Firehole Ranch

The Firehole Ranch is special place, a remote recreational retreat on Hebgen Lake in southwestern Montana adjacent to Yellowstone National Park. Originally built as a dude ranch in the 1940s, its historic buildings, contribute significantly to the property’s designation as a National Historic District. Comma-Q, with extensive experience in historic preservation and challenging renovation projects, was enlisted to rehabilitate the main lodge and construct new support buildings. The completed project represents a combination of new, renovated and existing buildings that blend effortlessly and maintain the historic charm and character of the ranch.

Construction in general is challenging, construction in the high-county of southwest Montana redefines challenging. The serenity of the beautiful Montana summer is reserved for guests at the Firehole Ranch, so construction schedules must be coordinated with the long winter, where the snow is measured in feet instead of inches and where the site is accessed by snowmobile instead of pick-up truck.

Rehabilitation tasks at the Main Lodge included hand excavation to significantly enlarge crawl space conditions, construction of new support footings, log restoration, and introduction of commercial food service features to the kitchen.

The new ranch office, constructed in 2005, and new employee housing and laundry facilities, scheduled for Spring 2011 completion, are examples of new construction that have been carefully designed with context, function and budget in mind.

• Client: Firehole Ranch, LLC
• Contractor: Hilgard Log Homes
• CQ Project Manager: Ben Lloyd
• Location: West Yellowstone MT (map)