As the Rich Ride In, Many Are Priced Out of Homes on the Range

Most millionaire newcomers are building their houses here in Jackson Hole (the name refers to the valley that lies in the shadow of the Teton Range and encompasses much of Teton County). They have made it the richest and fastest-growing part of the state.

Vice President Cheney has a home here. So do actor Harrison Ford and former World Bank president James D. Wolfensohn and Christy Walton, widow of Wal-Mart heir John T. Walton, whose wealth was estimated by Forbes at $18.2 billion and who died after his home-built aircraft crashed last year near Jackson.

There are several thousand others in Teton County (population 19,000) who are not famous, but merely extremely rich. They tend not to draw attention to themselves, driving pickups instead of Porsches and wearing blue jeans to four-star restaurants.

Their money, though, shows up rather spectacularly in tax returns. Since 1999, Teton County has ranked first or second among the nation's 3,140 counties in adjusted household income, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Most of the income comes from investments, not salaries.

As an engine for growth, the rich -- together with their demands for high-end housing, elaborate landscaping, upscale shopping, fresh food and assorted highbrow diversions -- have all but taken over this resort town and several like it in the Rockies.

In the 1990s, despite a decline in tourism and skiing in Jackson Hole, per capita income multiplied at about five times the national rate, unemployment all but disappeared and the Latino population grew rapidly to fill service jobs.

"We used to be a tourism economy; now we are a lifestyle economy," said Jonathan Schechter, executive director of the Charture Institute, a local think tank, and an economic analyst who studies resort towns.

The Internet, FedEx and private jets have made it possible for the rich to live here year-round while keeping an active hand in their businesses back on Wall Street, in Hollywood or in Silicon Valley. Schechter said consumption patterns of the rich have come to dominate the economies of many resort towns in the Rockies.

Local governments are struggling to rein in their power. Many have passed laws capping the size of "monster houses." In Colorado's Pitkin County, which includes Aspen, the maximum is 15,000 square feet. Teton County limits them to 8,000 square feet.

The restriction has opened a new door -- for high-end houses that are hugely expensive, even though they are not huge.

"We call it 'monumental specification,' which means that everything in the house is literally one of a kind," said Steve Ankeny, a builder who is putting the finishing touches on a four-bedroom house on six acres here.

The house took 11 years to design and build, and it is on the market for $17.9 million. It features half a million "grain-sequenced" pieces of rift-sawn white oak, as well as custom fittings on everything, including door hinges, heating registers and light fixtures.