This Montana Home Is Where The Heart Is

“Having grown up on a ranch near Helena, Mont., Max Baucus—a former United States senator and ambassador to China—wanted to return to his roots when he and his wife, attorney Melodee Hanes, decided to build a new home,” writes Cowgirl magazine in its March/April 2026 issue, going on to note that the JLF Architects team “helped quell their apprehensions about building a new home.” As Hanes tells the magazine, “They were right in tune with what we had envisioned for our home, and we were so impressed with their design creativity.” The eventual design “is a love letter to Montana’s ranching history,” the magazine writes, “a series of homestead-inspired ‘outbuildings’ linked by striking steel and glass connectors.”