Pinedale Man Who Saved Landmark Stockman’s Steakhouse & Saloon Selling For $4.85M

Retirement was what Buck Buchenroth had in mind when he moved to Pinedale. Instead, he found himself working to save one of Pinedale’s most historic buildings from the wrecking ball — and working in the restaurant business far more than he intended.

Today, the entire Stockman’s Steakhouse and Saloon facility has been refurbished, from the restaurant with its new chef’s kitchen to the upstairs apartments and a party room with a pool table.

The redone saloon, off to one side of the restaurant, also has its own kitchen, and there is an arcade and a basement with ample storage space.

But what Buchenroth still wants to do is retire, not run a restaurant. So, he has put Stockman’s up for sale, listing the 6,180-square-foot property with Pinedale Properties for $4.85 million.

It’s a turnkey restaurant with apartments — six beds and eight baths that could be workforce housing, Airbnbs, or apartments.

Buchenroth said the building was “three windstorms” from falling over when he bought it in 2019. The structure under the subfloor looked solid, though, as did the timbers.

“This was built back when they cut whole trees and just shaped them and left them rough,” he said. “So it was really strong.”

But the roof actually fell in on top of him while he was designing his future dream kitchen.

That nearly killed him, Buchenroth has told Cowboy State Daily. Construction workers pulled him out and he woke up in an emergency room in Jackson, wondering what had happened. 

He was not sorry he bought the structure, though. It just made him more determined to save it. 

“No one else was going to do this,” Buchenroth said. “It would’ve been a teardown, and it just has such historical value … this was once the epicenter of this town. It was the first hotel in Sublette County, one of the largest buildings in town. It’s one of the first buildings in Sublette County. Not the first, but one of them, and certainly one of the first buildings in Pinedale.”

Landmark In The Heart Of Pinedale

Camden Bennett, the listing agent for Pinedale Properties, remembers having prom dinner at Stockman’s when he was a senior in high school.

He’s also seen it on other occasions, such as for weddings, including his own brother’s. 

“I saw it in disrepair when it was for sale before Buck bought it,” he said. “And to go in and see it now with everything restyled … It was a dark den of a place and he’s totally transformed that. It’s a bright, now family-friendly area.” 

To Bennett, what’s really for sale here is the core to Pinedale’s beginning.

“This is a landmark in the middle of Pinedale,” he said. “I mean, one corner of the building is actually at the corner of the original town-site plat. You can see the corner pin sticking out of the concrete right there at the corner of the building.”

The place started out as a hotel called The Pines, and was built two years before Pinedale was founded in 1902, according to a brief history published with the real estate listing.

Whiskey Hiding Under The Floor

The structure has been many iterations since then. It’s hosted a livery, domestic and wild-game butchering and a barber shop. It also, at one time, ran bootleg homemade whiskey at the restaurant. 

Buchenroth discovered that secret when he was working on some wiring for the wagon-wheel chandeliers. 

“My construction guys couldn’t find anything, just a solid hardwood floor,” he said. “So I got one of those rubber hammers and just crawled around on the floor and just kept hitting the hammer until I got to this wall, and it was like ‘dong ...’”

Buchenroth took a chainsaw to that area and next thing he knew the hardwood floor was falling away into a big black hole.

“I’m thinking I’m going to find somebody, something there we don’t want to find,” Buchenroth said with a chuckle. 

He got a broom handle to sweep away the cobwebs and a ladder to climb down into what appeared to be some sort of tunnel.

“All of a sudden there’s copper lines everywhere,” Buchenroth said. “There’s a full still under there. And they would serve hooch out this window and never got busted for it.”

Buchenroth took a few pictures of the old still, but decided to leave it where it was, covering a piece of history back up.

A Future Waiting To Be Written

Buchenroth hasn’t operated the restaurant full-time and lately has only been doing some catering jobs here and there. 

The buyer needs to be someone with a new vision for the place, Bennett said. 

“We’re selling the icon, the landmark, and it’s going to take a visionary who understands this area,” Bennett said. “There’s been a lot of input from other people that the buyer has to be someone local, somebody who cares about this area to the extent Buck does, who will pick up this project because they know what they can do with it.”

With space for a restaurant, apartments or offices upstairs, a saloon with its own kitchen, Bennett said he believes the potential for the property is high.

“Everything’s so well thought out,” Bennett said. “Buck took all of his experience and put it into Stockman’s and it’s a refined machine. He just, didn’t want to run at full speed.”

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