Will Anyone Buy This $72 Million Private Island In Montana?

If you want your own private island that’s accessible year-round on Montana’s Flathead Lake, you’ll need $72 million and the patience for a pretty significant renovation project.

It’s been more than three years since the 350-acre island with a huge unfinished, 45,000-square-foot French-style villa was first put on the market in a state where properties are selling the fastest. But it’s still up for sale.

Could 2025 be the year this property finally changes hands? 

“Well, who knows,” said Bill McDavid, the listing agent for the property with Missoula-based Hall and Hall. “I believe, given the interest, it’s possible. Nothing surprises me anymore in this business.”

McDavid will show the property again next month to an interested party he describes as “pretty serious,” particularly because they’ve been thinking about it since last year. 

“I feel pretty good about it,” he said.

A ‘Unique Bird’

Anyone who has spent time on the west side of Flathead Lake is probably familiar with the island and the massive, unfinished mansion that faces nearby Wildhorse Island. But people outside of Montana may be surprised that such a property is even up for grabs.

When writing the description for the listing a few years ago, McDavid did a lot of research to determine where Cromwell Island ranks in terms of largest privately-owned islands in the U.S., finally settling on its distinction as the largest privately-owned island in freshwater.

“That’s kind of cool,” McDavid said. “It’s such a unique bird, this island.”

How an island with an unfinished villa came to be on the market is a bit of a story itself.

Bob Lee, who founded Hunting World in the 1960s and was a famous collector, conservationist and explorer, bought Cromwell Island more than 40 years ago with his wife, Anne Brockinton Lee. 

The couple never completed the massive main residence and, as such, never actually lived there. Anne has been trying to sell the property following Bob’s death in 2016.

To be fair, Anne’s not exactly in a hurry to offload it, as she so far hasn’t been willing to drop the $72 million listing price.

“So far, $72 million is the number,” McDavid said.

What $72 Million Buys You

Whoever does end up buying this unique bird will get to call an entire island their home, complete with two structures, a boat dock that can accommodate a 70-foot yacht, an underground shooting range, a custom-built barge with a crane, and a diverse mix of wildlife as the only neighbors.

Even if most of us probably can’t afford the asking price, let alone the monthly mortgage payments, whether this next point is a selling point of the property probably depends on your perspective: The inside of the 16th-century-style French villa is completely unfinished. 

That makes for a “clean slate” of sorts for the buyer, as McDavid put it. Buyers can make any number of different configurations in the existing structure provided, of course, they like the outside.

“You don’t have to live with somebody else’s floor plan,” he said. “As long as somebody likes the construction, that leapfrogs the buyer down the road quite a ways.”

There have been some interested parties over the years, with potential buyers ranging from people who want to make the island their home to others who are interested in developing the island for other purposes. 

While there was a flurry of press when the listing hit the market back in 2022, interest hasn’t really waned much in that time, McDavid added.

Bears As Neighbors 

Though McDavid said he hasn’t fielded any interest in Cromwell Island from buyers looking for a doomsday bunker of sorts, the property “absolutely fits the mold.”

There is already electricity on the island, while the back-up generators could keep the lights on for months, even if the grid went down, McDavid said. 

While private, the island is less than 10 minutes from the shore in nearby Dayton and agitators in the channel can break up the ice in the winter.

But buyers certainly won’t be alone: Bears can swim across the channel to access the island, while game cams have also spotted mountain lions roaming around. 

For now, animals mostly get the property to themselves and anyone interested in taking a poke around will have to remember the famous line from the “Jerry Maguire” movie. 

“We’ve got to see the money first,” McDavid said of fielding requests from potential buyers. “We respect the fact that people have an interest in the property, but it’s not a museum.”