California couple John and Stacy Ambler are in the midst of a legal fight to keep their home after building it without permission in Glacier National Park in Montana.

Newsweek contacted the Amblers’ legal team, the Flathead Conservation District’s legal team, and the Friends of Montana’s Streams and Rivers for comment via email.

Why It Matters

National parks in the United States are under constant pressure from environmental damages. While the Ambler house is small, allowing it to remain could have major ramifications for how construction in national parks is handled in the future.

The case could also set a precedent for how these kinds of disputes are handled.

What To Know

The Amblers built their home on the McDonald Creek, in Flathead County, Montana, but they quickly faced opposition over environmental issues.

“Glacier National Park did not ‘allow’ the construction on this private property,” the Flathead Conservation District said in a January 2024 court filing. “Glacier National Park has no regulations related to construction on private property. There are rigorous rules related to construction within Glacier National Park (and all federal lands), none of which were complied with by the plaintiffs…The plaintiffs obtained no valid permit, contract or agreement with the United States.”

The Amblers are now facing a federal lawsuit after suing the Flathead Conservation District, arguing that private inholding properties inside the national park are immune from state law as they are a federal jurisdiction.

According to Cowboy State Daily, the Amblers’ home is located in an area where there are no floodplain designations from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) because it wasn’t mapped. Due to this, the county is limited to regulate floodplain development.

The Amblers’ new neighbors, who were annoyed at the loophole that they used to try and continue building the home, organized the Friends of Montana’s Streams and Rivers (FMSR), which campaigns to protect the integrity of the park’s streams.

The Cowboy State Daily reported that the house can be seen from a nearby bridge, where neighbors keep tabs on the property as they continue to organize against it.

What People Are Saying

Rob Farris-Olsen, an attorney representing Friends of Montana’s Streams and Rivers, said in a statement to the Cowboy State Daily: “It’s frustrating. There’s no continuity of regulation between downstream and upstream. For Wyoming, there’s not a lot of inholdings within Yellowstone. And the ceding of the Grand Tetons to the feds, that was very different than Glacier. I’m not really sure how much of an effect this will have on future Wyoming cases. However, it creates this regulatory void for a lot of inholdings because there’s no building permits necessarily.”

What Happens Next

The case remains ongoing in federal court. If the Amblers are successful, the court could grant them immunity from state law, allowing them to keep the house.

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