Proposed Wilderness Homes Stir Controversy

The slick real estate brochure ballyhoos remote mountaintop retreats amid hundreds of acres of wilderness, offering the ultimate in privacy and great views. One deal even throws in a helicopter.

What sounds like a dream getaway for a billionaire financier or celebrity tired of the crowds in Aspen and Telluride is a nightmare to others.

Critics claim the brochure by the Alabama-based TDX is the latest attempt to blackmail Uncle Sam with threats of building on private land next to federal wilderness. They also warn that the ideal of preserving large wilderness tracts in the West could be undermined if other developers get into the act.

“If more people catch on to this routine, it could be much more of a problem than it has been,” said Jon Mulford, whose Wilderness Land Trust in Hood River, Ore., buys private land inside wilderness areas.

He points to developer Tom Chapman, who has brokered deals for TDX. Chapman became something of a celebrity after rolling out bulldozers on private land in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument in 1984 and using helicopters to deliver logs for a lodge on private land in the West Elk Wilderness Area in 1992.

In both cases, Chapman halted work after the federal government bought him out or swapped land with him. And that, critics say, was his objective and is the goal of TDX, which has an office in Montrose.

“Clearly the intent is to purchase these areas, get a lot of publicity and market them and get taxpayers to buy him out at very exorbitant prices,” said Sean Conway, spokesman for Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.).

Lawyer Aaron Clay of Delta, who represents TDX, said he doesn’t know what the motives of company officials are.

“They tell me what they want to do is make a profit on the deal,” he said. “They just saw it as an investment opportunity.”

Chapman, who has a real estate business in Paonia, didn’t return phone calls. He previously has defended marketing property that was private before the Wilderness Act of 1964 imposed strict regulations on large tracts of public land.

Private property surrounded by public lands is called an “inholding.” Some parcels were in private hands when national forests or wilderness areas were designated. Others are mining claims, patented at low prices through an 1872 federal law and frequently resold.

Short of acquiring the property, the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service and other agencies have limited options when faced with a landowner bent on building. Reasonable access to the private site must be allowed.

“You have private landowners existing in peaceful possession of their lands. Government comes along and creates a Wilderness Preservation System which surrounds their lands,” Chapman wrote in a Dec. 21, 1997, letter. “Landowners are belittled and ridiculed if they want to build or sell for a profit.”

The letter was to Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.), who criticized Chapman’s swap of private land in the West Elk Wilderness near Crested Butte for land near Telluride. Chapman sold the Telluride property for $4.2 million.

Critics contend that forcing money out of the government is behind TDX’s marketing of at least 10 sites stretching from the Vail area in Colorado’s central mountains to southwestern Colorado. They contend that anyone who could afford to build expensive homes on 5- to 40-acre plots wouldn’t put up with the hassles of commuting to such remote spots, often in bad weather that would ground helicopters.

“Nobody ever says, ‘We want to be in the middle of nowhere.’ Oftentimes people are looking for privacy and seclusion, but most places have a road you can drive in and drive out on,” said Larry Agneberg, a Vail real estate agent.

Another problem is that “you can’t land a helicopter just anywhere in the Vail Valley,” Agneberg said.

Mulford of the Wilderness Land Trust believes Congress should allow federal agencies to condemn private property inside wilderness, something they cannot do now.

The trust, funded by donations and grants, has bought 100 sites totaling 6,500 acres in Colorado and is branching out to other western states.

Conway fears other developers might branch out too. “Today we’re dealing with TDX and Tom Chapman. Tomorrow it may be a hundred TDXes.”

That’s why it is important not to reward their tactics by paying for the land, even through condemnation, Conway said. Allard does not think the government should buy the land marketed by TDX inside Black Canyon of the Gunnison, upgraded last year from a national monument to a national park.

Conway said the solution is to exert public pressure and work with local officials on zoning and building-permit requirements.

“We should show that Coloradans don’t think it’s right, and we’re not going to help you. In fact, we’re going to make it difficult for you.”