Tim Blixseth, former billionaire and founder of the Yellowstone Club, has written 250 pages of his autobiography, which is to be titled: "You couldn't make this up."

But he's waiting to finish it until next year.

"It'll be a journey about my life and some of the interesting things, the hardships, the joys, just life," he said. "Neither you nor I know the ending yet."

Blixseth is known for envisioning and creating the Yellowstone Club, a private club in Big Sky for the ultra-rich that features a golf course and ski area, where members have access to "private powder."

He's also known for his messy divorce from Edra Blixseth and the series of lawsuits he's been involved with since.

But before coming to Montana and making millions, Blixseth grew up in a poor family in Oregon. His father was a Norwegian immigrant who Blixseth said came here for the "American dream."

"My father's American dream never came to fruition, I don't think, but mine sure has," Blixseth said in an interview with the Chronicle. "I'm thankful I was born in America."

After learning young that he had a knack for making deals, Blixseth would eventually make millions from the timber industry.

He told CNN Money in 2008 that when he was about 13, he bought three donkeys for $25 each after seeing a classified ad for them. Then, he turned around and sold them for $75 after rebranding them as pack mules.

"So he gives me the $225, and a light bulb went on and I went, 'Huh, okay," he said in the CNN Money article, "Paradise Lost" by William D. Cohan.

Blixseth went on to make a series of timber deals that made him millions, and he retired in North Tahoe Lake, Nev., at the age of 40, according to the article. But he got bored and decided to tour 164,000 acres of Plum Creek Timber Co. land that was for sale in southwest Montana.

Birth of the Yellowstone Club

In 1992, the Nature Conservancy had $10 million in backing from CNN founder Ted Turner to buy the Plum Creek land. The negotiations for the land fell apart, however, and Blixseth and two partners stepped in.

A 2008 article in the Chronicle titled "Here's How Blixseth Did It" laid out what happened next. Blixseth and partners Mel and Norm McDougal paid $27.5 million for the land and a Belgrade sawmill.

They sold 25,000 acres of the land, which would later become Moonlight Basin, for $6.5 million. They also sold the Belgrade sawmill and a multi-year timber contract for $9 million. Those sales meant Blixseth and his partners would up paying $12 million for the land, or about $86 an acre, according to the article.

Then, a series of land swaps and two acts of Congress allowed Blixseth and his partners to consolidate their holdings, rather than have their land in a checkerboard pattern.

Once the swaps were completed, Blixseth and his partners split up the land. The McDougals took some in Bridger Canyon, and Blixseth kept nearly 15,000 acres south of Big Sky.

That would become the Yellowstone Club.

The early years

The club seemed to do well at first. It included a fancy lodge, a golf course designed by former British Open champion Tom Weiskopf and a private ski area where Warren Miller and Scott Schmidt act as honorary director of skiing and ski ambassador, respectively.

Patrons included Bill Gates of Microsoft and Vice President Dan Quayle.

Things started to sour when, in 2006, Blixseth and his wife Edra decided to divorce. It started out amiably with a yellow pad of paper and a bottle of wine, Blixseth said. But it would eventually become a tumultuous separation filled with lawyers and court dates.

In July of that year, Edra bought out her husband's portion of the club and became its owner, a sacrifice that was hard on Blixseth.

"It was like fighting over a baby. Instead of cutting it in two, I wanted to let the baby live," Blixseth said recently, looking back. "Yellowstone Club was my baby."

In December, the club went bankrupt and in May 2009, it was sold to Sam Byrne, a principal at CrossHarbor Capital and a club member.

But beforehand, there were a slew of court dates. Blixseth had sued the club to clear his name, and there was, and a weeklong hearing addressed who should be responsible for a $375 million loan Blixseth took out from Credit Suisse to buy property around the world.

Federal bankruptcy Judge Ralph B. Kirscher ruled that greed prompted Credit Suisse to issue the loan, which he said led to the Yellowstone Club's financial downfall.

The judge's decision prioritized at least $20 million in payments to non-club member creditors so they could be paid before Credit Suisse, which was owed $232 million.

Blixseth was later ruled to have been responsible for the club's financial collapse.

In July 2009, Byrne bought the club for the fire-sale price of $115 million. Previously he had tried to buy it for $450 million, but the deal fell through.

Now

The lawsuits surrounding the Yellowstone Club, Blixseth and Edra are a complicated web, and several lawsuits are still pending – including one in which Blixseth alleges the club's bankruptcy filing was an elaborate scheme concocted by Edra and Byrne. Essentially, Byrne was paying Edra to file the bankruptcy so he could get the club for a cheaper price, Blixseth alleges now.

"Unfortunately, injustice can sometimes be bought," he said. "Fortunately, justice cannot."

That's why he's waiting to finish his book—to see how some of those loose ends will be tied.

Blixseth maintains he's happy now, even after all the fallouts and the loss of the club he dreamed into being.

He gave a phone interview with the Chronicle last week from his Seattle home and said he spends a portion of each day talking with attorneys and reviewing legal documents. But, he said, it doesn't dominate his life.

He's remarried to Jessica Kircher, whose family owns Big Sky Resort. Blixseth has a lot of fun, he says, "and the chardonnay still tastes good."

"I'm having a better time today than ever in my life," he said, noting that it was a beautiful day as he looked over Lake Washington. "Everyday I wake up have a smile on my face."

Blixseth seems to be doing well, even after the struggle and court fights over the Yellowstone Club. But how did the ritzy club and its founder impact southwest Montana?

Some might say that Blixseth became rich off the back of Montana taxpayers or express concern about the club's effect on the environment. Others cringe at the idea of the club and the elite class it draws. Some local businesses suffered and went unpaid or received only part of their money owed when the club went bankrupt.

But Blixseth pointed out that his club has provided jobs to thousands of people in the area and pumped more than $1 billion into the local economy as contractors, restaurants or shoe stores received business.

"I just hope that while I was there and running that club very successfully, I made just a little difference in a lot of lives – from the bricklayer to the person working in McDonald's," he said.

Carly Flandro may be reached at 582-2638 or cflandro@dailychronicle.com.

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