10/21/23

New owners offer rooms in FLDS compound on Airbnb

In 2021 at the courthouse in a South Dakota county named for a war criminal members of a religious splinter group bought the 140 acre compound built in 2005 by now-jailed polygamist Warren Jeffs for $750,000 despite its $9 million valuation. 

The cult was not delinquent on property taxes but the acreage was sold at a sheriff's auction to settle a $2.1 million judgment against the FLDS, the towns of Hildale, Utah and Arizona City, Colorado. Buyer, Patrick Pipkin is manager of Blue Mountain Ranch of Colorado — a summer camp for at risk adolescents, no less. 

On May 16 of this year it sold for $5,237,475 to SDR Training Center, a nonprofit church registered in South Dakota. Although the property has been subdivided into nine parcels Blue Mountain is holding the mortgage at payments of $21,000 a month but is charging no interest. Now, hosts named Rachel, Caleb and Becca are offering six rooms in "rustic cabins" on Airbnb on two parcels. Becca Keddington is probably related to Hyrum Keddington, named as a principal in SDR.

According to a comment at a Faceberg page the real owner of the compound is Paul Elden Kingston, a polygamist believed to have some 40 wives, over 300 kids and preaches "bleeding the beast." Kingston is an accountant and attorney who has served as the Trustee-in-Trust of the Davis County Cooperative Society (DCCS), a Mormon fundamentalist denomination and part of the Latter Day Church of Christ with assets in the $150 million range. 

Rachel's profile is linked here.

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