Big Sky Country Earns High Marks As Retirement Spot

Discount broker Charles Schwab maintains a summer home in Western Montana’s high and remote Bitterroot Valley, wedged between mountain ranges and ringed by canyons and crystal lakes.

This is one of the select spots in America in which to retire, or for that matter, simply to escape. Acreage is selling at a premium.

“The Bitterroot Valley is like a great big nature park,” says Doris Mussil, who divides her time between the valley’s hub-community of Hamilton, population 3,410, and Spokane, where she has real estate and relatives.

Indeed, various set-asides for state and national parks, forests, recreation and wildlife areas add up to an astonishing 73 percent of the Bitterroot Valley’s land area.

Due north 165 miles, 72 percent of the Flathead Valley, too, is protected for posterity.

These two Montana retreats rank third and fourth in America for percentage of land delegated to public purposes, according to “Retirement Places Rated.”

The 310-page book by David Savageau compares and ranks 183 retirement havens, “from the Sun Belt to the Gulf Coast, and from Maui to Maine.” Kalispell, my home town, and the surrounding Flathead Valley rank 27th in the country; Hamilton and the Bitterroot Valley rank 140th.

Polson and Mission Valley - located between Kalispell and Hamilton - rank 143rd.

On a scale of 1 to 100, the Flathead and Mission valleys earned a perfect mark of 100 each for what the book terms “outdoors recreation assets.”

Flathead and Mission valleys share Flathead Lake - with Kalispell on the north, Polson on the south. The giant body of water exerts a considerable moderating influence on the local climate. “It is the largest natural body of fresh water in surface area west of the Mississippi,” boasts Kalispell Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President Joe Unterreiner.

Adds Polson Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jamey Layman, who was born and reared in Spokane, “Coeur d’Alene Lake is a puddle compared to this lake. And Flathead is not nearly as busy as Coeur d’Alene Lake.”

Only one of the Montana chamber managers knew their community rated in this or any other retirement publication.

“Whoa!” uttered Unterreiner, when informed of Kalispell and Flathead Valley’s 27th overall national ranking. In the leisure living category, the community ranks even higher - 11th in the country.

But Diane Wolfe wasn’t either overly impressed or pleased by some of Hamilton-Bitterroot Valley’s scores. “We were 23rd overall nationally 10 years ago,” said Wolfe. “But I guess this is still good news.”

The Hamilton Chamber executive questioned the validity of incredibly good scores for overall living and housing costs, and disputed the rating system’s knocks against the climate.

According to the book, “Winters are cold and long. Summers hot, dry, clear and all too brief.” But Wolfe says, “In this part of the country, the Bitterroot Valley is called the Montana Banana Belt.”

As to the community’s fabulously favorable grade for so-called “money matters” - a mix of state and local taxes and living costs - Wolfe said, “I frankly can’t believe it.”

Out of a possible 100, Hamilton scored 97.12 - first in the United States!

But Wolfe said, “The fact is, living here is not that cheap. Our average single-family home sells for $118,000. The median rental price is $500. These costs are in the same ballpark as Missoula’s.”

Polson’s Layman confirms Wolfe’s data. “Our living costs in Polson are way under Hamilton’s and somewhat less than Kalipell’s, as well. They have had an explosion in housing values.”

Compounding the inequity of income vs. outgo for Bitterroot’s work force is a very low earning capacity. The average annual wage in the valley, when last measured in 1992, was just $16,428.

But is this a popular place to retire? “You bet,” says the chamber official. How does she know? “In a valley of 32,000 people, all we have to do is look around at all the new faces. People planning to retire 15 years from now are already buying up the valley.”

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes on retirement issues each Sunday. He can be reached with ideas for future columns at 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review