JACKSON, Wyo. — A Jackson Hole ranching family has sold a parcel near Grand Teton National Park to serve as a new home for the Laurance S. Rockefeller family.
A warranty deed detailing the sale filed with the Teton County Clerk did not reveal the price. The 80-acre tract is south of the park and east of the Moose-Wilson Road.
Snake River Associates managing partner Bill Resor said his family was happy to provide the Rockefellers with a place to relocate their western retreat.
"Last August my family agreed to sell land along Granite Creek to the Rockefeller family to provide a new home for the JY (Ranch)," he said. "We are very pleased that this came about before Mr. Rockefeller passed away, that his family has a new home in Jackson Hole."
The Rockefellers donated the JY Ranch, which sits on Phelps Lake, to the park in 2001. The 1,100-acre ranch was valued then at $30 million. The formal transfer will occur in 2006.
The Rockefellers are moving 17 of 30 buildings from the JY Ranch to what will be called Granite Ranch. The 13 remaining buildings are being moved elsewhere in the park.
The family is trying to preserve all the buildings, said Mark Hershberger, a local designer.
"It will have the favorite buildings of the family we could relocate," he said.
Laurance Rockefeller decided to remove the buildings from the lake shore to allow the property to be restored.
The conservationist and philanthropist died at age 94 on July 11 at his home in New York City. He spent his boyhood summers at the JY Ranch and continued to visit the property throughout his life.
Much of Grand Teton National Park was created from donations of land by Laurance's father, John D. Rockefeller Jr., who had bought up property in Jackson Hole during the Great Depression.