Dennis Quaid Lists Montana Ranch and Puts Los Angeles Compound in Escrow

SELLER: Dennis Quaid
LOCATION: Emigrant, MT
PRICE: $14,000,000
SIZE: (approximately 418 acres) 5,300 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms (main house)

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Children, please forgive Your Mama our tardiness to this particular party. We are, regrettably, still nursing and moving molasses-like through one of those perfectly pesky 72 hour hangovers brought on in epic fashion by the rather prodigious amounts of gin (and et cetera) we imbibed and partook during our 6-day stay with boozy b.f.f. Fiona Trambeau up in the City by the Bay. Y'all know how the vacay cliché goes; Sometimes a person arrives home from one vacation in dire need of another to recuperate.

Anyhoodles poodles, today we're going to ruminate on the recent real estate activities of much in-demand movie star Dennis Quaid who not only has a Los Angeles, CA compound listed for sale at $10,000,000–more on that later–but also recently pushed his rustically luxurious camp in rural Montana on the market with a $14,000,000 price tag.

In a stroke of delightful celebrity real estate kismet, Mister Quaid stars in the current and probably un-wise remake of Footloose with model/actress Andie MacDowell who Your Mama discussed yesterday due her heaving and ho-ing her towering neo-Tudor near Asheville, NC on the market with an asking price of $4,500,000.

We're not exactly sure when ex-Mister Meg Ryan, now married to real estate agent third wife Kimberly (Buffington) Quaid, purchased the first piece of his rural Montana real estate pie. One reports says it was about 25 years ago, the Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial show it as April 1995, and a peep and a poke around the property records suggests to Your Mama it might have been in the late 1980s. Whatever the case, the ruggedly handsome Mister Quaid has for quite some time held a sizable foothold in Montana's picturesque Paradise Valley area near the itty-bitty communities of Emigrant and Pray, about 15 or 20 miles north of Yellowstone National Park.

Mister Quaid reportedly purchased a portion of his approximately 418-acre scenic spread from film and television character actor Warren Oates (Gunsmoke, In the Heat of the Night, The Wild Bunch). Additional acquisitions were made from from talented but often combative Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia). Mister Quaid and his current wife were married in an intimate and low-key sunset ceremony on the property in July 2004.

Listing information and other reports show the main house at the Quaid's Montana compound, a rambling bi-winged stone- and log-built residence, was built in 2000, measures 5,315 square feet with 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and a soaring 8-sided rotunda entry constructed of stacked stone and lined with French doors and door ways that lead to the various areas of the house.

Generous interior living spaces include a cavernous living room with massive stone fireplace, vaulted ceiling with narrow wood beams, partially paneled walls, a bank of floor-to-ceiling French doors and windows, and wonderfully worn wide-plank wood floors salvaged from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Although the lightly but smartly decorated room has a de rigueur flat screen tee-vee mounted awkwardly to the wall, the somewhat spare and airy space conjures up for Your Mama cozy and stimulating cable tee-vee free evenings occupied with conversation, billiards, backgammon, books, and old-timey sing-a-longs 'round a slightly out of tune piano.

The dee-vine reclaimed wood floors continue in to the window-lined dining room where an oak picnic-type trestle table and benches came from a nearby cabin formerly owned and occupied by Mister Peckinpah and now owned by Mister Quaid. A stone doorway connects to the capacious kitchen complete with colossal stone fireplace, over-sized center island, double-height ceiling with exposed beams, and high-grade commercial-style appliances. Yes, children, we too see the nefarious and dreaded restaurant-sized pot rack that drips with heavy pots and pans that look to Your Mama like they ache (and aim) to unexpectedly drop heavily down on the hands of an unsuspecting eater or drinker who dares to scoot up to the snack counter below.

A stone-walled and wood-ceilinged family room has a long row of French doors for that provide view of and access to the surrounding wilderness that pushes up against the house. A casual dining area in the wood-floored family room is set apart with a flag stone inset and a sitting area with day-dreamy view of the dramatic mountains is done up with a mixy-matchy hodge-podge of wicker furniture lined with a successfully mixy-matchy collection of cushions and pillows. Notice, children, the deft hand of the decorator who smartly restrained and unified the color palette of the upholstered pieces, a little trick o' the eye that tones down the potential cacophony created with the use of variously patterned fabrics.

The insanely delicious antique wide-plank wood floors extend into the master suite where the walls are log-constructed, the ceiling is vaulted, and the bed was bought from–somewhat oddly and as per Architectural Digest–actress Sandra Bullock. Anyhoo, French doors join the bedroom to a big bathroom where a vintage trough sink with three spigots was custom-fitted in to a built-in cabinetry topped by a thick slab of wood. The rustic looking but hardly rustic bathroom also includes a free-standing soaking tub set into a window-wrapped bay where the windows actually dip far enough towards the floor to allow a bather to ponder the all but untamed surrounding pastures, forests and mountains.
In addition to the casual and cozy main house, the Quaid compound also includes four guest cottages that range from bunk-housey to rather luxurious (some shown above). There are also, as per marketing materials, a ranch manager's residence and, natch, horse facilities that Mister Quaid told Architectural Digest in 2005 are situated far enough from the main house to keep any equine odor from infecting the air space in and around it.

Many of the rooms open to various patios, decks and terraces, one of which has a built-in barbecue for summertime grillin' and chillin'. Cherry red Adirondack chairs placed around the decks and terraces pop against the bucolically evocative scenery. The secluded recreational ranch encompasses, as per listing information, two miles of creek frontage, two ponds, historic gold mines, horseback riding trails, and a private planetarium where Mister Quaid, an apparent astrology buff, can see the stars.
Back in Los Angeles Mister and Missus Quaid own a luxurious farmette in the affluent and semi-rural-seeming Mandeville Canyon area between the upscale communities of Brentwood and Pacific Palisades. In March 2011 they hoisted the 1.96-acre horse-friendly estate in the Mandeville Canyon area of Los Angeles on the market with an asking price of $16,900,000. By September the price had tumbled to $10,000,000 and this week, as per Redfin, the privately situated property was put in escrow.

Listing information shows the property contains an 8,400 square foot faux-French Country-style main house with 8 bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms plus a 2 bedroom and 1 bathroom staff suite over the garage converted to a home fitness facility. A separate guest house and studio measures 2,158 square feet, according to listing information, and includes a living/dining room, full kitchen, den/office with fireplace and built-in bookshelves, and at least one bedroom and bathroom. For the property's hooved residents there is a small barn, corral and a private trail that connects directly to equine-friendly Will Rogers State Historic Park.

Mister and Missus Quaid, who reportedly want to swap their Montana ranch for a house in Hawaii, live primarily in Austin, TX where property records and other online real estate resources show they paid $5,312,500 for an 11,103 square foot lake front mansion with 6 bedrooms, 7 full and 4 half bathrooms that was at one time listed with a very substantially higher asking price of $12,500,000.

listing photos (Emigrant): Glacier Sotheby's International Realty
listing photos (Los Angeles): Westside Estate Agency