Christy Nielson

BY CHRISTY NEILSON | PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROGER WADE Red Lodge is a vibrant, diverse community that boasts good schools, great medical care, and year-round outdoor activities galore. Its quieter lifestyle was just what a couple from Minnesota longed for after they became empty-nesters. So, they bought a two-acre lot on Rock Creek about a mile...

BY CRISTY NIELSON | PHOTOGRAPHED BY CHAD JACKSON The Bitterroot Valley in the southwest corner of Montana is nestled between the rocky, bulky Bitterroot Mountains and the greener, softer Sapphire Range.  This is farm and ranch country—a place where agriculture and livestock are as wedded to the land as the sun is to the big...

The 500-plus acre Highland View Ranch in Southwest Montana is a classic combination of productive agriculture and excellent recreation. The ranch, named for the Highland Mountains hulking in the background, lies along a picturesque stretch of the infamous Jefferson River, formed just upstream by the confluence of the Ruby, Beaverhead and Big Hole Rivers and...

Spread Oaks Ranch gets its name from the ancient oak trees that pepper the property. The 5,500-acre complex successfully marries an upscale hunting lodge, a prized Brangus cattle operation, conventional and organic farming, and wildlife habitat. Spread Oaks Ranch—named for the magnificent mottes of massive live oaks that predominate on the property—is the passion project...

A career in the oil and gas industry took this Oklahoma couple all over the world.  With three kids in tow, they moved 11 times, including a stint in Saudi Arabia.  They agreed to make the most of the travel that the husband’s job afforded them.  “We made a pact that we’d only come home...

Doug McDowell, owner of McDowell Fine Homes, has been a designer-builder in Santa Fe for 43 years, and has always been captivated with the Pueblo Revival style of architecture.  John Gaw Meem, the father of this style in Santa Fe, is widely considered one of the greatest 20th century architects in the in the Southwest. ...

This classic mountain lodge style retreat in the Martis Camp community of Truckee, Calif., has family written all over it—quite literally. Built as a legacy home for a Bay Area couple, their adult children, and eventual grandchildren, the family wrote their favorite Bible verses inside the walls on the plywood sheeting before the drywall went...

Cle Elum is a sleepy town located about an hour southeast of Seattle, Washington, Incorporated in 1902, Cle Elum is named for a Kittitas Indian word that means “swift water.”  For one couple, the town also meant a perfect retreat from the Emerald City. “We love being a little farther out from Seattle,” says the...

Drowsy Water Ranch feels more off the beaten path than it actually is.  The 700-acre dude and guest ranch is tucked into a narrow forested valley about a mile-and-a-half off Highway 40 in the Colorado Rockies.  Situated about six miles west of the town of Granby in Grand County, the ranch is only a two-hour...