Glacier Park property owners to fight dream-home demolition order

The California couple building a home on the banks of McDonald Creek in Glacier National Park will appeal a jurisdictional ruling that their private home construction project was subject to Montana’s nearly half-century-old streambed laws, challenging an arbiter’s finding that it was built without approval and must be demolished.

The decision was handed down Monday by hearing officer Laurie Zeller, a retired bureau chief with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) who was appointed by the Flathead Conservation District to arbitrate a dispute over whether John and Stacey Ambler built their three-story home on private property along McDonald Creek without the proper permit.

A house seated along McDonald Creek in Glacier National Park has sparked public controversy for being built without adequate permitting, and now must be deconstructed by the fall.

Courtesy of the Flathead Conservation District

Zeller announced her decision during the Flathead Conservation District’s (FCD) Nov. 13 meeting, remanding the case back to the FCD’s Board of Supervisors, which in a unanimous vote ruled that the Amblers must remove the home and remediate the streambed no

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