Woes of the Wealthiest

If you're searching for signs that the other one percent is impacted by the deepening recession (depression?), you need look no further than the mountains of Montana - the super-exclusive Yellowstone Club has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Opened in 1999, the club contains the houses and condos of its millionaire members spread across 22 square acres near Big Sky, Montana, and boasts numerous amenities including a private ski slope and golf course.

Among the club's 340 members are News Corp. president Peter Chernin, Comcast C.O.O. Stephen Burke, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, and former Vice President Dan Quayle.

With names like that, you might ask, how did the Yellowstone Club find itself in such dire financial straits?

A combination of aggressive expansion and tightening credit markets played a large part. Timber magnate Tim Blixseth, who co-founded the club with his wife Edra, set out to take the club international (the venture was called "Yellowstone Club World"), which, along with massive expansion in Montana, caught the club in a bind once credit markets tightened and the Blixseths were unable to secure new financing.

The club is now 100 percent owned by Edra Blixeth following a contentious divorce, and a spokesperson says the plan is to reorganize and emerge from bankruptcy as soon as possible.

The Yellowstone Club's financial woes are just one of several recent indications that even the very wealthy are now feeling recessionary pain.

Last week it came to light that Lamborghini of Orange County, the dealership credited with selling a whopping 10 percent of Lamborghini's global inventory last year, is closing its doors - for "undisclosed reasons," mind you, but it's hard to believe that the current economy isn't a factor.

Back east, Brooke Astor's estate has put the society doyenne's palatial Park Avenue apartment back on the market after removing it due to lack of interest this summer. This time around, the sellers have lopped $12 million off the original $46 million price tag. The 14-room duplex might be a piece of Manhattan social history, but the high price tag and monthly maintenance fees approaching $20,000 have clearly given buyers pause.

And the proof isn't merely anecdotal. The Spectrem Millionaire Investor Index, which measures the financial mood of Americans with $1 million or more in investable assets, fell to record depths in October with a score of negative 24, compared with a 14 at the same time last year.

by Liz Gunnison