Red Hills Ranch

The private guest ranch of the late U.S. Senator Herb Kohl for 40+ years, Red Hills Ranch is surrounded by national forest and wilderness but only 25 miles from downtown Jackson. It is a 190-acre sanctuary and basecamp offering hiking, horseback riding, fly fishing, rafting, snowmobiling, and cross-country skiing right out the front door; 1.5 miles of frontage on the Wild & Scenic Gros Ventre River, a blue-ribbon native trout fishery; irrigated pastures and a tack barn; Teton views; a pool; and 3 riverfront cabins, a main lodge, and an owner’s home. Deep in the Gros Ventre River Valley and in the shadow of the iconic iron oxide-rich hills that give it its name, Red Hills Ranch is your imagined Western ranch made real—with room to grow—and it’s on the market for the first time since 1975.

WHERE CONVENIENCE AND PRIVACY MEET
When Red Hills Ranch was homesteaded along the Gros Ventre River on the eastern side of Jackson Hole in 1912, the 25-mile trip from it into Jackson was made as infrequently as possible out of necessity—it took a full day. Today, town is less than an hour’s drive away, yet trips to it remain infrequent, although now by choice. At 6,800 feet in elevation in the heart of the Gros Ventre River Valley and surrounded by national forest, the Ranch is alluringly serene and astoundingly private with a wintering elk herd and activities including hiking, horseback riding, fly-fishing, Nordic skiing, snowmobiling, floating, and wildlife watching right out the front door. Day-trips to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks are possible, and the reward at the end of a day exploring them is returning to the comfort and quiet of Red Hills Ranch.

FROM TRAPPERS TO SENATORS
Since it was homesteaded, Red Hills Ranch has had fewer than 10 owners, through which the history of Wyoming and the West can be traced. Today’s ranch includes a couple of homesteads. Fur trapper Dick Turpin, for whom a prominent spot on the Buffalo Fork of the Snake River is named, homesteaded part of today’s ranch. A one-eyed miner-turned-rancher who immigrated to the U.S. from Austria in 1902 homesteaded another part. Most recently, the Ranch was the private escape of businessman and Wisconsin Senator Herbert Kohl, who purchased the property from cattle rancher Clifford Hansen, who was also a U.S. Senator (from Wyoming) in the 1970s. Locally this area is known as “Senator’s Row.”

SENSE OF PLACE
Driving east on the Gros Ventre Road, through stands of aspen trees and high above the wild Gros Ventre River, each mile takes you farther from the fuss and flutter of today’s world and deeper into the oldest of the mountain ranges that ring Jackson Hole. And then you come over a rise and can’t believe your eyes—kind of like going through a rabbit hole and emerging into Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland. The cold, gray granite of the Tetons and vast sea of sagebrush that covers the flats of Jackson Hole are gone, replaced by barren brick-red hills of siltstone rising above improbably verdant pastures in which dozens of horses graze, laze, and play. You are not the first to think Red Hills Ranch a mirage.

“This place is far grander and more beautiful than my urban eyes could ever have imagined.” —Ranch guest

There are places you own and places that own you. And then there’s Red Hills Ranch, which, for the first time in more than four decades, can be both to a new owner. The Ranch was never Senator Kohl’s primary residence, but it was home to his heart. Let Red Hills Ranch call you its own. 

A WILD & SCENIC RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT
Annually for millions of Americans, Wild & Scenic Rivers are a vacation destination for fishing, wildlife watching, floating, SUPing, and rafting. 1.5 miles of Wild & Scenic River,  home to native cutthroat trout, runs through Red Hills Ranch. This section of the Gros Ventre River offers world-class fly fishing surrounded by scenery even more gorgeous than that in the Hollywood movie based on Norman Maclean’s story “A River Runs Through It.”

There are 3.5 million miles of rivers and creeks in the U.S. About 13,000 of these are designated as part of the National Wild & Scenic River System. The 441 miles of Wild & Scenic River in and around Jackson Hole constitute the Snake River Headwaters and are unique because they are an interconnected ecosystem; more usual are isolated rivers and creeks. The 1.5 miles of the Gros Ventre River that flow through Red Hills Ranch is part of the Snake River Headwaters and recognized for its outstanding scenic values.

Having a Wild & Scenic River as part of the ranch not only means that you’ve got a gorgeous river running past your property, but also that the fishing and recreation on it is protected and will remain world-class for future generations.

WILD AND MILD ADVENTURES                                   

Almost any outdoor activity you can imagine can be done at or from Red Hills Ranch. And this isn’t hyperbole. With 190 acres and surrounded by the 3.4 million acre Bridger-Teton National Forest, the fifth-largest national forest in the U.S., the ranch offers near-infinite year-round outdoor recreation.

“I’m living my dream. I’ve wanted to be a cowboy since I was 2 years old and never ever thought I could live that dream. And this week I have.” —Ranch Guest

Starting right from the ranch’s front gate, in summer there’s horseback riding, hiking, mountain biking, fly fishing (in the Gros Ventre River and in a stocked pond in front of the main lodge), rafting, and SUPing. There’s also swimming, whether in the snow-fed Gros Ventre River, the pool, or the pond in front of the main lodge. In winter it’s snowmobiling, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing, and backcountry skiing. Year-round you can watch wildlife and stargaze. The night skies here are as clear as those above International Dark-Sky Parks. Have you ever seen the Milky Way with your naked eye?

A HAVEN FOR HUMANS AND HORSES
Red Hills Ranch has evolved from a hardscrabble homestead to a Western ranch experience to be shared with family and friends. It has the infrastructure of both a working ranch, including a registered brand, and a commercial guest ranch without the encumbrance of paying guests.

A main lodge, owner’s residence, and three riverside cabins, all outfitted with custom ranch furniture hand-carved by woodworker Ray Holmquist, can comfortably accommodate up to 12 people. Additional built amenities include a manager’s home, staff bunkhouse, tack barn, a hay barn, and heated outdoor pool. A historic outfitter’s log cabin was relocated to the ranch from deep in the surrounding mountains. Almost all  of its 190 acres are irrigated with long-held water rights, which produces enough grazing and hay to feed more than 80 horses.

Red Hills Ranch Paints
Red Hills Ranch is Jackson Hole’s only horse ranch. Founded by the late Senator Kohl, Red Hills Ranch Paints breeds and trains horses recognized by the American Quarter Horse Association. Early in his ownership of the ranch, Kohl was not a rider himself, but wanted to look out his windows and see horses grazing in and running around the ranch’s pastures. (With the riding trails out the ranch’s front gate, he did quickly become a horseman, though.) Today, the ranch’s colorful herd of horses is as much a part of the Gros Ventre River Valley as its namesake cliffs. If you decide to continue the ranch’s horse program, it is a turn-key operation that not only produces income, but also ensures there are horses for you, your family, and guests to ride into the adjacent national forest.

Structures to Match the Setting
Imagine a Western log cabin. Whether your dream is tucked into an aspen forest, has sweeping views of the Tetons, or is perched above a free-flowing Wild & Scenic river, Red Hills Ranch has it, and it’s furnished with timeless custom Western pieces made over several years by acclaimed artisan Ray Holmquist. The ranch’s 4,238-square-foot main lodge has views of the Tetons, extensive covered porches, a dining room with two river rock fireplaces, a library, a bathroom, and a commercial kitchen. A short walk west from the main lodge is the 2,857-square foot owner’s home, which was sited in an enclosure of aspens to maximize privacy. East of the main lodge are three cabins overlooking the Gros Ventre River. Each has two bedrooms, a living room with a river rock fireplace, and a covered front porch overlooking the river. The heated outdoor pool is set into a hillside between the main lodge and these cabins.

The ranch also has a log cabin listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Gap Pucci Cabin. Currently it is used as staff housing, but it could be converted into a writing studio, exercise space, or meditation room. Built circa 1929, the cabin was used as a base by Jackson Hole hunting outfitters from 1930 until 2008 and today is historically significant because it is the last surviving outfitter cabin in the valley. Outfitters that have used this cabin include such local legends as John Wort (a founder of the Wort Hotel in downtown Jackson) and its namesake, Gap Pucci, whom The Cowboy State Daily recently profiled and called “the last Wyoming mountain man of his time.”

For ranch managers and staff, there is a 1,850-square-foot bunkhouse with three ground-floor bedrooms and a loft area that itself can sleep up to six. The ranch’s managers have historically lived in a 4 bedroom apartment that is attached to the main lodge (but has its own entrance).

A 1,512-square-foot tack barn is adjacent to a corral. A hay barn holds 350 tons of hay. There is also a combined equipment/foaling barn.

EVOLVING RED HILLS RANCH
Red Hills Ranch is a turn-key private guest ranch and horse operation and also offers new owners several additional opportunities for building and development. The only scenario that does not require permission from the county is to subdivide the Ranch’s 190 acres into five 35-acre parcels. Scenarios that are possible but would require Teton County approval include, but are not limited to: creating 16 smaller parcels while simultaneously conserving 70% of the Ranch as open space with an easement; and transitioning part of the property into a commercial guest ranch.