Montana
High Turnkey Design In The Montana Pines Defines This $7.5 Million Modern Chalet
44 Elk Highlands Drive, completed in 2023, sits among the majestic pines standing guard over Whitefish Lake, Montana.
National Parks Realty
What happens when a property’s designer is also its owner? For starters, that property is created as a home, not an investment to be flipped, not one of many projects developed to meet clients’ briefs. The result is instead a deeply personal manifestation of that designer’s tastes, wants, needs, emotions. A space to love and to live in.
Such is the case with Florida-based designer Lori Faison, who first visited Whitefish, Montana in the early ’90s while on a cross-country tour with her husband and some friends. The area’s “charm, natural beauty and endless recreational opportunities left an indelible impression,” she says. Returning in 2017, Faison was again nudged by a feeling she just couldn’t shake—that she and her husband should “plant roots in this gorgeous spot.”
The serene shores of Whitefish Lake can be reached in under 10 minutes by car from 44 Elk Highlands Drive. ©2021 Danita Delimont/Shutterstock
That spot is the Whitefish neighborhood surrounding pine-lined Elk Highlands Drive. During the pandemic, Faison worked with Sonja Burgard of National Parks Realty to find the ideal lot to build 44 Elk Highlands Drive. “This is her baby,” says Burgard of the turnkey property, completed in 2023. “And [Faison’s vision] is so evident the moment you walk inside,” she adds, commenting that during showings, “jaws are dropping… and the words ‘serene’ and ‘calming’ are overheard a lot.”
Wrapped in cedar, corral board and Montana moss rock, this home’s exterior exudes warmth—a first impression that makes it seem established and settled into, not the turnkey new build it is. “My vision for this home was guided by both early homestead cabins of Montana’s past and the newer, more modern vernacular that’s becoming more prevalent in new builds,” Faison reflects. “I wanted to honor both styles and partnered with Jill Lawrence of Montana Creative to create a design that had an intentional crossover of modern and traditional mountain architectural elements, with the aim of seamlessly blurring the line between each style and creating a modern-day chalet.”
Douglas fir and European white pine warm the interiors, while floor-to-ceiling bi-fold doors invite the light year-round.
National Parks Realty
Inside, 4,200 square feet (390 sqm) of living space flow effortlessly throughout an intentionally neutral palette and a natural yet sophisticated aesthetic—as if this home just rose up ready-made from the mountains. Floor-to-ceiling glass enfolds you in forest, sky and mountain views so vivid that you need to remind yourself they’re not 3D photo murals but a pine-scented vignette of right here, right now.
“The design intention was to create a home with walls of windows for an abundance of natural light to stream in during the long Montana winters, and of course to capitalize on the beautiful view corridors,” says Faison. Warmth is maintained, she adds, by using wood like Douglas fir on the walls and reclaimed European white pine floors.
A custom tunnel-style fireplace connects dining room to great room.
National Parks Realty
Tactile material natural materials tempt you to give in to the pleasure of running a hand along a waney-edged timber table, the easy glide of buttery leather, the coziness of tweedy upholstery. The great room’s custom-designed tunnel fireplace is shared with the dining room, adding comfort and atmosphere to both zones. A bi-fold door system opens wide from the indoor living spaces to a heated outdoor deck that seems to float amongst soaring pine trees. Downstairs, a games room is set up to shoot pool or hunker down with Texas Hold’em, and a bunk room for guests means hosting and entertaining is always relaxed and easy.
If you know you know… the singular pleasure of a moonlit dip in an open-air hot tub on a cool evening with the forest as your neighbor.
National Parks Realty
Whitefish, with 10,000 residents, has the charms of a small town with a not-to-be-underestimated sophistication as well. During the pandemic, celebrities took notice and visited or purchased homes, and in 2024 Chef Todd English, four-time James Beard Award winner and Aspen Food & Wine Classic pioneer, co-founded the Whitefish Food and Wine Festival, which celebrates the culinary scene in the Flathead Valley. Lovers of live music will want to catch the Under The Big Sky Festival at Big Mountain in July set on a 350-acre ranch over three days with Tyler Childers, Mumford & Sons and The Red Clay Strays headlining.
44 Elk Highlands Drive is listed at $7,500,000 and represented by Sonja Burgard of National Parks Realty, a member of Forbes Global Properties—the invitation-only network of top-tier brokerages worldwide and the exclusive real estate partner of Forbes.
Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West) is facing yet another lawsuit over allegations of unlicensed sampling — only this time, it’s centered on a video clip of the rapper’s infamous 2013 fight with paparazzi.
In a case filed Wednesday (July 15) in Los Angeles federal court, the celebrity news agency Bauer-Griffin claims that Ye, French Montana (Karim Kharbouch) and others used audio from the headline-grabbing incident in “Where They At,” released in 2024 off French’s Mac & Cheese 5.
The May 2013 video, which also features a pregnant Kim Kardashian, shows West charging at a photographer outside a Los Angeles restaurant and shouting “don’t take no photos” and a string of profanities: “All of you m*therf*ckers stop it, man!”
The clip appears prominently in the intro to Montana’s song — a use that the lawsuit calls “blatant and willful” copyright infringement.
“Given Mr. Ye’s history of numerous confrontations with paparazzi, the video was highly newsworthy,” the agency’s lawyers write in legal documents obtained and first reported by Billboard. “Listeners immediately recognized the audio sample that begins the infringing record as being copied from the video.”
Ye has been sued over a dozen times for allegedly using unlicensed samples and interpolations in his music, including a high-profile battle with Donna Summer. In May, he lost a jury trial over using an uncleared sample in an early version of the Grammy-winning “Hurricane” from Donda. He had testified at trial that he’s “very generous” about giving credit and compensation when it’s due, but that “a lot of people try to take advantage of me.”
In Wednesday’s complaint, Bauer-Griffin says the creators of “Where They At” showed no such respect to its rights in the video of the paparazzi incident, using it despite being well aware that sound recordings must be licensed when any amount is directly sampled into a song.
“In the music industry, copyrights are prevalent and well understood,” lawyers for the agency write. “Every defendant knew that they needed to have but did not have permission to use the audio sample.”
Reps for both stars did not immediately return requests for comment. The lawsuit also names as defendants producers Dem Jointz (Dwayne Abernathy Jr.) and BoogzDaBeast (Jahmal Gwin), as well Gamma, the label that released the song, and its distribution unit Vydia.
The confrontation at issue in Wednesday’s lawsuit was one of two high-profile scuffles with paparazzi that year for the rapper, who was then still known as Kanye West. Two months later, he clashed with photographer Daniel Ramos outside of LAX, resulting in a civil assault lawsuit that the star eventually settled two years later on the eve of trial.
As many celebrities have learned over the years, simply appearing in a photo or video does not give someone any legal rights to it. Ownership of such material is always retained by the creator — an inconvenient fact that has sparked lawsuits against Jennifer Lopez, Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa.
It’s unclear who filmed the May 2013 incident, which happened outside a Beverly Hills restaurant minutes after the star had also been filmed accidentally banging his head into a signpost while trying to avoid other photographers. But the rights to the footage have been owned by Bauer-Griffin from the beginning: When TMZ first posted it at the time, it came with a watermark crediting the agency.
“The infringing record has been widely distributed on various streaming platforms, in flagrant violation of plaintiff’s exclusive rights under copyright laws,” Bauer-Griffin’s attorneys write. “Plaintiff brings these claims to vindicate those rights.”
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