Montana’s Orchard House Feels Like Summer In France

If you’ve been dreaming of an idyllic European summer, you may not have to go as far as you think to find it.

That’s because the Orchard House, a seven bedroom estate in Bigfork, MT on the shore of Flathead Lake, is bringing all the vibes of a summer in the south of France, no passport needed.

Recently listed with Lloy Griffing for $4.7 million, the 7,000-plus square foot home trades the region’s usual mountain vernacular for something more refined—a farmhouse with Carrara marble and limestone finishes, not unlike something you’d find in Provence.

This attention to detail, which also includes hand-troweled Italian plaster, was an intentional decision by owners Sheryl and Dan Getman, who built the property themselves in 2015, orchard and all.

“This location has the very best conditions for growing trees, vegetables and flowers,” says Sheryl. But it isn’t just the output of the 6.34 acres—peach, pear, and plum trees, alongside a variety of berries and herbs, and hundreds of Dutch bulbs planted for spring—that’s impressive.

A path to an irrigation spring winds past wild orchids and glacier lilies before disappearing into pine forest, the kind of understated abundance the Getmans clearly designed the land around.

“Pathways cross through rock gardens and seating places, with views of pine trees and the lake. It always feels peaceful here—spotting eagles or ospreys, it’s just a perfectly rich balance of excitement and ordinary life,” she says.

That balance continues in the home, where a floral, fruit-filled courtyard opens through French doors into the main living spaces—a great room, a library, a full chef’s kitchen and dining room, and a private bedroom wing, connected by a wide staircase to the second floor.

The Getmans say the floor plan draws on architect Christopher Alexander’s writing on public and private space, built “to help occupants feel very connected, yet with choices for peaceful home living.”

A separate wing holds laundry, an office, and pet space, along with a root cellar—practical rooms dressed in the same brass hardware and handmade cabinetry as the rest of the house, and wired for modern entertainment and home-office needs.

It isn’t just the beauty of the finishes, which are classically understated, that will appeal to buyers, but also the kind of lifestyle it inspires.

A shelf-lined mudroom, where you can imagine keeping canned preserves, leads into a kitchen with enough workspace for all of your culinary hobbies. An oversized island offers enough room to prep a quiche Lorraine and a peach cobbler at once, both of which you can easily imagine serving in the adjacent dining room before retiring to the gardens or the library for a nightcap.

The setting does its own share of selling. The property sits minutes from Yellow Bay State Park and Flathead Lake’s swimming coves, with Glacier Park International Airport in Kalispell about 45 minutes north.

Bigfork’s gallery scene, summer playhouse, and cherry festivals are a short drive south, and Glacier National Park’s peaks are close enough to reach in a day—a reminder that beneath all the marble and plaster, you’re still very much in Montana.

For the Getmans, the appeal was never complicated. ‘Beautiful, crisp air and free, high-quality water. Excellent, clean soil,’ they say, is reason enough to call this place home.

For the next owner, that same European sensibility, grown from Montana’s wild soil, might be best enjoyed with an Aperol spritz in hand.

Larissa Runkle is a seasoned real estate writer, lifestyle journalist, and marketing strategist with over a decade of experience and 2,000+ published articles. Her work covering housing, personal finance, and lifestyle has appeared in major publications like Bankrate, MarketWatch, Yahoo Finance, and New York Post. In 2023, she launched a boutique copywriting studio to partner with land developers and top brokerages, creating strategic content that builds lasting brand authority. When she isn’t writing, Larissa enjoys the outdoors from her home in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, where she lives with her husband, son, and German shepherd, Yoko.