“Tim is an aggressive businessperson who tends to operate in the gray,” says one Yellowstone member who defended Mr. Blixseth’s take-no-prisoners tactics but declined to be named for fear of angering other members who are upset with Mr. Blixseth. “It’s that aggressiveness that got this thing off the ground, that got the lifts built, that got the forest land away from the government, that got the water rights. As long as it was working in our benefit, everybody thought he was great.”

But Gary Rieschel, a venture capitalist whose family joined the club in 2000, sees it differently. “Tim is a trader, going back a long way,” he says. “When he put together the club, it was one of the great land trades in history, and he attracted a group of people who were a leave-your-ego-at-the-door crowd. But then he tried to trade off those relationships into what in his mind was an even more exalted group — and it just didn’t work. Tim actually punctured his own bubble.”

EVEN as his divorce was being finalized last year, Mr. Blixseth was preparing to sell the club to CrossHarbor Capital, the private equity firm founded by Sam Byrne, a Yellowstone member. Mr. Byrne had agreed to pay just over $400 million, according to several people familiar with the terms.

The deal fell through. According to several people who talked to Mr. Blixseth, he contended that Mr. Byrne failed to raise the money. But Ms. Blixseth, among others, says this is untrue. She says Mr. Blixseth backed out because the Blixseths, due to the club’s debts, needed to provide a pile of cash at closing, as much as $60 million — which Mr. Blixseth didn’t want to do.

When the club declared bankruptcy last fall, CrossHarbor stepped in with $20 million in debtor-in-possession financing to keep the place running, a sum the firm posted only after Credit Suisse failed to raise the money, according to court documents.

With the installation of Mr. Byrne’s firm as the new owner later this month — he has pledged to invest $75 million above the purchase price in repairs and has set aside $15 million to pay the club’s creditors — members hope that peace will be restored on the mountain.

Whether such calm will descend upon Ms. Blixseth remains to be seen.

A partial list of her debts filed with the bankruptcy court in April includes bank loans, judgments and tax liens totaling more than $141 million, including the $35 million from CrossHarbor. Her household staff of 114 has been cut to less than 40. Some days, she spends hours outside doing yard work.

“I call it Zen weed-pulling,” she says. “I take it one golf hole at a time.”

Still, some Yellowstone members say they are willing to forgive Ms. Blixseth because she’s been so heavily involved lately in keeping the club on its feet.

“I don’t think she’s blameless,” says Jim Davidson, a founder of Silver Lake Partners, the private equity firm in Menlo Park, Calif., and a longtime Yellowstone member. “But with all the chips down, she has made some very brave decisions that benefited not just the club’s members but also those who work in and around Big Sky. There were consequences she had to know were coming, but she did it anyway.”

If only her ex-husband were as kind, Ms. Blixseth says. She says she believes that even today he is trying to undermine her attempts to move on in her life.

As she frets about her ex-husband, standing by is her boyfriend, Jack Scalia, an underwear model turned actor who starred in the soap opera “All My Children.” (Mr. Scalia and Ms. Blixseth both dismiss rumors circulating around Yellowstone that the Blixseths jointly hired Mr. Scalia to masquerade as her beau.

“Bury him,” Mr. Scalia growls.

“I don’t want to bury him,” she replies softly. “He can bury himself, Jackie.”

“That’s your biggest mistake,” Mr. Scalia says.

“It’s not that I’m passive,” Ms. Blixseth replies. “I’d rather let things phase out like they should because people are tired of the game.”

Her eyes dart toward Mr. Scalia, who is glaring.

“But what I’m finding in this, after three years, is that’s not working.”

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