Microsoft, Google Millionaires Bulldoze a New Aspen in Montana – Montana’s Celebrity Land Grab Continued …Letterman’s Top 10

Inside the Bulldog Saloon in Whitefish, Montana, hangs a sign that declares, “This Ain’t No Country Club.” Tell that to the Internet millionaires in the backroom.

Regulars who gather for poker include Mark Kvamme, whose Menlo Park, California-based Sequoia Capital financed Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. Kvamme, who owns a lakefront second home in Whitefish, is building a 1,275-acre (516-hectare) luxury residential development called the Homestead with Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Officer Richard Fuld.

Executives and investors enriched by the dot-com boom are buying land around the northwest Montana city of Whitefish, population 6,151, boosting property values, straining county services, and putting the former railroad outpost near Glacier National Park on the road to becoming a wealthy enclave like Aspen, Colorado, or Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

“In 1999 I bought real estate because I didn’t want all my money to be in Nasdaq,” says Kvamme, 44. The Nasdaq Stock Market composite index has declined 26 percent in the past six years. By contrast, his development, valued at $5,490 an acre two years ago, is for sale today for an average $50,000 an acre.

Montana has long been a magnet for hikers, hunters and anglers, who cherish its broad valleys, snowcapped mountains and trout-filled rivers. One in three residents has a hunting or fishing license. While Montana ranks fourth among U.S. states in land mass, it is 44th in population, with 926,865 residents. The state is the sixth-poorest on a per-capita basis, providing inexpensive land for $10 million homes that locals never expect to afford.

Full Story: http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=nifea&&sid=aEqwGsBvhzXE

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Montana’s Celebrity Land Grab Continued …

Letterman Eyes Property in Ruby River Valley

By Courtney Lowery, 9-23-05

CBS late night talk show host David Letterman is apparently interested in property in the Ruby River Valley in Montana’s Madison County.

We had heard some rumblings, so I dug into records at the County Clerk and Recorder’s office and while no property has been deeded to Letterman’s ranching entity, records show at least one survey was done for his corporation in July on two parcels of the Maloney Ranch bordering the southern tip of the Ruby Reservoir.

According to the State’s records, the parcels are all total just less than 500 acres with a five-bedroom farmstead and a whole lot of grazing land. The pieces put together, including the buildings, were appraised in 2003 at about $147,000.

Full Story: http://www.newwest.net/index.php/main/article/3466/