Walton Ranch is Half Off

WSJ Coverage of the half-off sale of the Walton Ranch-

Jackson Hole's Walton Ranch, once priced at $100 million, has been discounted and is available for $48.7 million.

The 1,848-acre working cattle ranch is being sold by the family of late petroleum geologist Paul T. Walton and his wife, Helen, who began assembling the property in the 1950s, according to their son Paul Talmage Walton Jr. After hitting the market in 2011 with Billy Long and Ron Morris of Ranch Marketing Associates, it saw its price drop to $68.7 million, and has now been chopped by an additional $20 million, Mr. Long said.

The $100 million price tag initially seemed "quite reasonable" for the pricey resort area, where this is the largest available piece of undeveloped land, Mr. Long said. But the market for recreational ranches plummeted during the real-estate downturn and has yet to recover, he said.

"It's a very difficult market for this kind of ranch," said Mr. Walton Jr. He and his two sisters "want to go in their own directions," he said, and they are hoping the price cut will help produce a buyer.

The property is under a conservation easement that stipulates it never be subdivided or developed, he said.

Mr. Walton was the grandson of a Utah rancher, and "grew up always wanting to have a ranch," his son said. After buying the property, he and his wife used it as their primary residence, though they also had homes in Salt Lake City and in California. He was very involved in running the ranch until his death in 1997, and his wife continued to live there until her death in 2010.

The ranch has about three miles of frontage on the Snake River. The Waltons' 2,234-square-foot house, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, was built in 1964. It has views of Grand Teton mountain, Mr. Walton, Jr. said. There are four other homes on the property used to house employees, along with barns, corrals and other ranch buildings.