Drive west out of town on Highway 22 and the land starts to lift before you reach the river. East Gros Ventre Butte rises on your right, close enough to town for a ten-minute commute and high enough to put the entire Teton Range in a single window. Two homes up there can share the same elevation, the same wildlife crossing through the sage below, and the same unbroken sightline to the Grand. One of them can legally take a guest for a long weekend. The other cannot rent for anything shorter than 31 days, full stop, no matter what the owner wants or what a booking platform allows.

That difference does not show up on a listing sheet. It shows up in Teton County's Land Development Regulations, and it is the single biggest variable separating one West of Jackson property from its neighbor.

Nearly everywhere in the county, the answer is no

Teton County's short-term rental rule is blunt. Under Section 6.1.5 of the county's Land Development Regulations, any rental under 31 days is prohibited unless the property sits inside a specific list of designated resort or lodging zones. Everywhere else, a lease has to run a month or longer, and the county's own compliance page spells out the enforcement teeth: violations can draw a fine of up to $750 per day, with every day of noncompliance counted as a separate offense.

The county's own FAQ states it as plainly as a zoning rule gets. Short-term rentals are banned countywide unless the parcel falls inside one of the approved locations. That single sentence is the reason two homes on the same butte, a quarter mile apart, can carry completely different economics.

Reporting from the Jackson Hole News&Guide identified exactly which places make the list: The Aspens, Teton Shadows, Teton Village, Golf Creek, the Jackson Hole Racquet Club Resort Commercial Area, Crescent H's fish lodges, and Spring Creek Ranch. That last name is the one that matters for West of Jackson, because it sits on the same landform as several neighborhoods that did not make the cut.

Why Spring Creek Ranch made the list and its neighbors didn't

The reason traces back to how the butte got built out in the first place. Spring Creek Ranch began as 1,000 acres carved off former Wyoming Governor and Senator Cliff Hansen's ranch in 1980, sold to a group of investors who built it as a resort from the start: 24 townhouses with roads, sewer and water by 1982, then a 24-room hotel and the Granary Restaurant three years later.

Aman Resorts chose the same butte for its first North American property, the Amangani, reinforcing the site's identity as a place built for overnight guests rather than 31-day tenants.

Compare that to the neighborhoods immediately next door. Gros Ventre North and West, the gated communities on the adjoining stretch of the butte, were developed the same decade by a different group, West Jackson Properties, with three to twenty acre homesites overlooking the Snake River and the protected Walton Ranch. Riva Ridge, a smaller enclave on the butte's elevated slope with homesites in the 35 to 40 acre range, followed the same residential pattern. Neither appears on it.

That history is the whole explanation. It was never about which view is better.

What the line actually does to an owner's numbers

For a buyer who plans to occupy the home themselves or rent it long term, the zoning line is close to irrelevant. For a buyer weighing whether the property can help cover its own carrying costs during the weeks nobody is using it, the line is the whole conversation.

For comparison, published performance data for hosts operating legally within one of the county's other approved pockets puts median annual income around $68,000, with average nightly rates near $396 and occupancy near 72 percent. Outside those pockets, an owner's only rental option is a 31-day-minimum lease, a different tenant pool entirely and a very different revenue curve. A buyer comparing two otherwise similar butte-top homes needs to know which side of that line each one sits on before either number means anything.

Here is how the corridor actually breaks down:

The conservation counterweight buyers rarely factor in

There is a second layer to this corridor that has nothing to do with rentals and everything to do with why the view stays intact. The Jackson Hole Land Trust spent years assembling conservation easements on the hillside facing the National Elk Refuge, closing on the last of four parcels in 2018 to bring the protected total to 313 acres. That deal alone kept an estimated 12 additional homes from ever being built on the slope, according to the Land Trust's president at the time. The full account of that closing lays out how the easements connect to earlier protections dating back to 2014.

For a buyer on the butte, that conservation footprint does two things at once. It locks in the scenery that makes the location valuable in the first place, and it caps how much new supply can ever compete with the homes already there. Scarcity on this corridor is not a marketing phrase. It is acreage that is legally incapable of becoming a subdivision.

What this means depending on why you're buying

If you want rental income to offset ownership costs, the property has to sit inside Spring Creek Ranch's boundary or another named approved zone. A home on Gros Ventre North or Riva Ridge with an identical view cannot legally replicate that income model, regardless of what a listing description implies.

If you want privacy and permanence over cash flow, the 31-day-minimum neighborhoods are arguably the stronger buy. Fewer rotating guests, a quieter street, and a conservation buffer that will never turn into new construction next door.

If you are evaluating land or an existing home purely as an investment, the zoning designation should be confirmed in writing before the offer, not assumed from the neighborhood's reputation.

The takeaway

West of Jackson gets talked about as a single luxury corridor, and the mountain views back that up. The zoning map does not. The zoning map still determines today whether an owner on that butte can book a weekend guest or has to find one willing to stay a month. That distinction belongs in the due diligence conversation before it belongs in the offer.

If you're comparing homes on the butte and want to know exactly which side of that line a specific property sits on, along with what its HOA actually permits beyond the county baseline, VYSTA can walk you through it property by property. Request a Private Consultation and we'll pull the zoning history before you make an offer, not after.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.