How a one-office realty on a Montana highway became the West’s recreational property brokerage.
Kevin Wetherell, a fifth-generation Montanan from White Sulphur Springs, spent a decade running power plants before he sold a single acre. In 1993 he opened Clearwater River Realty in Seeley Lake with, as he puts it, “a credit card and a dream.”
The early edge wasn’t capital — it was effort. Wetherell compiled absentee-owner records one microfiche frame at a time and mailed 840 owners directly. His listing brochures were colored construction paper with photographs taped on, in an era when the competition ran three lines of text. The lesson stuck: sell the place, not the parcel.
Thirty years on, that’s still the company’s pitch — lifestyle first, real estate second.
The Clearwater River rises in the Swan Range and runs 46 miles south through a chain of lakes — Rainy, Alva, Inez, Seeley, Salmon — before meeting the Blackfoot. It’s bull trout water in grizzly country, the last natural chain of lakes in the region.
The company has carried its name through every era since. The names on the door changed as the map grew; the river didn’t.
One office on Highway 83 in Seeley Lake, named for the river that strings the valley’s chain of lakes together. Kevin Wetherell built the early business on shoe leather and invention — compiling absentee-owner records by microfiche and mailing hand-made brochures with taped-on photographs while competitors ran text listings.
The 2008 merger with Waldbillig Realty — a firm selling Montana ground since 1957 — took Clearwater from a valley operation to statewide coverage, “from Yaak to Wibaux.” Through the recession that followed, Clearwater grew by bringing struggling brokerages into the fold and joining what became the Sports Afield Trophy Properties® network.
Today the brand spans Montana, Idaho, Washington, Wyoming, and North Dakota, with international offices in Costa Rica and Belize. Clearwater Montana Properties remains the state’s largest brokerage — and the Clearwater name still points back to the same river.
Our governing code — the compass for how agents treat clients, and how we treat each other. It’s why agents who leave to test the waters with other brands so often come back.
Clients are making the biggest decision of their lives. They need an advocate, not a closer — and agents deserve the same loyalty they give.
Our agents share listings, buyers, and hard-won local knowledge. Guardrails keep the adversarial habits of this industry outside our walls.
We vet who we hire and part ways quickly when behavior doesn’t fit. Agents who thrive in a nurturing culture treat clients best — that’s the whole theory.
Through the Clearwater Giving Fund, a portion of every transaction goes to a local service group or charity chosen by the agent who closed it — the fire hall, the food bank, the 4-H club down the road.
To date that’s more than $1.3 million returned to the communities we call home, one closing at a time.
In 2025, Shaun Michael Lewis — a fifth-generation Montanan who led Clearwater’s digital transformation as COO & CTO before running global operations for an international retail company — returned as CEO. Kevin Wetherell remains chairman, still listing property in Southwest Montana.
Meet Our Leadership →Our bi-annual magazine, Find Your Wild, puts 50,000 copies of ranch listings, river frontage, and Mountain West life in front of buyers each issue — the construction-paper brochure, all grown up.
Read the Magazine →Your Montana dream starts here — with an agent who already lives it.