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Rancho Mirage At 27% Off, Is Yellowstone Club Founders' Estate a Bargain
 Rancho Mirage At 27% off, Is Yellowstone Club Foundrs’ Estate a Bargain ,life just isn't what it once
was for Tim and Edra Blixseth. The couple, now divorced, founded one of the most elite private ski clubs in the world, the Yellowstone Club near Big Sky, Mont.
Now the lavish home in the California desert where
they once lived, Porcupine Creek in Rancho Mirage, is on the market for $55 million. That's 27 percent less than its original asking price of $75 million back in February.
The home is now in the hands of the former Mrs. Blixseth, but not for long. She filed for Chapter 11 protection last year and has debts of $500 million to
$1 billion. The 30,000-square-foot estate (the main residence is a mere 18,430 square feet) has a 240-acre private golf course, clubhouse, a pool guarded by bronze lions, automated fountains, a 1,700-foot-long
driveway, a beauty parlor, wet room, massage room, hand-painted ceiling murals, a prayer room, a commercial kitchen, and a children's wing (with bedrooms, a playroom and a nanny's room). There also are
eight, two-bedroom guesthouses, a resort-style pool, a spa and a gym.
Porcupine Creek is being sold to satisfy the creditors of the Yellowstone Club and its holding companyIn the
late 1980s and early 1990s, Tim Blixseth swapped the federal government 100,000 acres that he and two partners had bought in Montana for the primo real estate that is now the Yellowstone Club. Perhaps the
world's sole, members-only ski resort, the Yellowstone Club is still exclusive, private, and boasts a Who's Who of members from Dan Quayle and the late Jack Kemp to Bill Gates, Starwood Hotels' founder Barry
Sternlicht and News Corp. President Peter Chernin.
And talk about deals: Mountain-view lots that sold for $200,000 in the late 1990s were going for $1 million
in 2005. Homes were built with private elevators, wine cellars, movie theaters -- no skimping. One wild spec home, called the River Runs Through It home, even featured an all-glass passageway to the guest quarters
with a heated river flowing below it. When the financial world was rocking and rolling, the Yellowstone Club had $1,000-per-person New Year's Eve bashes in the clubhouse, complete with sommelier, concierge
service and full access to the caviar bar.
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