Guest Commentary
Warren Miller: Economic Stratification and the Yellowstone Club
By Warren Miller, Guest Writer, 1-02-09
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When I walked out of the Round House on Sun Valley’s famous Baldy Mountain in 1947 I was followed Gary Cooper, his wife Rocky and their ski Instructor to ride the single chair to the top. Several times during his vacation Gary said to me, “be sure and come visit me in Hollywood when the snow melts. I’ll even get you onto a movie set where I’m working.”
I was instinctively aware that once the snow melted we would have absolutely nothing in common, other than the fact that we both lived in Southern California. After World War II, successful and rich unfortunately became very closely associated and rich became a very negative term to many people who weren’t.
I think that the definition that fits rich better is ‘Economic Stratification.’
Gary Cooper was a very talented and financially successful movie actor while I was living in my four foot by eight foot teardrop trailer in the Sun Valley parking lot and skiing seven days a week for less than twenty cents a day. However, when all of us were standing at the top of the mountain deciding which run to ski down, we were all equal and thus “economic stratification” was erased from our interactions.
I have never liked the term rich, because it has come to mean the owner of a multi-million dollar condo at a ski resort that is only occupied for a week or two a year.
Lately I have read numerous newspaper articles about, “the haven for the rich and famous at the Yellowstone Club in Montana. Its’ gated community guards the super rich from being bothered by less fortunate people.” I signed on as the director of skiing at the club two years before the first lift was installed because its 14,000 acres of private property would continue to provide a wilderness experience for my children and my grandchildren. I bet my over-half-a-century reputation as an extreme sports movie producer that my own vision of the Yellowstone Club would someday become a reality. It has done that and then some. However, during the last ten years, there have been a few divorces amongst the over 320 members that have shattered their own lives. And then a contentious divorce by the founders of the Club, the Blixseths, has temporarily delayed the fulfillment of the dream that every member has come to expect. Having one of those ugly divorces in my own background, I know that when you split your married financial nest egg in half, it takes a long time to recover. And recovery at The Yellowstone Club is happening right now.
Almost every member that I know graduated from college, with a lot of student debt to pay off. While working at their first real job, they found a new way to do the same thing better and started working six and seven days a week. Not eight hour days, but ten to sixteen hour days. The stories are legend about some of the early Microsoft days when a lot of the young lions slept on the floor in their cubicles for a few hours a night because they were so excited about what they were doing. ‘Economic stratification’ began to separate them from their friends who only wanted to work eight hours a day, five days a week.
I have considered myself economically stratified ever since the age of fourteen when I delivered the Los Angeles Shopping News to Walt Disney’s home in the Los Feliz hills adjoining Griffith Park. In 1937, I could throw the paper over the wall to his house as well as the other economical stratified people who lived in his neighborhood.
In 1950, I borrowed $100 from four friends to launch my motion picture company because no one person would loan me the necessary $400 and thus my economic stratification has continued to this day.
Almost every member of The Yellowstone Club is a self made, very successful person and can’t avoid being Economically Stratified. Can they pay more for a cup of Starbucks coffee than you can? Do they still drive all night to go skiing close to where they live when they don’t have time for their Montana vacation? Yes, and they do that on a lot of weekends.
What would happen if one of the wealthiest people in the world showed up at Vail or Aspen with his wife and children? They would be mobbed by people wherever they went! The privacy that every member of the Yellowstone Club has earned by their hard work is highly treasured by them.
What if you are a skier, out of work and live in Detroit? You are temporarily economically stratified but you can still car pool drive to Boyne Mountain. If you can’t afford to buy a lift ticket you can climb to the top of the mountain as often as you want to and ski down at your own speed. A lot of skiers did that in the 1930s and ‘40s until we could afford to buy a $2.00 rope tow ticket. With the help of gravity everyone is equal at the top of any mountain. How you got there is up to you. The only inequality at a ski resort is where the various levels of ‘Economic Stratification’ will get to sleep after their day of skiing or snowboarding.
For more Warren Miller stories and stuff, visit www.warrenmiller.net
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Comments
I know a handful of very wealthy individuals that would never, ever buy into the yc. For a lot of the members, and most definitely THE FOUNDERS of the club, buying in isn't about security, isn't about nature, skiing untracked powder, or family.
It's about STATUS, and for the founders, MAKING MORE MONEY AT ANY COST.
I work for the Billings Outpost. I don't think any of the "numerous stories" that you refer to have appeared in our pages. Maybe you're not as widely reviled as you think.
Economic stratification doesn't work as a synonym for rich. Wealthy folks are just one strata. You're no more economically stratified than poor folks. You just reside in the top layer.
But the reason you were brought on was to waste your reputation obscuring the obscenity of YC and it looks like you are working so much overtime I wonder if you are sleeping in your cube. Or cage.
Better get to work on somebody like FDR who'll realize the middle class is really just a firewall between you privileged (no matter how you got it) folks and those folks who can't feed their families.
History is full of situations where there wasn't an FDR--and now they are referred to as former...
Maybe it’s the term stratification… Are you a skier? Well, there are many that can’t afford skis. Do you take joy when someone who can afford more expensive skis than you loses or breaks them? Do you think someone who can’t afford, even the 5th season pair that you’re wearing should envy/hate/ridicule you because you had the audacity to flaunt your 5th season skis around those who can’t eve afford that? Were you simply lucky, or did you work for those skis? My point is: there’s always someone better off than you and there’s always someone worse off.
Most of us strive to better our lives. Some are more successful than others and obviously some emphasize things differently. So, what is really important?
Family, friends, community and life experiences. There’s my list.
I see a lot of knee jerk comments and assumptions about who the members of the Yellowstone Club are, why they’re there, and how they got there. We’re all just people, pursuing our own dreams.
I know you don’t want to hear this part, but, I’m going to repeat it anyway… I grew up dirt poor. My mother was raising three kids by herself working as a checker in a grocery store in Indio, California. Basically a Mexican immigrant ghetto near the Salton Sea, out in the middle of the deserts of south-central California.
All off the “rich” people lived in Palm Springs, probably 30 or so miles away. We didn’t envy them and we didn’t hate them, and didn’t really care that they all packed up and moved away in the summer when it was too hot to stay. Most of the restaurants, clubs, etc. closed for the summer, but, that didn’t affect us, because we could barely afford Shakey’s Pizza once a month. I did hate the heat and wished we could go to a “summer home” that was cooler, but, it just wasn’t possible.
I am who I am. Growing up like this didn’t make me envy the rich. It kept me grounded. I knew that I wanted to be successful and that I needed to get out of the desert. This wasn’t for the sake of money, but, for the sake of raising a family and having some sense of security.
Through good times and bad, I managed to use a lot of my ambition to claw my way through college, working odd jobs, taking out student loans (did I mention my mother was a checker in a grocery store?), applying for scholarships, and getting Really, Really lucky…
Somehow, I managed to end up in the right place at the right time and the dot.com industry fell in my lap. Financially, this changed my life. Practically, it did not. Did I deserve this? Ya, I think so. It was hard work, determination, and a large helping of luck. But, why not? What if it happened to you?
So, after a couple of years at Yahoo!, I found myself thinking that I’d sold myself to the devil. I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do. I wanted to raise a family, hunt, fish, ski… I wanted to experience life. And I wanted my kids to experience life.
About this time, I started looking for someplace where I could build a cabin. Someplace close to good hunting, fishing, skiing, etc. Something that I could have never afforded in my earlier life. So, I stumbled upon this idea that was the Yellowstone Club.
Ten years ago, the slogan was “where families gather”. That, plus the fact that it was near great fishing, hunting and skiing, made me decide to take a look.
When I fist came out to look, it was simply a chairlift, a couple of very small cabins, and a bunch of dirt roads. There were only a handful of members, but, they were really interesting people. I loved it. This was a great place for me, and a great place for my kids… I didn’t care about privacy, and, at the time, it wasn’t a trophy. It was fun skiing, fishing, hiking and would never be crowded.
So, I bought a lot. It was the first lot past the guard gate, with a meadow in front where my then young children could bounce around picking wildflowers, eating wild strawberries, and I could see both Pioneer and Lone Mountain from my deck.
If you could have done the same, wouldn’t you? There was no reputation, no history, just an idea in the middle of paradise.
The next year, I built a log cabin. I redlined a floor plan that I found online, sent it to a log home manufacturer in victor, MT and built my little 3 bedroom log cabin for my family. We loved it!
For the first several years, we lived there the entire summer by ourselves. Nobody else around. We felt part of the Big Sky community, the Yellowstone Club community hadn’t really developed yet. But, by fits and spurts, the club community also grew.
In the early years, we made many great friends in the club. People that we genuinely like to see and spend time with. It doesn’t matter what they have or don’t have, and, I certainly hope none of them judge me by the fact that I live in the smallest home in the club.
Then something changed… The ownership/management seemed to lose touch of what the club was about to many of us early members… It became a trophy, or what I like to call a Monument to the Robb Report Readers… (For those of you who don’t know what the Robb Report is, it’s a magazine that tells the newly rich what they’re supposed to want, just in case they’re not creative enough to figure that out on their own).
This is not what we wanted. We liked the small, understated lodge we all started with “The Buffalo Bar and Grill”. A small log structure with a kitchen and a bar where we happily squeezed in at the end of the ski day. Nobody wanted the “Caviar Bar”. What a fiasco!
I, like many others, wanted to be in Montana, not some surreal interpretation that proved that money can’t buy taste.
Let’s go back a few paragraphs… Sometime after I built my home in Montana, I found what I was looking for. And I knew it wasn’t printing my own money in Silicon Valley… So, I quit. I figured whatever was next I would figure out later.
One spring, I took a trip up to Alaska to go moose hunting. It was a great experience. Just two of us, dropped off by a bush pilot out in the middle of indescribable vastness. It was a truly great experience for me, fishing for dinner, hunting, living amongst huge brown bears gorging on blueberries, but, it would also become another life changing event for me.
After shooting a moose and hiking it back to camp, we noticed there were no planes flying. For days, no signs of life… No contrails from jets flying the polar route to Asia, no bush pilots… nothing. We new something bad had happened, but, not exactly what. We figured we’d better start the year-long hike to Anchorage when we had our first signs of life… a 1941 Grumman Goose labored in, landed on the lake, tailed in to shore, opened the window and declared “guess what? They blew up the World Trade Center!”.
This had a profound affect on me. I had clawed myself out of Indio, California, or as the locals called it “Barrio Indio Norte”, and now here I was, in an upper financial strata, all just because of the opportunities that I had as an American. It deeply affected me. Other than giving money to charity, I had never done anything substantial back to the great Country that allowed a person with a little smarts, and a lot of ambition to ascent the strata like I did.
So, I did what I thought was the best thing I could have possibly done in that situation… I flew back home, walked into an Air Force recruiter’s office and told them “I have a commercial pilot’s license, and I used to teach in the math school at New York University, What can you do with me?”
Soon after, much to my family’s amazement, I was sworn in and trained in an Air Force Special Ops Command Combat Search and Rescue Squadron. Now, six years later, after 2 tours to Afghanistan, I have successfully completed more than 20 combat rescues. In other words, I flew out in the middle of the night, in an HH60 Pavehawk helicopter, found busted up kids in the deserts of Afghanistan, and got them home safely. Whether you agree or not, I feel like I did my part. My commitment was up almost 2 years ago, I still keep extending my stay in the Air National Guard because I believe in the mission, and I believe that we all need to continue to do what we know is right.
Coming back to the Yellowstone Club… Yes it’s a mess right now. It’s not what I bought into, but, that’s not because of the members. Sure, there may be one or two that joined due to an ad in the Robb Report. And there may be a couple that are there simply to build a trophy house in a trophy resort… But, if you categorize the members simply as that, you’re wrong. We the members will navigate the current financial troubles and will do what we can to support the community. For many of us, this is home. This is a place where we have made a commitment and our families will be here for a long long time…
I consider myself part of the Big Sky community. I play pool and shoot darts at Milky’s, we have dinner at the Corral, we have lunch at the Wrap Shack, and Bugaboo… I support the local businesses and people as best I can. They are my friends and my neighbors. Privacy is not what it’s about for me. My kids will always go to public school, and I’m in Big Sky because I fell in love with the area not because of any trophy, or ad… simply because of an idea… Where families gather. I’m doing everything I can to get back on that course.
So, before you jump to conclusions about who we are and why we’re there… ask yourself, honestly, would you have done the same thing?
But what offends me about the YC, and about other private gated communities throughout the West (until the recession, they were popping up like pansies) is the implicit message, the philosophy behind the very idea. To wit: We don’t need you.
Every gated community in the world is built for one purpose and one purpose only. To close the gate. Fundamentally, it’s an erosion of the social contract, a way of isolating the owners from the problems of the world outside. The message is: We can fly into Bozeman on a private jet, take a chartered hummer to Big Sky, eat food that’s been placed in our freezers by anonymous aides, have a soak, ski a few runs, then fly back to Palm Springs. The members of most gated resorts do not need to interact in any meaningful way with their neighbors, with the pilots and pavers, carpenters and cooks, loggers and lift operators, the blue collar workers who collectively made their particular kind of success possible.
I would suggest to Troy that if “community” is one of the legs of a meaningful life that he reconsider what it means to be a real part of the community. It’s not about paying property taxes, nor is it about buying a round at the corner pub (although that’s part of it). It’s about helping your neighbor build a fence, stretch some wire, maybe brand in the spring. It’s about your daughters sharing the stage in some stumbling, eighth grade production of Fiddler on the Roof. It’s about being invested in the well-being of your neighbors, and having them invested in yours. It’s about having someone pull you out of the ditch without feeling like you have to pay for it. And it’s about you carrying a tow rope in the bed of your truck so you can someday reciprocate.
When you buy into a gated community, you are saying, in no uncertain terms, I don’t trust you, I don’t need you, I don’t want you around.
I would suggest that most negative reactions to the YC and to other gated communities, so often misinterpreted by the owners as jealousy (or “class envy,” as Wade Dokken, the owner of the Ameya Resort, put it) is simply the most natural response to being told that you are irrelevant.
I agree, and I do... My kids have been in "concerts" banging on drums with other kids in the Meadow, they've gone to "camps" learning about science, nature, the yellowstone ecosystem, or just playing tennis or soccer with the other kids of the community at Ophir school. I help in every way that I can when asked. I help when I see a need when not asked. Nobody who provides a "service" for me is anonymous, and I go well beyond paying taxes and buying a beer at the local pub. And, notably, in these respects, I am NOT unique. I have many good friends in the Club that are just as committed to the Big Sky community.
I'm not saying this to toot my own horn, but, to let you know that your knee jerk assumptions are misplaced. I give my time and money to the community that I am a part of. Whether I live in a "gated" community or not. Please don't judge what you don't know.
My sentiments and values are genuine. Nothing misrepresented here. Rather than bore everyone here with details, call me. I'm always willing to share: 619-405-5715
Fair enough, and thanks for your gracious response. (Sharing a phone number in this forum says a great deal about your intentions, about your sentiments and values.) I'm very glad that you're making a real effort toward community.
I would argue that the reasoning behind my comment still stands, though. Gated communities exist to close the gate, to cut members off from the community outside. Your initial comment started out with a question. Why all the negativity? My comment was an attempt to answer it. Would you agree that the idea of having a gate around a separate community sends a message? Wouldn't the community at large (Big Sky) be MORE of a community if the gate didn't exist?
Here's my point: There are valid reasons for gated communities. There are members, like myself, that are basically nobodys that just happen to have money... I don't need or want privacy and I would invite anyone that I got along with up to my home in the club. But, that's me... there are also members that I'd consider "targets".
I have my own reasons for joining the club, that had nothing to do with privacy or security. But, others have higher profiles and have a demonstrable need... Could you imagine having the concerns and troubles of a "Bill Gates", or a "Brittney Spears", or some other random high-profile person of either fame or fotune?
Yes, maybe they could ski a day at Vail without being accosted. They could probably ski a day in Moonlight Basin without being accosted... But, could they have a home in Westfork Meadow without some lunatic eventually showing up on their doorstep, or, paparazi, or, kidnappers, or, (insert issue here)?
My point is this: There is a point. And until you have lost all privacy in your life, or, had someone try to harm you or your children, simply because you are either rich or famous... You really don't know all of the issues.
I know this is not a complete answer, but, we are all concerned by the damage done to the community from the Club Bankruptcy and the downturn in the economy...
Many of us are doing what we can to help. Not just to vendors/employees/suppliers that haven't been paid, but, also to those that have been laid off, or, otherwise hurt by the economic issues at hand.
One of these efforts is LIFT. LIFT was spearheaded by a Club member and local resident of Big Sky. It is a charitable fund that seeks donations and offers cash grants to people in need in Big Sky. Not to plug my own blog, but, this was from Jan 1st after witnessing some spontaneous fundraising that netted a substantial amount of relief that will go to helping the people and families affected in Big Sky: http://www.ebscorp.com/blog/?p=36
The LIFT site, for donations or applications for aid is at: http://mtcf.org/lift.html
There are also efforts underway to offer relief to vendors/suppliers/etc. that have not been paid because of the bankruptcy. I don't have as many details, but, help is on the way.
We are all committed to getting through this mess and moving forward, as a community.
I'm digging this back and forth. It's unusual to have a member weigh in on the debate. Thanks.
So the principal justification for the gate is insulation from paparazzi and stalkers, the well-being of members who are also potential targets. I'm sure there's something here, but the implicit message being sent still plays into my initial argument. The message is a lack of trust in the community at large.
In Paradise Valley, Peter Fonda manages to live without a gate. As does Jeff Bridges. Dennis Quaid, etc. The owner of the Atlanta Falcons grocery shops next to a billionaire developer from Phoenix. They manage privacy and security without conspicuously cutting themselves off from the community at large.
Does the (debatable) benefit of security for a very few outweigh the harm done by a fracturing of the community? Not just in Big Sky but across the West....
Really, my pleasure. I agree that not everyone needs security. Maybe the threat is real, maybe perceived... Whatever the reason, my opinion is that security is only an illusion that fills a need for some.
What I disagree about, is fracturing... I have as many friends in Big Sky and Bozeman as I do in the club. I've been to weddings of ex-employee/photographer/ski bums in Bozeman that I consider good friends, pulled people out of ditches, and picked up hitchikers trying to get up the mountain, back home, or back to their kayak. I don't really see the fracture.
More later, my son has been asking me all morning to go turn up the amps and play guitar in the garage... Family calls...
That aside, I am 66 and watched Warren Miller ski movies in an auditorium in the fall for years, even before high school. Miller is a really old dude, folks. He narrated them himself in those days, had a drawing for some ski wax, duofold long johns, local lift tickets, whatever, as door prizes. He earned his right to pay to ski in solace. Earned it. At a time of confiscatory taxes. A whole lot of unfortunate people have been eating pizza he paid for, in apartments others paid the rent for.
When you start to whine about the very existence of the Yellowstone Club on private property obtained by a land trade with the USFS, don't you ever, ever, forget that it was a process driven by local environmental organizations with national support. The GYC wanted that extension of protection, of public lands, bellied up to Yellowstone Nat'l Park, and that was the arm's length land exchange, with some dollars for boot, that was gained by what we are supposed to believe was a democratic process. It was public, with all the public notices and meetings. Don't ever mention the deal as a "give away" unless you want to expose the world to your prejudices and foibles.
Some folks are to the manor born, and others say that they "got lucky." Luck is managed opportunity. You make your own luck. You do what it takes to be in position to receive great benefits from work that suddenly becomes highly valued. If you can sing well enough to have millions paying to watch you, buy your music, you earned the money. Or your invention, your software program, your real estate, whatever. If you don't pay the entry free, you don't draw a bull and you don't ride at the rodeo, and you can't be the bad ass bull rider of all time. You pays your money and you takes your chances. We live binary lives. Every decision is plus or minus, left or right, up or down. Where that leads is based on our own decisions, and circumstances at the time. People who end up with a home and membership at the YC either were to the manor born, or they made a remarkable string of correct decisions. And Timmy was there to take their money for a good idea gone bad, because that is the Blixeth way.
As to the insular idea of a "gated" community, you do know that many live full time in those communities. Personal security in a time of growing criminality is a decision you make and pay for. They chose to pay for it. The peace of mind. My boss had a nephew, an LA kid out for a good time, end up in a Mexican border bar, days later, slumped up against a booth wall, without his internal organs. Not kidnapped. Gutted for organ transplants. Another friend of mine's previous neighbor in Cabo was kidnapped for ransom. It is a bad ass world out there, and some comfort for those who can afford it is living in a secure environment. Go to any ghetto rent subsidized housing, and ask if the people living there are concerned about their personal safety every day. You know the answer. YC people, who have to have considerable means just to buy in, have legitimate fears. I went to grade school in the 1950s with some kids whose mother lived on the same street as the Weyerhaeusers in Tacoma. She drove her kids three blocks to school and back, daily, because she had money and was traumatized by the Weyerhaeuser kidnapping. In our sleepy little town, we thought that odd and anti-social, in a way. But there was not a gated community. When there was a semblance of one, they moved there.
I have yet to have a good job that had me working for a poor person. Come to think of it, I have never had a job working for a poor person. People with money spend it. It is why they have it. Scrooge McDuck was a comic character. And some of those people make much more, every day, than they can possibly spend on themselves. So it their capital that runs our economy. And in local economies, it is their spending that runs the local economy. Big Sky, and YC is an integral part of that whole valley, runs on people spending money on entertainment. There is not one thing essential to an industrial economy in Big Sky. The timber is saved for amenity values, or has been logged. The remains are devoted to having fun. Mad money. And everyone there ought to remember that. Without the spending of people with lots of extra money, there is nothing there. Because there is lots of heavy duty money spending it in the area, people of lessor means have jobs, and access to world class skiing. Not at the YC, mind you, but at damned good ski areas on the margin of the YC. The synergy of that place is palpable, and when the YC went sour, the bills that went unpaid, the building contractors and subs went unpaid, the hurt was severe and widespread. The only thing that will heal that is for people who have money still, to spend it having a good time, and wanting to be a part of the local scene at least on a part time basis. The hopes and dreams of Gallatin county rest on rich people spending money. Pray for it. Do dances around the campfire for it. Hope for it. That is the salvation.
And, if you see Warren Miller, thank him for 60 or more years of great fun, and terrific film. If Bill Gates is in town, think about where we would be without his and Paul Allen's idea for a common language for computers. Celebrate Greg LeMond for showing the world an American could cycle with the world's best. You know that Lance Armstrong does. YC is a good deal for Big Sky and Bozeman. So much good should not be destroyed just because a charlatan and fraud like Blixeth couldn't help himself, or that his Ponzi came to an end. And celebrate all those who have the dough and inclination to ski on slopes they bought and paid for. Their existence provides the ambience that pervades the area, and provides the synergy to have all the other amenities and services that are legion. One crook does not make the whole of the place bad.
If you want to live in a commune and grow beets for the politburo, no one will stop you. You have the freedom to do what you want and be with who you want. Not unlike those who ponied up their money to live in YC.
One of the lessons of life I have learned, is that most (not all) people of means got there because they are great people. Nice. Friendly. Hard working. Some changed when they had a lot of money for a while, but most stayed just the same, and only drove better cars, had more houses, and had more fun. If they were fun, you have to know they hang with others who want to have fun, also. That might include in inordinate number of people of means they have met while having fun at a more expensive level than most can afford. So what?
And at the end of it all, Europe had progressed, and the people gained freedoms never obtained before. And great wealth. They also participated in the enslavement of minorities, and majorities alike. From slavery in chains to indentured servants, there was class distinctions above that level. Still are today. And still are in most of the world. But there is no class distinction against wealth, the buyer of the greatest freedom of all, the freedom from want. You can still obtain that today, if you are driven, lucky, and focused. All those Asian kids in public schools with the straight A's are doing exactly that. They are using our education system, our freedoms, to align themselves to succeed. And they do that as a minority, a racial minority, in a free country that makes a sincere effort to disallow discrimination on the basis of color, gender, religion, national origin, and now even sexual preference. The Yellowstone Club is not a threat to those freedoms. It is an expression of those freedoms.
Thousands begin marathons each year in Boston, New York, and other cities. There is only one winner for men and one for women. Would we be a better place if all finished as they started? If all finished with the same time? Life is a game, and to some, an economic game. And in that game, few do really well, and most do OK, and there are those that don't do well at all. Some don't try. Some don't want to play by the rules. Others don't want to work. And that is their decision. I don't see how the US can be painted as a place of middle ages serfdom when we see so many coming here from other parts of the world to do better and they do. They usually do that by working, by managing their opportunity. Live with it.
I thought the gate at the entrance was silly until I learned that it takes two hours for the sheriff to arrive when they are called at night. The Club is in Madison County and the law is on the other side of the mountain range. Not only do we have to provide our own security we have to have our own fire department because the county does not provide us with any services. This is in spite of paying millions of dollars of property taxes.
Everyone I know at the Club is self made and they pride themselves on the number of jobs they created and the good work environment they provided their employees.
I know a woman who worked at the Safeway in Indio during the early seventies. She also had three children...
Edra Blixseth having financial trouble, court documents show
Keith Matheny • The Desert Sun • January 4, 2009
A messy divorce and the national real estate and credit meltdown have converged to put Edra Blixseth, one of the Coachella Valley's richest residents and best-known philanthropists, in her own financial crisis.
While those involved — Blixseth herself and employees and vendors of her 240-acre Porcupine Creek estate and private golf course in Rancho Mirage — are tight-lipped about the situation, public documents and court filings lay bare the extent of Blixseth's financial troubles.
Employees and vendors of Porcupine Creek, contacted by The Desert Sun, declined to comment on the record about television reports that some have not been paid for several weeks. Blixseth and Porcupine Creek officials did not respond to several phone messages and e-mails seeking comment.
And according to court records, two of Blixseth's attorneys have asked to be removed from a case because they have not been paid.
The situation stands in sharp contrast to media reports from December 2006, when Tim and Edra Blixseth garnered national news attention when they arranged to divorce by dividing their assets over a bottle of wine and with a notepad, without lawyers.
That amicable image soon devolved into nearly two years of litigation involving the pair.
Edra Blixseth told Forbes magazine in August 2008 that the assets were divided up “almost how we talked about it, yet we spent millions on legal fees. It's too bad and it's ironic. I would rather have donated the money to charity.”
Taxes owed
Blixseth finalized a divorce settlement with her husband, Tim, in August. A former billionaire timber baron, Tim Blixseth was listed as one of the Forbes 400 richest Americans in 2005.
The couple's holdings included a Caribbean island and one of the most expensive castles in Europe, Chateau de Farcheville in Bouville, France.
The settlement called for Edra Blixseth to pay Tim $35 million to buy out his share of the ultra-exclusive Yellowstone Club ski and golf resort in Montana.
Blixseth borrowed the $35million from Boston-based CrossHarbor Capital, putting up a Rancho Mirage home on King Edward Court and other properties as collateral, according to Montana bankruptcy court and Riverside County property records.
The divorce settlement also left Edra Blixseth with Porcupine Creek — and a mountain of debt, nearly $400 million owed to Yellowstone Club investors, vendors and creditors.
The Yellowstone Club is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and a federal bankruptcy judge in December approved a short-term, $20 million loan to Edra Blixseth from CrossHarbor to keep the club operational during the winter.
“Blixseth has contributed substantial amounts of her own money to the (Yellowstone Club), but no longer has the financial wherewithal to continue funding the (Yellowstone Club's) operations,” Judge Ralph B. Kirscher stated in his Dec. 17 ruling.
Additionally:
The IRS in August placed a lien on Blixseth's assets for more than $2 million owed in federal taxes, according to documents filed with the Riverside County clerk-assessor's office. The state of California also has filed a lien for more than $327,000 owed in state taxes.
A lawsuit filed against Blixseth and her Blixseth Group Inc. by a former pilot of the family's private jets was delayed in Riverside County Superior Court last month, as Blixseth's attorneys asked to be removed due to her failure to pay them.
Attorneys Janie F. Schulman and Kathryn M. Davis of the Los Angeles law firm Morrison and Foerster did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Blixseth last month was sued in Colorado for allegedly missing five straight monthly payments on a more than $13million loan for real estate development from Western Capital Partners LLC.
Blixseth is being sued in Riverside County Superior Court by One 11 Partners LLC for allegedly failing to pay rent on a retail space on Highway 111 in Rancho Mirage. That's where Blixseth operated Blxware, a computer software company.
Blixseth last month put Porcupine Creek up as collateral with Palm Desert National Bank to satisfy debts with the bank for a number of her companies as well as loans in the past year totaling more than $3.77 million.
Symbol of wealth
Since it was completed in 2002, Porcupine Creek has stood as a symbol of wealth and success in a Rancho Mirage community renowned for it.
The estate features nine lakes and an 18-hole golf course. It has hosted numerous charity events, frequent political fundraisers for Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs, and two fundraisers for Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.
How Blixseth's financial difficulties may affect her philanthropy is uncertain.
Blixseth serves as board president for Shelter from the Storm, a local nonprofit providing services to victims of domestic violence. She last year donated $1.5 million to expand facilities at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles.
Club in trouble
Blixseth's financial future is tied closely to the Yellowstone Club, a more than 14,000-acre ski and golf community for the ultra-rich, near Big Sky, Mont. It features a private ski hill, multimillion-dollar homes and high-profile members such as Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates.
The transfer of the club to Edra Blixseth also called for settling a $39 million lawsuit brought by cycling champion Greg LeMond, a minority shareholder, against Tim Blixseth.
The Yellowstone Club, in bankruptcy court filings, claims it has assets of $780 million, much of it wrapped up in undeveloped real estate. Debts are $400 million, including a $307 million loan that Credit Suisse manages for a group of investors.
The bridge loan from CrossHarbor, which specializes in distressed real estate debt, is designed to keep the club operational this winter in the hope of finding new buyers through the bankruptcy case.
Edra Blixseth has attempted to sell the Farcheville castle in France, valued at $60 million, for “much-needed operating cash” for the Yellowstone Club, bankruptcy Judge Kirscher stated in a court filing.
“Given the current economic conditions, (Blixseth) has been unsuccessful in selling such an asset,” Kirscher stated.
Blixseth testified in bankruptcy court that the closure of Yellowstone Club would have a “devastating impact” on the local economy, on her and her companies' assets, and therefore on the collateral of creditors.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
What, exactly, would you have done differently in the same situation? Honestly, not a knee jerk, "holier than thow" response...
You seem to be anti-capitalism... Which is fine, I'm not judging your politics, I'm just curious what you would have done differently...
As Will says in the essay, "...this supposed civil rights victory, which erected a barrier between high school graduates and high-paying jobs, has exacerbated the income disparities between high school and college graduates." Of course, Will is challenging government as the end all and be all of societal good, as is his way and conservative point of view. He is, however, cautioning all of us that there unintended consequences of encoding fixes in law, and the trap of unintended consequences can make the cure worse than the disease.
The redistribution of wealth that will make those who hold people with great wealth in distain pleased, can also lead to wealth accumulation in the hands of bureaucrats who will in turn just keep it for themselves as we have seen in socialist and communist countries throughout the world. The issue in the U.S. is not the wealth, but the access to opportunity to acquire wealth. People live here, move to here, just to have the opportunity to better themselves. And many do. Those who are here, who do not avail themselves to the opportunity, have a huge tax supported safety net of government subsidized food, housing, and education, all designed to allow people to live and make an attempt to better their economic condition. The lengths that we go, as a country, to help people can in turn erect new barriers to success. Many do not have the trust in themselves to attempt to leave the comfort of the dole, to break out and find new and better ways to live and thrive. None of that is the fault of the wealthy. And, there is no way to redistribute history, to go back and change history. Nor should there be, if only because that would be the end of public or personal responsibility.
The issue with the Yellowstone Club is that people of means were offered a pleasant set of conditions for a set amount of money. Only the seller was running a Ponzi, and using monies meant and promised for other purposes for his personal pleasures and toys. Fannie Mae or Timmy Blixeth, it makes no difference. Trust was placed in people, and they looked after themselves instead of those whose trust they had gained. Bernie Madoff started his Ponzi the year Kennedy was elected President, and he made it work under nine Presidents and administrations, of both political persuasions. Blixeth ran out of time sooner in the process. The people who bought into his deal are not bad because they did, nor are they to be castigated because they have made some money. The villain is Blixeth. Was Blixeth. Will be Blixeth forever. The issue is Blixeth, not the people who paid to join the YC. They are victims of a Ponzi deal. No more and no less.
thnx. I'll carry the firewood.
Ski where you want to ski, with who you love, who you want to be with, and who can keep up with you. All turns are good turns.
Thanks Troy and Bearbait!
First off, I am not evil. I'm sorry you feel that way and that you "have a hard time" believing otherwise.
Second off... Please define "GREED" as you so eloquently stated that Master Toole succumbed to. It sounds to me like your buddy, Master Toole, was doing what you do. Identifying demand and building product. If he would have been more successful, would that have been GREED or, was it just because the economy collapsed around him and he, I presume, failed? We all take calculated risk to some degree. Stasis can be risk, motion can be risk. We all try to make our way through life keeping things interesting and creating opportunities for those we care about. Some are more successful financially than others, some are more successful spritually, some are more successful physically... What's important to you? Strive for what's important to you.
Are you trying to do better for yourself and your family, or simply trying to maintain status quo? I'm sure you're eating and staying warm... Isn't that GREED to take jobs just to make more money so that you and your family can live a little better? Was it GREED that you took a job you HATED just for money? I once had a job that I HATED... I quit... life's too short to waste it doing what you don't want. Find your way out.
I'm sorry to hear that you HATE to work in the Club... When I built my house, I rented all of the rooms at the Corral and put my crew up there. They were mostly from the Bitterroot, so, we needed some place local. I ate/drank/fished/played pool with them. We went on hunting trips, went fishing, snowboarding, skiing... I thought we were all friends and that they appreciated the work and enjoyed the project. I HATE to think that they HATED working there... Even after the procect was complete, we all climbed into the truck and drove to Canada to bow hunt for black bears (I got a great pair, sow + yearling. The full body mounts are in my cabin in the club).
yes, there was red tape with the club, but, for the most part, it was mitigated and we got things done. I got my cabin, they got work, and everyone was happy. Even now, 10 years later, I still get visits and still invite many of the "workers" that helped me with my Montana dream over to my home for skiing/snowboarding/hunting/fishing. Feel free to ask them... Ask Richard Patterson my GC from Victor, ask Jim York my painter from Missoula, ask Alexis, the chinker, ask Travis Andersen from Bozeman who helped Jim prep and paint, ask Chase the finish carpenter who broke his ribs snowboarding in the club with me (I drove him to see Dr. Dan before we realized how bad it was and had to send him in an ambulance to Bozeman). I don't think any of them HATED working in the Club.
I guess you would call it all just BOOM or BUST GREED, but, I personally am glad that I did it. And I take offense to your posit that I am "evil".
So here's the deal... I'll assume that you're not just a whining and disgruntled pariah, looking for someone to blame, if you don't assume that I'm evil and GREEDY.
quid pro quo...
As for Joe and Allen, I'm not sure who you are referring to... Didn't see a reference in my quick glance above.
The contractor who I ask the same question of replied with much cursing. It seems that the Yellowstone Clubs Construction Company owes his company a substantial sum of money for work completed on the WARREN MILLER LODGE. He lives in Big Sky his kid goes to school in Big Sky. He is my friend as are his 12 employes.This contractor is one of the best and most talented people that I know living in Big Sky it was sad to see him in such a rage. He is a leader who should be supported by his community, if he is he will do great things. This kind of B.S. has been going on ever since the Club was started.The Yellowstone Club has systematically been cheating the local contractors out of their hard earned money since it begain. There have been class action law suits aginst the Club going on for years. It is sort of hard not to notice. If I mention that I have worked in the club in certain circles in Bozeman it is assumed that I am a evil shit. This is not just my personel ignorance but a widly believed ignorance. Apparently you are a good and concerned citizen, however the common perception of club members is pretty negitive. The common perception of those of us who have worked there is also pretty negitive. If TB and EB's name would quit appearing in the local papers it might help to clear the reputation of the YC and Big Sky. I am pleased to hear that you and your contractor had a great relationship and a great project but I seriously doubt that this is the norm. I stand by what I wrote earlier, most construction workers hate working in the Club. This seems to really disturb you and it should. I am glad and pleased this was not the case with your project. How much longer are the Club Members and Warren Miller going to put up with the Tim and Edra show? Joe the Construction Worker
This particular driveway was roughly 1/4 mile long. I made a few paces toward my drop point before a door was opened just wide enough for a white pit bull with a head as wide as my shoulders to pop through and tear after me. A 1/2 hour standoff ensued with only my snowboard between myself and a set of foaming white jaws. I wondered if the Mexican construction crews would respond to my screams.
Thankfully it didn't come to that. I dropped into the drainage, hiked up, and swore I would throw a cyanide steak into the owner's yard ASAP. (I never did this, by the by).
I just wanted to share this little tidbit about my adventures in the happy-go-rape-the-working-class land of Moonlight Basin, and to ask you, Warren Miller, how is it that the rich can feel entitled to develop one of the great natural wonders of Montana for a strictly inclusive audience? How preserved is a habitat that's covered by castles anyhow? At least I can remember when it was still worthwhile... but now that Brokaw has officially dubbed your generation 'Greatest,' you can feel justified in acts of hoarding and gross theft, material and otherwise. Right?
But karma or justice or whatever you believe in is already intervening. Keep divorcing your twisted souls away! I'll be there to poach, poach, poach - shredding the fresh lines and peeing in the hot tubs. So you go on and make some more crap ski porn, Warren. Maybe I'll watch one while doing your Puerto Rican housekeeper in the master bedroom.
But, that's another story.
Of course I took offense to what you said. You assume that I'm evil for no other reason than good, old fashioned ignorance. You seem to be unable to separate the Club owners from the Club members. If the Owners harmed you and your friends, I'm truly sorry. But, why would you assume that that makes the Members, and by association, ME evil???
I understand that many have been harmed by the club's business practices and the bankruptcy. This was not the doing of the members. But, the members have banded together to try to make things right. We have no obligation to do this. There was no requirement for me, or any other member to donate, from our personal accounts, to support those harmed by the club... But, there are good people here that have a genuine desire to help where they can.
If you have trouble with what Tim did, or what Edra's doing, that's a personal issue between you and them and has nothing to do with me.
How many tools/supplies/etc. do you think have been stolen from job sites, including the club? How 'bout I just "assume" it was you and that all construction workers are evil?
What I am saying here, is some people have genuine claims. Some people just like to jump on the bandwagon and have someone think for them and blame the world if they get in trouble.
I, for one, prefer to stand on my own two feet and look those in the eye that I believe have harmed me rather than jump to rash and unjustified assumptions that I post, hidden by a dehumanizing veil of anonymity. I'm sure you did find 5 construction workers that said they hated the club... I'm sure they have random reasons for doing so. But, they chose to work there, nobody forced them. I'm sure I could find 5 girls in my office that say that they hate construction workers... But, that doesn't make construction workers bad or evil either.
As for your friend that went into a rage about not getting paid... I don't blame him. I would too. But, that again, has nothing to do with me. But, keep in mind, in my own evil way, I donated thousands of dollars to a fund to help him and those like him make it through these tough times.
My personal advice to your many friends that hate working in the club... FIND ANOTHER JOB. Life is to short to do what you hate. I would define that as greed... Doing what you hate for money.
Now, on to the next one...
Kai,
Based on what you wrote, I would describe you as evil.
If I wandered into someone's yard with an angry dog, I would simply make a note to myself "don't go in that yard again". But, you fantacize about killing it?!?!? A Dog? In Montana? Obviously, you are not from Montana, at least not at heart because I can barely imagine a human wanting to do that, let alone a Montanan. And we all know that the story was grossly exaggerated. If the pitbull wanted you, a snowboard would not keep it at bay for hours as you screamed for you life. It probably wanted to lick you because you smell of patchouli oil. (guess that was a rash assumption, and I appologize if it was off the mark)
You are so unhappy that people built homes on the mountain that you want to pee in their hottubs? I've never really thought about peeing in anybody's anything... but, remember your statement about karma... it may come back to haunt you...
I find it very amusing that you mention something about karma right at the same time that you make idle threats about harming others... maybe you don't truly understand the meaning of the word. But, I wholeheartedly hope that it exists.
How is Moonlight Basin a "happy go lucky rape the working class" project? I doubt very much if someone hadn't built chair lifts, lodges, etc (that took a considerable amount of money) you wouldn't be there in the first place and would have nothing to gripe about. So, you feel entitled and disgruntled about something that you use and enjoy, but, hate that people put it there?
Hoarding and gross theft? Your thoughts are knee-jerk and unoriginal. And people like you cause good people to lose faith in humanity.
I don't understand why the contractor's let the club get so far out without cutting them off for non payment? I've been working for the club since day one, I saw what was happening and cut them off when they hit my limit. Sounds like Greed to me!
Thanks Troy and all the other folks that are giving so much of their time and money to help the people in need during this trying time.
Blixeth is the bad guy. If you had a problem with an individual home owner in contracting, and you did not solve it, or attempt to solve it, then don't blame anyone who has more money than yourself. I have been ripped off in my lifetime by born again Christians, oppressed minorities, women, other religious minorities, and building trades contractors. The first time is their fault, and the second time is mine.
I have friends who are poor by definition, and friends who have enough money to live comfortably. I even have friends who have money to live extravagantly. I would suppose that if any of us were to piss the other off, we wouldn't be friends. I also don't do business with friends, because the climate in America is every man and woman for him or herself. No holds barred. We are a society of greed, in that way. That is why lawyers are so many, and working with a contract is the only defensible track. Make sure if you prevail, the other guy pays your legal fees because you had it in your contract to work that way.
I can see by reading the emotions of the writing in this thread that Hamas and Israel don't have a monopoly in idiotic hatred. I guess I have a problem with the painting of anyone who bought into the resort is by nature and greedy asshole, and anyone who worked to build it is a saint. I hardly believe that to be true on any level. In the race to make dough, and to get the contracting piece of the action, a lot of short cuts were made by a whole lot of people. Illegal aliens, no housing, low pay for the two moonlight rides and the picnic lunch, with the terror of the rides into and from Bozoland everyday. Boom town deal. And BoomTown went bust for now. It is the history of the West. Even the New West. The human wreckage, the defiled environment, the easy money and liberal spending. It is what it is. Just never forget that Blixeth got his land by land trade with the USFS, Gallatin NF., and the whole of the process was driven by environmentalists intent on expanding their idea of protection for lands near the Park. There are unintended consequences for grand actions like that. Anyone else who wanted to trade land with the USFS was put on the back burner, and is still there, due to this land trade. It was the Montana quota for some time, and appears that condition still exists. YC was made possible by the GYC, and the GYC's environmental cohorts across the largest scale. Montanan's got what they wanted in the Burn, and the collateral damage was Blixeth. Live with it. And if you don't like rich people bringing their money to Montana, you had better come up with a new economic model, and fast, because it is about all there is outside of some agriculture, very little mining, very little energy exploration, inconsequential lumbering and timber now, and a paucity of money to expand government offices and employees with those recession proof checks to spend in town to keep the grocer and hardware store owner in business.
The outfitter business, and stockmen, are being diminished by wolves daily. The pot of money for rehabing mines and the like is going to dry up. Selling amenity values to people with money is about all that is left, and it appears than there is resistance to those people because they evidently are all assholes and cheap bastards who only come to be rid of the hoi poloi and to rest in their own solitude. Gee. Who'd a ever knowed? Buying solitude. What a concept. Isn't that what the Wilderness deal is all about? Get rid of stockmen and loggers, and preserve the Wilderness just for people like me who want it to themselves? On what level of greed are we talking about the YC buyers and victims of the Blixeth Scam #?. The haters should get a life. Move on. Go somewhere else. Start anew. Get rid of the stress in your lives. Maybe Obama will find funding for a new Peace Corps kind of deal, and you can build clean water systems or habitats for humanity, become third world community organizers. Sitting in the cold and snow of Bozo waiting for recovery is no way to manage your life. It apparently only foments hate.
your comments make me smile. Smart, well-thought, and on the mark...
I'm sure Obama's first order of business will be to create that "new" peace corps...
Not sure who you are, but, would love to swap war stories sometime...
Regarding miserable employees: I have worked in a marina looking up parts and pumping gas, I stocked groceries, bagged groceries and rung up groceries. I worked in retail and I've owned a retail store, I did door to door sales, worked as a sales assistant to a stockbroker and have been a manufacturer's rep. I have washed dishes, waitressed, waitressed and waitressed, and been the prep cook in a restaurants. I cleaned houses, painted houses and hung wallpaper. I was a phone solicitor and worked for a caterer....basically, I have done every job for someone else that I have ever asked them to do for me. I was/am a happy person. The only time I ever "hated" a job was when the management made the work environment miserable. Take a good look at your own attitude and that of your employer...if either one is no good, the experience won't be either.
Bearbait and Troy: thank you for your thoughtful and intelligent assesments and comments.