Exclusive Montana club for ultra rich in turmoil
VIRGINIA CITY, Mont. -- For the ultra-rich, the Yellowstone Club is a private retreat like no other. It boasts its own ski resort, security provided by ex-Secret Service agents and a deep-pocketed membership that includes Bill Gates and former Vice President Dan Quayle.
However, a bitter divorce fight between the club's billionaire founders as well as a lawsuit by a group of investors led by cycling legend Greg LeMond have revealed all is not well behind the tony club's gated entrance in southwestern Montana's Gallatin Mountains, according to recent court testimony and documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Since the recent collapse of a bid to sell the club for a reported $455 million, founders Tim and Edra Blixseth are feuding over who gets control of the enterprise. She asked a judge last week to strip her husband of control of the club and reinstate her as chief operating officer. A ruling is pending.
"It's the perfect storm for them," said Jim Goetz, an attorney for LeMond and other investors who sued the club over a property dispute. "(Tim Blixseth) was up against it, so he was going to sell the assets of the club. That sale fell through and all of a sudden he's looking around with his pants down."
Goetz's clients still are awaiting payment of $20 million in a settlement of their lawsuit, while documents show Tim Blixseth has spent tens of millions of dollars buying overseas properties in recent years in a attempt to take the club concept worldwide. They own just over 4% of the Yellowstone Club.
The dispute is taking place in a rarified world of luxury yachts, multimillion-dollar homes and private jets.
A list of Blixseth assets submitted in a California divorce court lists a pair of Gulfstream jets (one his, one hers), six boats, 15 vehicles and more than two dozen homes, condos and other properties from Montana to Tennessee. His fortune was pegged by Forbes magazine last year at $1.3 billion.
Who gets control of the most valuable asset, the Yellowstone Club, could be decided in more humble environs: the 132-year-old courtroom of state District Judge Loren Tucker in Virginia City, population 130.
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