A half-built house overlooking a creek in Glacier National Park can stay put, a federal appeals court has decided, closing a yearslong fight over who calls the shots inside the park's boundaries. Per SFGate, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last month upheld a 2025 ruling in favor of John and Stacy Ambler, a San Diego couple building a three-story home about 20 feet from McDonald Creek on a rare private parcel referred to as an inholding. Montana's Flathead Conservation District had unanimously voted to have the structure removed three years ago, saying the Amblers violated state stream-protection rules by building without a required free permit after locals filed more than a dozen complaints.
The district and an allied nonprofit had appealed the 2025 decision, citing their duty to safeguard waterways. However, Judge Kathleen DeSoto found that Montana law doesn't reach inside Glacier, where the federal government holds "exclusive" jurisdiction over private inholdings in the national park. After losing, the district said it hopes the National Park Service will work with inholders on "commonsense solutions." The ruling clears the way for the prominent house, visible from busy Apgar Village near the park's west entrance, to be finished. Newsweek notes that, even though the Ambler home is fairly modest in scope, "allowing it to remain could have major ramifications for how construction in national parks is handled in the future."
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