Billionaire buys Cusick property

CUSICK – The Buck Quarter Ranch near Cusick has sold to a “high-profile, billionaire technology executive from Silicon Valley, who requested that their identity and the terms of the transaction remain strictly confidential,” according to the Pend Oreille Realty website. Pend Oreille Realty facilitated the “off-market sale,” according to the website.

The nearly 900-acre property was listed on its own website with an asking price of $21.9 million.

“Buyers in the tech community are increasingly focused on properties with serious defensibility, independent water resources, and robust off-grid capabilities,” Cody Abbott, owner of Pend Oreille Realty was quoted as saying in a story about the Buck Quarter Ranch on the realty’s website. “Buck Quarter Ranch stands out as one of the best examples of that anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, offering unmatched resilience and autonomy.”

According to the story on the Pend Oreille Realty website, the buyer specifically sought a highly private, self-sustaining estate, a category that has gained increased attention in tech circles following Mark Zuckerberg’s well known Hawaiian compound and the broader interest in long-term, resilient properties.

Abbot, the realtor who facilitated the sale, is also owner of the Ruby Creek Resort.

“I live in Cusick,” he said. Abbot said he had been working with the seller nearly a year.

“I got the listing in about January,” he said. He said there was a decent amount of interest in the property.

There were 16 properties that have sold for $1 million or more in Pend Oreille County so far this year, according to Pend Oreille County Treasurer Nicole Dice.

The most expensive one has been for $3.2 million, she said, and was located off Highway 20 in Fire District 4. The Buck Quarter Ranch sale wasn’t included in the number of million dollar-plus properties sold. Dice said the county doesn’t get much money from those sales, that most of the tax goes to the state. She said the county received about $8,000 on the $3.2 million sale. The money is required by law to go to the capital projects fund.

The billionaire who bought the Buck Quarter Ranch property won’t be the first billionaire in Pend Oreille County.

Daniel Reiner, a wealthy investor who drowned in Trout Lake in 2024 was a billionaire and The Buck Quarter Ranch property, located at 152 Locke Cutoff Road, was once owned by the late Sergey Grishin, a Russian billionaire. Known locally as “The Russian,” Grishin died March 6, 2023, in a Moscow hospital at age 56.

Representatives of Grishin’s estate ran a legal notice in The Newport Miner in 2023 calling for creditors to come forward with any claims against the estate.

Grishin had a colorful background. He claimed to have pulled off the world’s largest bank heist.

Jim Christy told The Miner for a 2023 story that he worked on building the Buck Quarter Ranch.

“I didn’t deal much with him,” Christy said of Grishin. He said he got paid fully and on time, so he thought Grishin was a good guy.

The Buck Quarter Ranch’s new owner reportedly intends to further invest in and enhance the ranch’s sustainability systems, committing to the long-term environmental preservation and resilience of the property.