Realtor Alexander Lexington with eXp Realty is promoting a great property in Wyoming. It’s 20 acres with three homes on-site, no covenants or HOAs, and a spring-fed creek that runs through the scenic spot.
The only “catch” is that it’s in Clark, which might be the windiest location in Wyoming. It takes a special type of Wyomingite to plant roots in a spot where everything and anything can be blown away.
How does someone sell a property in Wyoming’s windiest community? By going with the wind, rather than against it.
“Wind is a part of Wyoming,” Lexington said. “For a property as unique as this one, windy days are a trade-off a lot of people would gladly make.”
Best Of Everything
The current owner of the property, Suzi Sellers, has been living there since 2012. She approached Lexington and eXp Realty to help her find the best buyer for the property.
“I’m a relocation specialist,” Lexington said. “I speak to a lot of people who are considering relocating and trying to figure out if Wyoming could be the right fit for them and dig into what their goals are.”
Lexington was eager to find the best way to sell Sellers’s property. The 20-acre parcel offers a lot as it is and has plenty of potential.
“This is the kind of property people move to Wyoming for,” he said.
The property sits at the foot of the Beartooth Mountains, just south of the Montana state line. From there, one has an unobstructed view of the Beartooths, the Absarokas, and Heart Mountain.
Most properties have one livable structure, but there are three on this Clark parcel. The recently renovated main residence, the Sunset House, has three bedrooms, the Bennett Creek Home has two bedrooms, and the Clark Heritage House has one bedroom.
“That one was made of repurposed wood from the original barn on the property,” Lexington said.
The eXP listing promotes the property as a space for multi-generational living, guests, rental potential, home offices, hobbies, or “simply room for everyone to spread out while still sharing the same land.”
Lexington sees it as the perfect Wyoming property. It’s close enough to anything while being far enough from everything.
“Cody is a 30 to 40-minute drive, so there’s access to shopping and healthcare, but your home is nothing but wide-open spaces,” he said. “It could end up being the best decision you’ll ever make in your life.”
Lexington and Sellers don’t need to bend with the wind to showcase the potential of the property, but they’re not going against the wind either. In Clark, there’s no getting around it.
Wyoming’s Windiest
Clark might not be the windiest place in Wyoming, but it could be the windiest place where people actually live. And when you live in Clark, wind is both a constant companion and a noxious neighbor.
During Wyoming’s worst windstorms, gusts of 80 mph are akin to a light breeze in Clark. The National Weather Service regularly detects gusts over 100 mph in or near Clark, with some gusts getting as high as 128 mph.
“Clark is in an area where the air and wind want to move,” said Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day. “Whoever decided to settle Clark put it right into the jaws of a high wind area, because the terrain lines up with the prevailing winds.”
Clark sits at the mouth of the Clarks Fork Canyon, a beautiful but narrow expanse into the heart of the Beartooths. When the wind picks up, Day said it’s like putting your thumb over the end of a flowing hose.
“When you squeeze a fluid, you increase its speed,” he said. “These west-to-east trending canyons river systems coming out of Wyoming’s mountains tend to focus the wind, and Clark is right at the mouth of the canyon. All that air is pushed down the Clarks Fork and into Clark.”
In April 2023, a particularly wild windstorm picked up a 30-foot horse trailer and rolled it 70 yards across the open plains. Residents say the wind’s always strong, and always in your face about it.
“If you live somewhere without very much plant life to anchor the dirt and sand down, the wind will pick it up, and you will get sandblasted with it,” Clark resident Jacinta Schneider told Cowboy State Daily in November 2023. “One time, a 96-gallon trash can blew into my parents’ yard.”
That’s not a great selling point for any property in Clark. So, why go against the wind?
Selling As Is (And What Could Be)
Lexington doesn’t downplay the incredible winds of Clark. In fact, he makes a point to bring them up to interested buyers.
“When I talk to prospective buyers, I emphasize all the different aspects of Wyoming life and what comes with it,” he said. “You want the property to be perceived in the right way, and it’s a unique property with a lot of wind.”
Lexington, who lives in Casper, moved to Wyoming from Florida. He’s experienced Clark’s winds, and while there’s no point in denying their intensity, he doesn’t see it as much different from anywhere else in Wyoming.
“I believe Casper is actually more consistently windy than Clark,” he said. “Wind is a part of Wyoming.”
To an extent, Lexington sees any real estate acquisition as a “take your poison” when it comes to the hazards presented by the location. He’d take a windy spot in Clark over a hurricane-prone property in Florida and believes many people feel the same way.
Furthermore, Lexington said Sellers’s property has some built-in wind resistance.
“When designing and situating the property sites, Suzi positioned the buildings in a way where they would work with the wind and not against it,” he said. “As far as that goes, she's done a really good job.”
Blowing The Door Down
It’s been less than a week since eXp Realty posted the listing for 52 Road 8UC in Clark at $898,888. Since then, Lexington said he can barely keep up with all the interest.
“The listing had over 500,000 views on the first day,” he said. “I’ve gotten dozens of emails and messages from people with really high interest.”
One of the people who contacted Lexington said they were planning to visit northwest Wyoming in April. Now, they’re reconfiguring their schedule to travel earlier, specifically to see the property.
Nobody has mentioned concerns about Clark’s windy weather. All they see is promise and potential, which is exactly what Lexington believes they should see in this unique property.
“I love working with unique properties like this, because you get to look at everything that you could do with it,” he said. “There’s a lot of potential with this property in this location.”
Even some people who should know better are interested. Lexington said he got a serious inquiry from someone who lives “two miles away” from the spot.
“He told me that he's working with another realtor to get his property listed and figure it all out,” he said. “He called me to say he was very, very interested.”
A Windy Piece Of Paradise
Wyomingites who know Clark’s windy reputation might not consider relocating there, but Lexington believes many people see any piece of Wyoming as their personal paradise. He can definitely relate to that sentiment.
“My family relocated from a very busy, crowded area in Florida because we wanted something different for our lives and our kids,” he said. “Wyoming was the right fit for us, and a lot of people from other states are discovering they like the same fit.”
Wind or no wind, Clark could be everything some people look for when they want the best of both worlds.
“A lot of people are trading in the urban, cluttered areas for wide open spaces,” Lexington said. “There’s wind in Wyoming, and Clark gets some strong gusts, but I think that’s a trade-off those people are willing to make.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
