Some of my friends and neighbors resent the prospect of living near the world’s most expensive spec house, a coming attraction in the Yellowstone Club. This is certainly not mere envy of the “haves” by the “have-nots,” for some friends are well-educated and well-off. Rather, they correctly anticipate the imposition of costs on innocent communities. It is this injustice they begrudge.

I find this proposed $155 million house a remarkable curiosity. I logged the site, or somewhere near it, four decades ago. Further, in the 1980s, I was offered that logged over land for about $10,000 per section—and the seller would carry the debt. Although the chairman of the holding company, Burlington Resources, was a friend, this wasn’t a sweetheart deal: the land was worth little.

Today the land I logged is beautiful. Evidence of logging, stumps and traces of skid and haul roads, can be found, but most people wouldn’t notice. However, I recall that as the area was being logged, Greens asserted that it was ruined forever. They claimed it would take time measured on a geological scale for it to recover any ecological or economic value. Since then, nature has restored the beauty of the sites and entrepreneurial magic has generated a huge increase in financial value.

Our world has changed a great deal in the past few years. I don’t regret my failure to anticipate the huge increase in the value of logged over land. An entrepreneur, financially far smarter and more ambitious than I, seized opportunities and capitalized on them. I do, though, regret any significant loss of habitat and am sensitive to the negative environmental, economic, and cultural spillovers from high end development. It’s our duty to care about these costs, and to ensure those who generate them pay them. The attractiveness of our area is a magnet for money, thus change is unavoidable. Our task is to help manage this change through smart growth, and to be alert to the shifting of costs.

One of the negative spillovers resulting from the development taking place in the Big Sky area involves the additional development required to house the service workers. It’s naïve to expect someone who owns a $155 million dollar house, or a $15 million, or even a $1.5 million home, to do his own lawn care, house keeping, and general maintenance. A few may enjoy puttering around on a lawn tractor for a couple hours, or playing with a toy chainsaw (but surely not a pro Stihl or Husky). But few, if any, are likely to clean windows, floors, etc. They hire people, who hire people to hire help. Where do these workers live? Surely not in the YC, but preferably nearby.

People who live in exclusive retreats normally off-load their helps’ housing to other areas. Workers from the Big Sky area find homes in communities around the Gallatin Valley. There are many negative impacts to the communities that host these workers. “High-density” development in formerly rural areas is rife with potential problems. Putting cultural differences aside, current residents face increased taxes to cover additional schools and public services. It is especially problematic if development is subsidized by federal agencies.

The mere distance and geography separating workers’ homes in the Valley from their jobs up in the Big Sky area also compounds the problem. The commute to Big Sky is dangerous, time consuming, and generates both CO2 and demands to widen the road up Gallatin Canyon. Mass transit is certainly not a viable solution here. Workers clock in at various hours at hundreds of different sites. This is not like hauling workers to a mine mouth. Increased road capacity will become a necessity. And since we can’t change topography, this will be to the detriment of the Gallatin River.

Fortunately, people who live in multi million dollar homes can easily afford to pay help enough to live comfortably in the Big Sky area. When the state permits the next gravel pit, could it require affordable housing on the reclaimed site, rather than more million dollar condos? Asking residents of the Valley to subsidize workers’ housing is an outrage. This, not wealth itself, really is something to resent.