$18 Million Wyoming Legacy Ranch Surrounded By Elk Refuge Sells Immediately

A unique and rare legacy ranch in Jackson Hole has just gone on the market. It’s the Wapiti View Ranch, a 40-acre property surrounded by the 25,000-acre National Elk Refuge and the Gros Ventre wilderness, at a list price of $17.95 million.

Perhaps because a chance to own a pristine slice of Wyoming doesn’t happen often, there’s already an offer pending for the property.

That’s right, no sooner did this ranch hit the Jackson Hole market than it was snapped up in a flash at an undisclosed price.

That’s not uncommon for properties like this, which are surrounded by national forests where the stunning viewshed is virtually guaranteed in perpetuity.

“These things are rare,” Compass Real Estate Broker Richard Lewis told Cowboy State Daily. “And then you’ve definitely got the money in and around Jackson Hole to definitely take something like this down.”

The buyers, whose identity wasn’t disclosed, are already talking about ways to preserve the 1980s cabin that was built on the property. While it’s not a terribly old and historic cabin in and of itself, the craftsmanship is second to none.

“The gentleman who built the log cabin was the same guy who did the work on (Jackson’s Million Dollar) Cowboy Bar,” Lewis said. “Even though the cabin doesn’t have the age on it as a lot of historic log homes do in the area, the craftsmanship and the way it was built is very similar to how some of the older log homes were built in the 1920s around Jackson.”

Cowboy Bar Cabin

The “cabin” is actually a beautifully warm, 2,200-square-foot home that includes two bedrooms and has 2.5 bathrooms. Just about every window in the home, including the dining room’s picture windows, is framing the Tetons.

Every wall inside the home is log-cabin rustic, and the two fireplaces were built from stone quarried in the area, Lewis said.

But by Jackson standards, where average single-family homes have hit $7 million, the ranch’s home is rather small.

“The value of the property is not in the home,” Lewis said. “Most of the people we’ve had looking at it right now love the log home, but they’re looking at ways to potentially architecturally expand that.”

A majority of the ranch is in a conservation easement, but there’s a 5-acre exception where homeowners may build up to 13,500 square feet of building space between home, garage or barn, and guest house.

That gives the log cabin home plenty of room to grow.

The conservation easements did retain rights to raise cattle, run horses or grow things like hay, and also helped lower the property taxes on this particular location.

The Wapiti View Ranch was sold off in the 1970s from the much larger Twin Creek Ranch, begun a decade earlier, sometime in the 1960s.

A group of investors bought the ranch, negotiating the conservation easement and adding the fence as well as a new entryway, with the intention all along of putting the property back on the market.

The Amazing View Is Full Of Wildlife

Inholdings in Jackson Hole are rare. They typically result from private ownership that predates designation of a national park or forest area. Less than 0.5% of protected land in the Teton Valley has that status, and these parcels are in high demand whenever they hit the market.

Among the perks of these rare inholdings is that the views are likely to never change within any given homeowner’s lifetime. What you see is what you will get decades and decades later.

In this case, the amazing views the owner of this property will be buying include the Tetons off in the distance, as well as the Gros Ventre wilderness, which butts up against the ranch’s backside.

Then there’s the fact that the ranch itself is smack dab in the Elk Refuge itself, which extends into Grand Teton National Park.

That means the occupants of this cabin wake up to elk just about every day right in their front yard.

But it’s not just the elk who come to call.

“You’ve got elk, deer and moose,” Lewis said. “And there are bears, wolves, bighorn sheep — they’re all there. You can easily wake up to a whole herd of elk in your front yard and a moose staring through your window, eating your shrubs.”

World-class fishing, meanwhile, is within walking distance at Flat Creek, which is a blue-ribbon cutthroat trout fishery meandering through the Elk Refuge for about 3 miles.

Hunting isn’t allowed anywhere near this particular property, although there is an annual hunt some distance away on the Elk Refuge.

“The backyard here has a kid of courtyard feel, and it’s very private,” Lewis said.

That privacy creates the feeling that one is living in a sprawling ranch in the midst of a vast untamed wilderness.

And yet, Jackson is just 4 miles away.

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