Living the unforgettable dream of ranching in Montana has never been easier. New on the market, and offered exclusively by Nikkiel Bjornson Fox of Glacier Sotheby’s International Realty, this quintessential ranch offers 255 acres, a 9,516 Sq Ft newly built main residence, western saloon, guest house and more.
This is what the current owners had to say about their time spent on this exemplary property:
“We purchased Flying H Ranch 14 years ago from an outfitter who used it as his home base and accommodations for clients. Upgrades began immediately and have been ongoing (not the original plan!). We renovated the cabin and ranch house, totally gutted and finished out the bunkhouse, added garages, shops, barn and arena and built a saloon. The entrance was created and the original railroad flatbed car bridge was replaced with a steel I-beam upgrade that looks like a log bridge over the creek. We moved an old coach stop from Lozeau to use as a sauna and then finally built the main house up the hill from the rest of the ranch.
In the beginning of our ranch owning days we were living in California and then Texas. The ranch was “home away from home” for our family. We came the day after school got out for the summer and left the week before school began. Christmas and usually Thanksgiving were also spent in Montana. We have 2 daughters and all of their friends have also spent significant time growing up on the ranch. There was usually a truck full of kids, luggage, and animals full of craziness and plans for the summer heading to Montana in June and the same but a little subdued, sunburned, sometimes bruised or bumped but always happy and full of stories heading back in August.
Family from all over the country and many friends from abroad have called the ranch home for a few days or a few weeks whether we were with them or sometimes even when we weren’t!
Eventually Montana became full time home for us and we lived in Missoula and ranched part time and on weekends. And of course continued with the building and improving.
What began as a getaway and a place to host family in the West has turned into an integral part of who we are. We have had weddings, funerals, graduations, adventures too numerous to count (but always fun to remember with friends and without), reunions and corporate team building events here, just to name a few.
The ranch is the stage for all of this drama and a leading lady in it’s own right. Everyone that comes has their own favorite place to stay on the ranch. We built the saloon as a gathering point so the people who want to visit and be social have a great place to do so and hang out, and those looking for a little peace and quiet can retire to their lodging and have their private space. It has worked out just that way.
I love sitting on the porch of the saloon looking over the creek as the evening rolls in watching people peel off in ones and two and walk back to the cabin or bunkhouse, calling out goodnights and plans for breakfast. The stars here are the brightest I have ever seen and we are often all standing around in the dark looking up at the sky.
The airport is 50 minutes away, as is Missoula shopping and dining. You are on a boat on Flathead in an hour and 1/2, the same for Lake Coeur D’Alene, and the Spokane airport is 2 hours door to door. Our daughter now lives in Seattle and that’s a cool 6 with one stop for gas. Yet the backcountry hiking and exploring right out our door is second to none. High mountain lakes with fantastic fishing, the Clark Fork River public access 3 minutes away, rafting, whitewater, and wildlife everywhere. There are days when I can’t let the dogs out in the morning until the turkeys/deer/elk/etc. have wandered away from the house. I’ve sat in the bushes beside the pond taking pictures of 2 otters that showed up out of no where, listened to a herd of cow elk “talk” to their calves as they moved through our place, and watched a mountain lion come in for a drink from the pond by the light of the moon. We sleep out on the screen porch from March to November, hear coyotes and wolves at night, elk mewing and deer snorting, and get woken up by birds in the morning, often a raven in a tree near the porch telling us to quit laying around and get on with our day. We have had a yearling moose calf adopt us as a foster family after his mom kicked him off in favor of the new calf until he felt confident enough to go it on his own. We haven’t seen a bear in a couple of years on our place, but a few years ago one came in thinking my grilled ham and cheese lunch smelled good enough for investigation.
The ranch is magic. We built a pond and beaver showed up (from where?). You water the soil and darn near anything grows. My roses look fantastic, the berries and vegetable do well in the garden, and on a wet spring there are wildflowers in the woods. We even dug a hole for a pump house and hit a vein of black sand with gold flakes (fun to see which visitors get totally into the panning). We found out from the neighbors that there is an old prohibition era still site on the back of the property (we found an old stove door and some bottles). We have numerous favorite places for evening cocktails at the end of a busy day; the walk bridge over the stream, the tent platform, the deck of the sauna, Elk Point where we use a tree stump for a table and keep folding chairs there in the woods all summer. The number of hummingbirds in the summer are only limited (from what I can see) by how often you can fill the feeders. The ranch can gracefully host 25 or more people and is just a blast when there is that much activity, but is also wonderful when you are the only one here and have the luxury of enjoying it one on one.
Thinking about selling is very bittersweet for us. The ranch is our favorite place. We are heartbroken to think about not having it be the headquarters for our family, and yet we have fully enjoyed it and embraced it for the past 14 years. The dynamic of our extended family has changed and many of them are now Montana residents full time. Some can no longer travel to see us and now it is our turn to go to them. It may perhaps be time for a new lucky family to enjoy this fantastic place in the best place on earth and call it home (at least for part of the year) for their family. ”
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