On Thin Ice

Montana’s newest real-estate scheme.

It’s no secret—there’s an affordable-housing problem in the Gallatin Valley, for both those who work to live and the other way around. It’s true—even the comfortable are in crisis, as they too are being priced out. Gone are the days when a trust fund and a multi-million-dollar portfolio promised premier position among the architectural offerings of southwest Montana. But one recent transplant, Olivia “Liv” Enónice, is determined to find a place for herself and her fellow lower upper-class earners.

Ten years too late, and ten million dollars short, Enónice can’t afford a chalet in the Yellowstone Club, nor could she fit an extravagant McMansion on a hilltop or along the banks of a popular river into her budget. Newer, bigger money has taken over, and her medium-money status as heir apparent to a reasonable $5-million North Dakota sunflower-oil empire has made finding a suitable plot of land for her personal Berchtesgaden as unlikely as Laurel becoming the national epicenter for Tibetan Buddhist refugees.

But recently, while traveling to an Affluent Adulterers Anonymous retreat in West Yellowstone, she saw the structure that would change her life forever: an ice-fishing hut outside her hometown of Dickinson, ND. Her eyes lit up, her self-pity dissolved, and she saw the solution to her property-procurement issue: skid mansions.

The engineering team came up with a sprawling multilevel alumitanium design that includes four bathrooms, a crypto trading office & podcast studio, and a luxurious master suite complete with a walk-in closet containing two custom-fitted, SCUBA-grade sleep-suits.

“I knew right away it was the answer,” says Enónice. “Land is expensive, but ice? Ice is free!” She promptly hired an architect—along with a team of glaciologists—to get the design and weight dispersion just right. “As usual, timing is everything,” she notes. “Thanks to climate change, there aren’t many glaciers left. As such, most glaciologists are out of a job and willing to work for pennies on the dollar. They’re industrious, and I need to save money—the seed-oil biz ain’t doing too hot these days.”

Enónice’s team came up with a sprawling multilevel alumitanium design that includes four bathrooms, a crypto trading office & podcast studio, and a luxurious master suite complete with a walk-in closet containing two custom-fitted, SCUBA-grade sleep-suits. “Safety is paramount,” says Enónice. “Ice can heave and crack, especially in the middle of the night. I can always build another skid-mansion, but this body? Irreplaceable.” The furniture pieces are all specialized lightweight designs from Bed, Bath & Buoy.

Ice fishermen are being warned not to get too close to the skid mansion when fishing, so as not to disturb the calculated weight-distribution quotient, or they could cause the entire area to break loose.

Outside is a suspended skid firepit, a skid pickleball court with a heated all-weather surface, and a skid horseshoe pit. “This is Mon-freakin’-tana, honey,” says Enónice. “Gotta have a horseshoe pit! Although I need to find some non-skid horseshoes—the other day, I had to walk a quarter mile in heels to retrieve my plunge-boy’s errant toss.”

Behind the house are separate servants’ quarters for the maid, chef, and ice-thickness tester. “It’s a modest home,” notes Enónice, “so instead of a full menagerie of obsequious minions, I commissioned a diamond-crusted auger from Tiffany & Co. to maintain my aura of opulence. Fishing is for the peasantry, of course. Instead, Pierre uses it to drill my daily cold-plunge holes—my doctor says it’s ‘nature’s botox’.”

The base of the home doubles as a hull in case of a sudden warm spell. “I don’t want to end up like Jack at the end of Titanic,” Enónice quips. “And in the summertime, I can stay right here—I’ll swim and do my perineal sunning right off the front porch.” And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, she says. “I get all that Montana has to offer, and there’s no property taxes or membership fees!” She admits that she still “needs to work out the whole Door Dash thing,” pondering the status of their proposed drone-delivery service.

Ice fishermen are being warned not to get too close to the skid mansion when fishing, so as not to disturb the calculated weight-distribution quotient, or they could cause the entire area to break loose. “It’s for their own safety,” assures Enónice, “not just for my privacy.”

Just like my hero, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., I too have a dream: to Make Montana Affordable Again.” —Liv Enónice

Ultimately, says Enónice, the benefits outweigh the costs. “Outside of having to take out a special home-insurance policy protecting against wayward curling stones, out-of-control speed-skaters, and a rogue wolf mauling my inflatable Rudolph decoration, it’s been a seamless adjustment,” she says. “I did have to file an injunction against the local polar-plunge club, though. A stiff wind blew my whole spread onto the bank one night, and I woke up to them splashing lake water all over my skid pizza oven.”

In the works are more skid mansions for Enónice’s boarding-school friends, who also want a piece of the action. “Once we have a dozen or so out there,” she says, gesturing across the icy expanse, “we’ll build an entrance gate and call the place ‘Hebgen Heights.’ Just like my hero, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., I too have a dream: to Make Montana Affordable Again.”