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. It was designed and permitted as lodging, not as a residential subdivision, which is why it landed inside the county's resort-zone carve out when the short-term rental rules were written.
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 platted and developed the same decade by a different group, West Jackson Properties, as a residential subdivision of 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 carries the resort-zoning history that put Spring Creek Ranch on the approved list. Neither appears on it.
That history is the whole explanation. It was never about which view is better. It was about which parcels were entitled as lodging before the county wrote its current rental rules, and which were entitled as private homes.
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:
| Neighborhood | Location | Short-term rental status |
|---|---|---|
| Spring Creek Ranch | East Gros Ventre Butte | Legal, resort-zoned since the 1980s |
| Gros Ventre North / West | West Gros Ventre Butte | Not permitted, 31-day minimum applies |
| Riva Ridge | East Gros Ventre Butte, elevated slope | Not permitted, 31-day minimum applies |
| Owl Creek | Along the Snake River corridor | Not permitted, 31-day minimum applies |
The homes at Amangani sit inside the Spring Creek Ranch resort footprint, which is why they carry the same rental flexibility even though they are sold and marketed as private residences.
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. A subdivision's CC&Rs can add further restrictions on top of the county rule, so the zone being technically eligible does not guarantee an individual HOA allows it.
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. One decision made in the early 1980s, about whether a parcel was entitled as a resort or a residential subdivision, 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.
Frequently asked questions
Does owning at Amangani give the same rental rights as owning at Spring Creek Ranch? Yes. The homes at Amangani sit within the Spring Creek Ranch resort footprint, so they carry the same short-term rental eligibility under the county's approved zone.
Can a homeowner in Gros Ventre North or Riva Ridge ever get short-term rental rights added? Not without a change to the county's Land Development Regulations. The approved zones are fixed by ordinance, not by individual property application, so an owner outside those zones cannot petition their way in.
Does the conservation easement on East Gros Ventre Butte affect existing private lots, or just undeveloped land? The 313 acres protected by the Jackson Hole Land Trust cover previously undeveloped hillside. It does not change the status of existing homes on the butte, but it does mean the supply of new lots in that specific area is effectively closed for good.