Private island on Montana’s Flathead Lake asks $72M

A private island on landlocked Montana’s Flathead Lake hit the market with an asking price of $72 million.

The 350-acre Cromwell Island in western Montana has a 45,000-square-foot unfinished villa, the Wall Street Journal reported. Anne Brockinton Lee bought the island in 1989 with her late husband, Hunting World founder Robert Lee. The couple found the island during a fishing trip and bought it from the three separate owners as well as a home on the mainland so the island could be a nature preserve.

After spending more time on the island, on the largest natural freshwater lake in the contiguous U.S west of the Mississippi River, the couple decided to build a five-bedroom, full-time residence that they could fill with antiques, guns and cars.

To ensure the home from storms and earthquakes, the Lee couple built it from poured concrete and Montana limestone instead of wood. The home has terra-cotta tiles on the roof, mahogany windows and doors with solid brass finishings. The island also has a 5,000-square-foot guesthouse and a dock with five slips.

Underwater cables installed by the Lees bring power to the island and a backup generator on the island can provide off-grid power for eight to 12 weeks.

The interior of the home is incomplete because the couple wanted a break from the project in the 1990s. After selling Hunting World in 1999, the Lees bought a home in Lake Tahoe and moved there full time. “We started having so much fun at Lake Tahoe that we sort of didn’t look back,” she said.

After her husband passed in 2016, Lee said finishing the house on her own would be too big an undertaking to tackle alone.

Read more

New York

Huge UWS mansion with stalled renovation gets another price cut

[WSJ] — Victoria Pruitt