Small Footprints on a Vast Montana Landscape

FOR two decades, as wealthy residents of both coasts have converged on Montana, buying chunks of its wide open spaces, Montanans have felt torn. For many, the increases in property values and job opportunities that have come with the new money have been outweighed by the mammoth estates beginning to dot the landscape and the manners of the newcomers who build them.

"Many times people just come in and throw up fences, and say, ‘To hell with everybody else,’ " said Bill Long, a managing director of Montana Land Reliance, a nonprofit land trust.

Steve Leffingwell, a 37-year-old rancher, steer roper and carpenter who lives in Clyde Park and whose family has ranched for more than 100 years, has spent four years building some of the trophy houses behind those fences. "I don’t want to be a hypocrite and say how terrible they are, because I had to help build them," he said. "But I can’t say I like them."

So when Greg Avis, a 47-year-old venture capitalist from Palo Alto, Calif., and his wife, Anne, also 47, a trustee of the National Public Radio Foundation, bought the first 1,200 acres of what is now a 17,000-acre ranch 20 miles north of Livingston in 1996, many neighbors expected more of the same. Mr. Leffingwell, like others, feared that the land would be "cut up or mismanaged."

By ELAINE LOUIE

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/garden/08montana.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

(Thanks to Jack Manning for passing this along. Russ)