Millionaires? lair

Big Sky, Montana, Jan. 1: There?s no dry cleaner here, no car wash, nowhere to get a blow dry or a manicure. Looking for a sushi restaurant?

You?ll have to settle for a buffalo burger at the Corral Bar & Grill. The closest place to park your private plane is at the airport in Bozeman, an hour?s drive down a two-lane road.

Big Sky is no Aspen, Colorado. But the super rich are flocking here anyway.

The lure: the Yellowstone Club, a private, millionaires-only resort community whose amenities more than make up for Big Sky?s lack of a traffic light or a designer boutique. Occupying 22 square miles of mostly wilderness, it?s the only private club in America that owns a ski mountain and a world-class golf course.

News Corp president Peter Chernin joined two years ago, and just before Christmas, he and his family stayed for the first time in their newly-built house, on a double lot near the top of Andesite Mountain.

Next door, Steven Burke, the president of Comcast Corp, is planning to break ground on his new home this spring. Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft Corp, owns the two lots next to Burke?s.

?Sometimes you have to pay to play,? says the Yellowstone Club?s website, which explains that in exchange for an initiation fee of $250,000, a required property purchase of $1 million to $10 million and annual dues of $16,000, members enjoy a gated wonderland that offers 40 hiking and biking trails, rivers perfect for fly-fishing and an 18-hole course designed by former pro Tom Weiskopf, who is a member.

So few skiers use the 2,700 feet of vertical slopes that a blizzard can take weeks to pack down, guaranteeing so much untracked snow that the club has trademarked the slogan ?Private Powder?.

Perhaps as important, the resort, whose borders are discreetly patrolled by a helicopter, employs a 28-year veteran of the Secret Service as its ?director of privacy?.

?Once you go there, you have to join,? said Brad Howard, a Los Angeles real estate developer and Yellowstone Club member who is building a $6-million home, complete with an artist?s studio for his wife.

But when he first applied, he admitted, ?I wondered if they would like me.?

That?s because just being rich does not guarantee entry. Members also must heed the personal motto of Yellowstone Club founder and timber magnate Timothy Blixseth: Check your ego at the door.

?I?ve given some members warnings. I?ve returned some checks,? said Blixseth, 54, who said his ideal Yellowstone Club applicant possesses not only a minimum of $3 million in liquid assets (a membership requirement), but also impeccable manners. ?Our target member is a good, down-to-earth, humble person who is thankful for his or her success. No jerks allowed.?

This marketing strategy ? call it only-nice-rich-people-need-apply ? sets the Yellowstone Club apart from other enclaves, from Malibu, California, to Maui, where the very privileged gather.

In addition to the club?s ?honorary board? members, who include News Corp?s Chernin, former vice-president Dan Quayle and former Rep Jack Kemp, about 200 millionaires have joined so far, many of them captains of industries such as pharmaceuticals, fast food, finance, real estate and the media.

?I?m not impressed by a person?s money,? said Blixseth, who with his wife, Edra, is beginning to turn a profit on their $200-million investment in the resort. He plans to cap membership at 864, but is in no hurry to reach capacity.