Montana's Ameya Preserve Developer Launches High-End Real Estate Brokerage

[Ronald Mastrogiuseppe]

Developer Turns Broker Ameya Preserve Developer Launches High-End Real Estate Brokerage By Jonathan Weber, 8-04-09 Wade Dokken, developer of the ill-fated Ameya Preserve south of Livingston and now the target of a lawsuit for allegedly reneging on a deal with the Museum of the Rockies, is not giving up on the high-end real estate business: he recently acquired the rights to be the Christies’s Great Estates real estate affiliate for much of Montana. Ameya Preserve, a controversial effort to build a luxury second-home community featuring cultural amenities such as cooking classes with Alice Waters and dinosaur digs with famed paleontologist Jack Horner, was launched with much fanfare in 2006, but soon stalled in the face of the high-end real estate meltdown and intense local opposition. Dokken sold 4,000 acres of the 9,500 acre Ameya property early last year. (See NewWest.Net’s in-depth series on the project here. Dokken, a North Dakota native who made a fortune on Wall Street, was sued last week by the museum, which says he used the museum and Jack Horner’s name to market Ameya Preserve but failed to deliver on promised donations of more than $3 million. In April, Dokken filed a business registration with the Montana Secretary of State for Pure West Inc. A visit to this website shows it to be an affiliate of Christie’s Great Estates. A Christie’s affiliate in Wyoming confirmed that Wade Dokken and Pure West were now affiliates in Montana. The Pure West site currently shows one listing - a 9,000 square foot house near Livingston. Dokken could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Joseph Sabol, a Bozeman attorney who is listed as the agent on the Pure West business registration, also could not be reached. Christie’s Great Estates identifies itself as “International Luxury Real Estate Specialists” and features affiliates around the world. In Montana, Trails West Real Estate in Bigfork is also listed as an affiliate, serving the Flathead and Missoula areas, while Pure West territory includes Bozeman, Big Sky, Ennis, Helena, and Great Falls. Stanley Feagler, a partner of Dokken’s on Ameya Preserve, is also listed as a principal for Pure West. The museum lawsuit says that Ameya representatives told the museum that the development had “no ability” to deliver under the contract, which included renaming Horner’s position the “Ameya Preserve Curator of Paleontology.” While the deal was with Ameya Preserve and the land is apparently held by a different entity, Jim Goetz, an attorney for the museum, told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that Dokken was “personally liable” under the agreement. [End of article] This article was printed from www.newwest.net at the following URL: http://www.newwest.net/city/article/ameya_preserve_developer_acquires_prominent_real_estate_brokerage/C396/L396/ © 2007 NewWest, All Rights Reserved Use of this site is subject to New West's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Ron Mastrogiuseppe, Director Crater Lake Institute http://www.craterlakeinstitute.com 541-810-3944