Gordy’s interest in buying the land for pleasure has helped him close deals with wary sellers. He recalls going to talk to the 92-year old owner of the Wyoming ranch, a doctor who’d bought it from his former patient, Bryant Butler Brooks, Wyoming’s seventh governor. When he arrived, the doctor asked him to sit in the car while he met with his wife and two sons for an hour.
“He wanted to make sure it had a good steward because it had only had one other owner,” Gordy said. “These ranchers don’t want to see the land developed. Even though they could probably get more money, they’d rather someone like me buy it who will keep it in its original condition.”
There’s some irony in his preservationist mind-set. A onetime roughneck-turned-wildcatter, he amassed a fortune through oil-and-gas exploration. Today, he drills and operates wells throughout Texas and the western U.S. through myriad closely held firms such as SG Interests and Gordy Oil Co. Through an entity called RGGS, he owns mineral and surface rights on 1.5 million acres, which he bought from U.S. Steel Corp. in 2004 for an undisclosed price. He doesn’t run the mines but does collect royalties: “My wife calls it ‘mailbox money,”’ Gordy said.
In 2016, the Bureau of Land Management canceled leases that had been issued to SG Interests to drill on 21,000 acres in Colorado’s Thompson Divide, a stretch of mountainous public land notable for its elk herds and trout fisheries and prized by hunters, ranchers and hikers. SG sued over the cancelation, which the bureau imposed after the environmental-permitting process that allowed the original leases was deemed to be flawed.
SG dropped its legal challenge last year after the government agreed to pay the company $1.5 million for investment costs incurred.
Some places are appropriate for drilling, while others—like his ranches—are not, Gordy said. “It’s tough when people tell you what to do on your own land.”
Just ask Vinod Khosla.
The billionaire venture capitalist took a fight over banning the public from his beachfront property in Malibu, California, all the way to the Supreme Court. He ultimately lost, but his case is emblematic of the age-old tension between recreationists and landowners.
Brothers Farris and Dan Wilks, the 12th-biggest landowners in the U.S., with more than 700,000 acres, made their money from fracking technology and have repeatedly drawn public ire for erecting fences and cutting off access to their land in Montana and Idaho. A recent report by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership found that 6.4 million acres belonging to the U.S. public in Western states are landlocked and accessible only with permission from private property owners.
Gordy, for his part, allows public access to a quarter of his land and limited access on another third. That’s good news for trekkers and hunters because—to the chagrin of his wife—he’s not done buying.