LEWISTON, Idaho - A Montana timber tycoon and luxury-resort developer who a decade ago engineered federal land swaps that helped turn him into a billionaire recently added 40,000 acres of Idaho forest to his holdings.

“It's awful nice property there,” Tim Blixseth, who bought the acreage near Powell on the Idaho-Montana border from Seattle-based Plum Creek Timber Co., told the Lewiston Tribune. “It could yield some revenue, and it's also a candidate for exchange.”

He said the land could one day become part of another trade with the U.S. government.
Blixseth, who according to Forbes magazine is the 346th richest American with about

$1 billion, said he has no definite plans for the property, which explorers Lewis and Clark likely crossed during their historic trek to the Pacific Ocean 200 years ago.

In 1992, Blixseth was among a group that bought more than 160,000 acres of Plum Creek land, for about $140 an acre, that he eventually turned over to the U.S. Forest Service. That helped clear the way for his 21-square-mile Yellowstone Club near Big Sky, where lots sell for a minimum $1 million an acre and prospective members must prove they're worth at least

$3 million.

Together with 200,000 acres in Central Idaho timber holdings including parcels near the new Tamarack Resort in Donnelly, Blixseth could use his latest acquisition to convince the federal government to give him land elsewhere that would be more suitable for development.

The land near Powell includes 640-acre parcels in a checkerboard pattern intermixed with federal parcels that are currently managed by the Clearwater National Forest.

“Maybe we can put an exchange together on all those lands and square up some property lines,” said Blixseth, whose company is called Western Pacific Timberlands. “If not, I like owning land.”

He didn't say what he paid for the forest land.

Some of the Idaho land includes areas visited by the Lewis and Clark Expedition, such as the so-called 󈫽-Mile Camp” on the Lolo Trail that is documented in historical accounts.

A spokesman for the Forest Service said the federal agency would be amenable to exchange talks.

“We would be real interested in coordinating with them and making sure we are being complementary,” said Steve Kratville, a spokesman in the agency's Missoula office.