothing more than a dust-catcher. There are way too many things to do at Brush Creek Ranch to bother with television. 

More than 100 hands-on activities await, and you have but one day. 

Options include the usual suspects like hiking, riding, and hunting, and plenty of unusual suspects like rock climbing, cheese making, wagyu lessons, cattle drives, aerial rope courses and more. 

It’s all part of a diabolical marketing ploy. Try something new, discover something new — and then you’ll be hooked on coming back.

Brush Creek Chief Operating Officer Mike Williams talks about the ranch’s goal as delivering that one remarkable moment — something so unforgettable it’s magical; something that will root your feet to the earth for a moment and ground your soul in the heavens.

But before there is such magic, there is breakfast in the Trailhead Lodge. 

While the night before your eyes had been captured by rugged beams and stone fireplaces, this morning you notice how every table is situated to look out the picture windows at the fabulous view. 

Mountains in the distance. Little awareness of fellow guests. 

Some guests have reported seeing wildlife outside the windows in their reviews of the Lodge — a lynx sunning on the rocks. Moose, elk, deer can also wander by at will. 

Gordon Ramsey Eggs

Your staring is interrupted by the server, who offers a drink. Distracted, you ask for “just” coffee.

His eyes twinkle. We can do all kinds of coffee, he says. Espresso, latte — the list goes on. 

Emboldened by the claim, would they have almond milk for your latte? 

He doesn’t bat an eyelash. Moments later, you’re sipping a perfect almond milk latte, decorated with a pretty swirl of crema.

Meanwhile, you change my mind repeatedly on what to order for breakfast. 

There are whipped ricotta pancakes. There’s wagyu hash, tres leches French toast, banana Nutella smoothies, buttermilk drop biscuits, goat yogurt with granola and berries and more. 

You settle for simple: eggs your way (scrambled) with game sausages, tallow potatoes and sourdough toast. 

When the eggs arrive, they are just like Gordon Ramsay would do it. Perfectly gooey and soft, with fresh herbs that are still green. 

Too Special Not To Share

A road trip is how Brush Creek Ranch became what it is today. 

The late Bruce White and his son Otis went on the road trip of a lifetime, looking to fulfill a lifelong dream of White’s to one day own a Wyoming ranch. 

White had a certain checklist for this ranch. 

Some items were purely practical, like having an airport nearby where a private jet could land. Others were more intangible. 

• It had to be one-of-a-kind. 

• A place with history and heart. 

• Most of all, it had to be a place where a family — his family — could go to create their own legends.

White was famous among his family and friends for the motto, “Begin with the end in mind.”

But even he did not foresee what would come next. 

“This was only supposed to be a family and friends resort,” Williams said. “That’s what they bought it for.”

That first summer, the Whites invited their children’s friends to come to the ranch. 

“We had counselors and working with our ranch manager, Rob Hawkins, they had daily chores they had to do,” Williams said. “But then, just like a great summer camp, they had fun things to do at night.”

White built them a gymnasium right off the bat, where his boys and their friends could get coaching from college basketball coaches. 

Then at the end of the summer, the Whites threw a big party for all the parents. 

The parents raved about the stay so much, White realized he shouldn’t keep the ranch all to himself after all. 

It was just too special, and something this special was meant to be shared. 

Brush Creek opened as a guest ranch in 2011, with Williams tapped to lead it. 

The first year it earned $800,000 in gross income, Williams said. Since then, it's grown to a gross income of $37 million.

Delicious Revenge

Your day at Brush Creek Ranch proceeds like a farm-fresh fairy tale where you’re in search of adventures. 

First, you're serenaded by the baby goats at The Farm, who have grown up believing that humans are the craggy cliffs that they must climb, the better to see the world.

It's too late in the season for goat yoga. These goats are too big now for climbing on your back, but they still try. 

A goat named Begonia, who is as tall as you are when she stands on her hind legs, tries to climb onto your shoulders. 

She’s giving a hug so she can nibble on your nose.

Meanwhile, one of her rascally pals takes advantage of the opportunity to abscond with your phone’s charging cord.

You’re both quickly rescued by the goat mistress, Leigh Dixon, who takes charge of leading you away to Andi Johnson at the creamery. 

There you try five kinds of goat cheeses — a delicious form of revenge. 

Whiskey Thief

The next treat at The Farm is whiskey thieving. 

That’s right, you're permitted to steal whiskey straight from a Brush Creek Ranch cask.

Well, you don’t steal it. Brush Creek Ranch’s Lead Distiller Ethan Whitman does it for you. 

Still, it feels like a Butch Cassidy moment, pulling off the train heist of the century as Whitman cracked open a barrel of a particularly special whiskey for the occasion. 

It was one of the first kegs of whiskey he made for Brush Creek Ranch back when he was lead distiller for Kentucky Artisan Distillery.

Since, he’s made a lot of whiskey and other spirits at Brush Creek Ranch, though some of the distillery’s barrels still come from other places for use in the special blends Whitman creates.

You soon learn that stolen whiskey is some of the strongest hooch you will ever taste. It comes out of the cask at 120 proof. 

For the uninitiated, the first sip is like dragon’s breath going down your throat. If someone had lit a match, you could have breathed fire just like a real dragon.

Whitman says there’s a fun name for the that heat crawling down your throat. It’s a "Kentucky hug."

That makes you laugh reflexively — or try to. Instead, all your manage is a choking cough. 

Try, Try Again

You learn to taste the whiskey the right way, in spite of your, with Whitman an all-too-patient guide. 

Swirl the whiskey around the glass again to aerate it. Place the bottom of the glass against the top lip and inhale. 

You catch a glimpse of all the flavors in the glass in that breath. It's freshly cut hay from a mountain meadow and cinnamon honey; wheat in a farmer’s field and a secret limestone spring. 

The first tiny sip you take after that breath isn’t for tasting. It’s to swirl around in your mouth, like in the glass, to get the taste buds ready. 

The next sip is for tasting. 

And there, like some rabbit from a magic hat, are all the flavors you had missed before in one amber distilled drop.

Perhaps you'll never be a big whiskey drinker, but in that moment, you finally understand what all the fuss is about.

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

The perfect day at the perfect ranch was drawing to a close soon, but there was one last escapade ahead. 

Dinner at the Cheyenne Club, with the menu of Brush Creek Ranch’s new chef, Nick Pissare. 

Pissare comes to Brush Creek with many accolades, not least of which are two Michelin Keys he helped bring to his last venue, Dunton Hot Springs in Colorado.

The Cheyenne Club is a nod to the original cattleman’s club in Cheyenne, where the likes of Andrew Carnegie and Oscar Wilde were known to dine. 

The club’s cuisine featured hand-crafted gourmet meals using some of the world’s best gastronomies. 

Brush Creek’s Cheyenne Club is no exception.

Wagyu beef is the star of the show on Pissare's new menu, from cattle that have been raised on Brush Creek Ranch. But it is not the only star.

Trout toast, king crab consommé, roasted beet salad and more beg to be your starter. Red snapper, duck confit, parsnip tortellini, and pan-seared diver’s scallops round out the entrees.

While you decide, an amuse bouche of cornbread and chokecherry jam arrives. Also, a whimsical veggie sampler, planted in “earth” that is a breadcrumb-topped goat yogurt, and two kinds of fresh-baked bread with two kinds of butter. 

Munching on goat yogurt dip and veggies, you realize there are no bad choices on the menu. 

The Wagyu New York strip steak seems required. Perhaps you add the king crab consommé to make it turf with a little surf for what has already been a perfect day.

After dinner, your chariot arrives — a van driven by a charming cowboy named Mason Masted, but there’s no rush. There's plenty of time to stare up at the bejeweled sky. 

Your feet are rooted to the earth in that moment, connected to earth below and the heavens above. 

It was an indelible moment, just like Williams talked about, at a ranch near Saratoga, Wyoming, that has become known around the world as one of the best.

Contact Renee Jean at renee@cowboystatedaily.com

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.