Paradise Valley Montana Retreat

This property is a unique survival retreat overlooking the Upper Yellowstone River Valley at 5100 feet altitude, 25 miles from the North Entrance to Yellowstone Park, in Montana's Park county, in a rural subdivision of mostly 2 to 10 acre lots populated by an eclectic mix of self-reliant and mostly urban refugees.  So if you want to be out in the wilderness but not totally isolated on your own, this property may be of interest.  The house has incredible views of the Yellowstone Valley and the Absaroka Range and 11,800 foot Emigrant Peak. It also has a view of the only approach road into the subdivision. Built in 1999, it has a beautiful mature garden with fruit and berry trees and a pond fed by a small creek.

Home is situated on a bench approximately 200 feet above the Upper Yellowstone Valley.  The home has  4 bedrooms and 2 baths. The floors in the bedrooms and living areas are maple with tile in the kitchen, bathrooms and entryways and corridors.   The construction is 8 inch wall with 12 foot ceilings. The kitchen has an adjoining seating area with a stunning view of the Absaroka Mountains.  There is a separate den/office as well as a separate room with sliding doors that opens to the back deck that could be used either as a family/media room or it could be used as a formal dining room.  The living room is expansive with large windows with more million dollar views of the Yellowstone and Absarokas.  A large soapstone wood stove provides ample heat for the whole house.

The all gas kitchen includes an island stovetop, a built in gas oven and a separate Rayburn coal/wood fired cook stove which has its own boiler connected to a separate hot water tank.  When not in use the regular gas water heater provides the normal hot water needs for the house.  Kitchen and  bathroom cabinets are custom white-washed cherry and all counter tops are Corian. The bedrooms have their own separate forced air gas furnace.

Attached to the garage are two ½ KW Whisper wind turbines connected through a DC power controller into a Trace 4800W Inverter which keeps the batteries charged and monitors when the national grid is needed to supplement the solar/wind DC input. Twelve BP 75KW solar panels also connect in the same way.  Ten heavy duty 48 volt submarine batteries with 5 years remaining on a 15 year warranty provide ample power storage for long power outages.  An as yet unused Izuzu diesel 7.5KW generator is available to back up the wind/solar set up in the event of a prolonged outage which would require the provision of a diesel fuel tank.  (On the adjoining separate optionally available lot there is a 1000 gallon bulk storage tank for diesel along with a portable 25 gallon fuel dolly). The entire system is designed to automatically switch back to the house being fed from the national grid in the event of system or component failure. 

Water is fed to the house from a 60 foot well via a 1200 gallon buried cistern.  The water from the cistern is pressurized by a standard ½ KW AC pump, but there is also a back-up DC pump connected into the same DC power controller.  The ½ KW AC submersible well pump will quickly fill up the cistern which has a float switch to continually keep it full.  A separate DC solar submersible pump can be run from solar panels and can be re-installed at any time. 

The adjoining lot has a 24 foot diameter triple walled polycarbonate geodesic dome greenhouse with a 1500 gallon open water tank for solar mass.  There is also a buried 40 foot cargo container for storage and easy drive in access for loading or unloading along with a 1000 gallon diesel tank (full).  The lot also has a prepared building site with separate power, a septic tank and drain field.  A chicken coop and feed storage shed also exists on this lot which was also used for horses. There is a large fenced area with an installed drip irrigation system that was used as a vegetable garden for many years.

The back yard of the house is surrounded by a deer proof fence and has a large open lawn with many native perennials and mature trees.  There are producing apple, pear, plum, apricot, peach, cherry trees plus black and red currant bushes. There is a small pond with a waterfall feature fed from the year round spring fed small creek that runs through the backyard.  This also feeds the drip and sprinkler irrigation system via a 5 hp Honda pump.

The house is less than a ¼ mile off a paved county road that comes into the subdivision which is about 2 miles from Hwy 89. Highway 89 runs south from Livingston to Gardiner.  It is about 6 miles to Emigrant which has a well stocked general store, gas station, bar/restaurant, bank, and post office. Nearby is the world famous Chico Hot Springs hotel and restaurant and wonderful public natural fed hot pools.  Another 20 miles north from Emigrant is Livingston which is an old railroad town with drug stores, supermarkets, shopping, hospital, gourmet restaurants, coffee shops and art galleries.  Another 25 miles over the Bozeman Pass from Livingston on Interstate 93 is the college town of Bozeman for serious shopping in many of the nationally recognized stores such as Costco, Target, Home Depot and Macys.

People come here from all over the country to hunt the abundant game and fish the local rivers.  From a survivability viewpoint there will never be any shortage of wild game even though wolf packs exist in the area.  There is a local elk herd that in late winter mornings can sometimes be seen grazing on the season's first green shoots within view of the house. Mule deer, antelope and elk abound and on a seasonal basis goose and duck. The fly fishing in the area is simply awesome due to the wide variety of rivers and streams plus the rich summer insect life that causes trout to grow to record breaking sizes. There is so much space out here that even in the height of the tourist season it's not at all difficult to find yourself alone on a stretch of river and during hunting season in late fall you can have a whole mountain to yourself!

The weather in Paradise Valley is surprisingly mild for Montana since the surrounding mountain ranges protect it from the worst of the winter weather.  Snow fall typically will only be a few inches after a big winter storm when a few feet may have fallen in surrounding areas so access to the house will never be an issue.  In fact many of your future neighbors do not even use 4-wheel drive vehicles. Average temperatures range from the high 20's in the winter to mid 70's in the summer.  Average rainfall is around 12 inches fairly evenly distributed throughout the year with about 1/3 of it concentrated into the second quarter of the year. This area is also blessed with abundant sunshine with an average of almost 300 sunshine days per year which makes it great for solar energy.

There are a number of local community based underground shelter systems in the area with quite sophisticated living quarters and survival systems that were built around the time of the break-up of the former Soviet Union in response to the uncertainty and danger that that could have generated at the time.  Some of these have been kept up and in many cases spaces are available for those that are looking for the ultimate survivability in the case of a nuclear, chemical or bacteriological emergency.  It's just another advantage for this unique property and location!

305-517-7570

or 305-600-0494