Since ‘73: Jerry Pape Sr.

How a Chicago city slicker became a cowboy selling dreams. 

By Mario Carr EBS CONTRIBUTOR

It began with an unexpected pit stop.

Jerry Pape’s motorhome started having issues in the Gallatin Canyon in the summer of 1972, where Jerry was road tripping with his wife, Becky, and their three kids. Jerry was 34 and Becky was 31. Jerry got the vehicle running and drove it to the Conoco in Big Sky. He and his family were on their way to visit Yellowstone National Park and had no intention of spending any time in Big Sky.

A kind gentleman named Jim Hake was working at the gas station and offered to help fix the Papes’ motorhome, a 1968 Winnebego. 

“Well, Jim Hake was not the greatest mechanic in the world,” Jerry recalled, chuckling, in an interview with Explore Big Sky 50 years later.

Jerry came out of the Conoco to find smoke pouring out of the windows of the motorhome. Hake had burned out the wiring harness. Jerry contacted a trucking outfitter in Bozeman that couldn’t start repairs for at least a week. Thankfully, Jerry met a man named Paul Lytle, with Big Sky Real Estate, who was aware of their calamity and willing to help.

The Pape family stayed in Big Sky for 12 days. Lytle moved the family through model condos between showings. On their way out, Pape remembers asking Lytle, “What do I owe ya?”

“Nothin,” Lytle responded. “I’m glad I could do it for ya and I’m sorry I had to move you around.”

The motorhome repairs cost $1,700 alone. Humbled by the grace shown to him and his family, Pape told Lytle that he was going to buy the last condo they stayed in, priced at $59,500. Becky was very happy in Big Sky and their new Silverbow condo and felt content to never travel anywhere else.

The family enjoyed their trip to Yellowstone before heading back home to Chicago where Jerry had a career as a private investigator. On their way home, however, their Winnebago lost its driveshaft on the highway. This was the last straw for Becky and she flew the rest of the way home.

“I never got in a camper ever again, nor will I ever,” she said. 

Jerry, an ex-Marine, ran his own security business back home, and even had close ties with former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. In the summer of 1973, Jerry was working long hours, six or seven days a week. Becky was unhappy in Chicago, so she took the kids to their new condo in Big Sky. That same summer, Jerry remembers his wife’s voice through the phone: “I made a decision,” Becky told him. “I’m putting Jerry [Jr.] in kindergarten out here. I love it out here and I never see you anyway, so you’ve got a decision to make.”

“It seemed silly to go back to Chicago,” she explained in 2023. “It was dirty and ugly, and too hot, too damp, too windy or too cold and the kids were always sick… I thought maybe out here in the fresh clean air they would stay healthier.”

Jerry called his wife back and said, “I’m comin’. I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do but I’m comin’.” 

The old Western dream

For about two years, Jerry continued to collect checks from his business in Chicago. He had no desire to go back, despite being called upon by the Chicago mayor himself. He sold his business and committed to the mountains.

In Chicago, the Papes lived downtown with no yard. Jerry’s father, Frank Pape, a police officer and subject of the book “The Toughest Cop in America,” wanted Jerry to get his young family out of the city. Even so, when Jerry and his family moved away from Chicago, it was hard on his parents. After years without reconciling, Jerry was finally able to convince his father to come visit. Jerry and his father had ridden horses together throughout Jerry’s childhood, and the pair rode into Porcupine Creek. 

“I was really pissed off at you when you moved out here,” Jerry remembers his father saying. “I really was. You took those kids and you moved away but I’m gonna tell you something and I’m only gonna tell you one time—You made the right move… When I was younger I really wanted to be a cowboy.”

Jerry responded, “How do you like my 2 million acres of backyard?” 

In the mid-1970s, Jerry was approached by a man named Jim Phennicie who wanted to start a real estate company in Big Sky. Jerry agreed to help start the business and eventually bought out his partner just a couple of years later. Jerry has owned Triple Creek Realty for 45 years. He never envisioned himself doing real estate, but thinks his positive experience with Paul Lytle may have influenced his decision.

“When they were seven, eight or nine years old, they’d jump on their horses, take off and ride across the road and they’d be gone all day,” Jerry said about his three kids, Jerry Jr., Frankie and Becca. “We never worried about ‘em, nobody cared yaknow? They’d show up at four o’clock in the afternoon and we’d feed ‘em and make sure they were okay.” 

He explained that as a real estate agent, he’s selling dreams. People grow up to be doctors and lawyers, Jerry said, but can never grow out of that childhood dream of being a cowboy. 

“I’ve been riding this country for 40 years, riding in the hills, riding on the trails, and I bet you that I have not ridden more than 30% of the trails that are already here in this country,” Jerry admits.

Jerry has been rodeoing for the last 50 years and continues to practice and teach his skills. He and his horse, Luther, together are 102 years old. 

“In the old days around Big Sky everybody had horses and dogs,” Jerry said. He has a soft spot for children and animals and has never claimed to be a “macho man.” He loves being with his horses more than anything, and loves his rescued Pomeranian and Chihuahua, Mini and Piwi, with all his heart.

 A booming market

When Pape began selling real estate in Big Sky, 20 acres would go for $160,000. He’s amazed by the influx of people moving to Big Sky. He believes that the money people are making is “magical.”

“It’s pretty amazing how much money is out there today, and with the young people, not the old people. It’s astounding,” he said, explaining how so many of these expensive properties are being bought with cash. He sees no problem with people having lots of money, but he is concerned how wealth is affecting the way people view Big Sky. He recalled a time when someone drove to his house, passing multiple “NO TRESPASSING” signs, and began negotiating a price on his property that was clearly not for sale.

“In the last two or three years it’s gone haywire,” Jerry said. He described a property that sold for $800,000 less than ten years ago that is now on the market for $16 million.

“The change I’ve seen in Big Sky is astronomical… And I think to myself, ‘God would I ever have imagined that this would happen?’ And I never thought it would. Look at Bozeman [now], you can’t hardly drive around this goddamn town at four o’clock in the afternoon,” he said.

He was friends with Tim Blixseth, who helped build the Yellowstone Club and was always trying to get Jerry to join. Jerry never saw the need because he was already up there skiing all the time due to his close ties with Blixseth.

“I noticed how [the Yellowstone Club] started to change the aura and the atmosphere of Big Sky. The wealth that was up there didn’t really [trickle] down into Big Sky,” Jerry said. He believes that most property in Big Sky is being priced in comparison to the Yellowstone Club, and that that has caused a lot of inflation.

 ‘The old days of Big Sky’

Jerry recently overheard a woman talking about “the old days of Big Sky,” and when he asked her how long she had been here, she told him eight years. Pape then talked to her about the days of the dirt road up to the mountain that broke three axles on his vehicles, having only two TV channels, and the small community with potlucks and a population of a few hundred people. The sheriff wouldn’t just take Pape home after he had had too much to drink, he would also take Pape back to his car the next day. Pape went on to quit drinking altogether 29 years ago, and has been on the Gallatin Valley DUI Task Force for the last five years.

Jerry has lived in anticipation of the change. He advises all of his clients to buy as much land around their property as possible. He bought 20 acres at a time, amassing 140 acres in Beaver Creek. 

“I don’t see a light, I don’t hear a sound,” he boasted. “I live in a veritable zoo up there. I have grizzlies, I have black bears, I’ve got wolves, I’ve got everything you can think of. But I don’t have people and that’s something that’s pretty hard to find out here.” Without the extra privacy, he believes his family would have likely moved on by now.

“I hear it from everybody, we had our 40 years of greatness,” Jerry said of Big Sky. “We had 40 years of great times, it’s over.”

Jerry does not seem bothered when discussing the change in Big Sky. He does everything he can to avoid wasting his energy on things he can’t control. Instead, he keeps a mischievous smile as he reminisces on his 50 years. 

Jerry recalls skiing at the Yellowstone Club and being reprimanded for scaring the members after telling them that he had snuck in. He laughs when explaining how badly Everett Kircher—the late pioneer of Boyne Resorts and owner of Big Sky Resort—wanted Jerry’s business out of the Arrowhead building at the resort due to a disagreement between the two men, only to find out that Boyne didn’t actually own that property. Jerry reminisced on his relationship with Kircher and described it as one of mutual respect; Kircher encountered very few people that were willing to disagree with him, so the two bonded over their bouts. 

Jerry has been a passholder at Big Sky Resort every winter for 50 years. He enjoyed ski racing, as have his children and grandchildren. He still has a need for speed at 84 years old, even after breaking his femur a few years ago in a nasty wreck on Silver Knife. He continues to ski and even said that he gets a free pass for helping teach a resort manager’s kids how to rodeo.

Working hard for the next generation

Jerry says it’s difficult for young people to make a living in Big Sky. 

“They come here for recreation, but the problem is they don’t get to partake in it because they gotta work. It’s a catch 22… It’s kinda sad,” he said.

Jerry believes that many families moving into the area are bringing  money with them, or working remotely, because he is convinced that they are not working here. All his children found that it was too hard to make the money needed to live in Big Sky, he observed.

Jerry is a family man. He talks about his wife, children and grandchildren with great pride and joy in all of their successes. Jerry will tell you his wife is a genius, and she will counter that she is simply “bookish.”

“They’re great kids, they’ve got great education,” Jerry said. 

As Jerry’s business was coming up, there were many times when he didn’t take a paycheck, because he didn’t even have enough money to pay his employees. Becky and Jerry even started their own school, “Big Sky’s School for the Gifted.” They hired a teacher full-time who taught their three kids in the morning and Becky would take over in the afternoon. Their children’s academic prowess, combined with their eldest son’s insulin-dependent diabetes, spurred the couple to find a way to avoid sending their kids on an hour-long bus ride to Bozeman for high school.

Jerry and Becky are a textbook complimentary duo—both hardworking and excelling in their fields. She is not a very social person, yet he could talk to a fire hydrant, Becky said. 

“He likes horses. I like the stock market. I find it fascinating and a lot more interesting than trying to talk to a horse,” Becky said. She currently chairs the Gallatin Tax Appeal Board, and has been on the Gallatin Canyon Big Sky Zoning Advisory Committee since 1996.

“My kids understood that mom and dad were working their ass off,” Jerry said. “We were givin’ ‘em whatever we possibly could, but we were working our ass off to get it.”

In time, everything worked out. Jerry lived out a cowboy dream, his kids attended college in California and two of them own businesses in Bozeman. Undeniably, the family name has been inked in Big Sky’s history for decades. 

Jerry recognizes that if his motorhome didn’t break down on the way into Yellowstone, the Papes would never have been here.

“I say to myself everyday that I’ve been out here, ‘How did I get so goddamn lucky?”