Pahlisch Homes, a Bend-based home builder, has bought a 4,000-acre parcel in Powell Butte that could be developed into Crook County’s second destination resort.

Dennis Pahlisch, president of Pahlisch Homes, confirmed Wednesday that his company bought a chunk of land next to Brasada Ranch, a Powell Butte destination resort under construction.

Pahlisch said about 3,800 acres of the parcel is in Crook County’s destination overlay zone. The rest is zoned exclusively for farm use, he said. The parcel had been used for grazing cattle and has no water source available. Pahlisch Homes bought the land from Larry Wogman, a Deschutes County cattle rancher and semi-retired dentist.

Wogman sold the property to Pahlisch for $6.2 million, said Brian Huber, chief assessor for the Crook County Assessor’s Office.

Pahlisch said the company is in the preliminary stages of reviewing the property and has not decided if it will build a destination resort. The company has not filed an application, and Pahlisch said it would probably take a year before that would happen.

Pahlisch would not say how many homes or what kind of amenities the resort could have if it was built. But he did say it would be geared toward the middle of the market.

”Our goal would be to try to keep it as affordable as possible,” Pahlisch said.

If Pahlisch Homes does not end up building a destination resort itself, the company would likely sell the land because it can only be used for resort development, not a regular subdivision, Pahlisch said.

The company was not shopping for land to build a destination resort, but took the opportunity when it came up, Pahlisch said.

Although the destination resort would be Pahlisch Homes’ first foray into recreational housing, it could be a natural evolution for the company, Pahlisch said.

Pahlisch Homes builds community-style neighborhoods in Bend and Redmond. The company is in the process of building a 400-home planned-unit development in Prineville called Ochoco Pointe, which is its first project in the community.

”We feel like a destination resort is a large community,” Pahlisch said. ”Most of our communities have common open space and swimming pools and a recreation center. The resort parallels that.”

Building a destination resort would also jettison the company into what is becoming a crowded recreation housing market in Central Oregon.

There are currently at least six destination resorts in Des-chutes County. At least two more are in the works, including Cascade Highlands, a 706-acre resort planned just west of Bend, and Caldera Springs, a 950-acre resort near Sunriver. A third one, Thornburgh Resort, a nearly 2,000-acre resort, has been proposed in Tumalo.

In Crook County, a Pahlisch Homes’ development would give the area two resorts – only three years after portions of land in the county were rezoned to allow for destination resorts.

Eagle Crest, which owns and operates a resort near Redmond, is building Brasada Ranch, a 900-unit resort located on 1,800 acres off of Powell Butte Highway. The resort will have golf courses, tennis courts and equestrian facilities.

In June, Brasada Ranch sold out its first round of housing lots – 201 lots – in two days. The price of the one-half- to 1.3-acre home sites ranged from just less than $200,000 to more than $450,000. Brasada Ranch is now in its second phase of construction.

Earlier this year, two Bend developers bought a 2,967-acre parcel southeast of Powell Butte near George Millican Road, most of which lies in Crook County’s destination overlay zone. The developers said at the time that they were considering building a resort.

Despite the heated competition, Pahlisch said he believes there is room for more resorts. ”There are always different approaches to the type of resorts and the types of amenities,” Pahlisch said. ”We would come up with something that wouldn’t be directly competing with Brasada Ranch. And we’d be about two to three years behind them.”

Wogman, the rancher who sold the 4,000 acres to Pahlisch Homes, said he had owned the parcel for about 13 years and used it to graze cattle. Ranching became harder to do when Brasada Ranch started building because it brought more traffic and people to the area, he said.

Wogman said he had considered selling the land in the past but started putting out feelers earlier this year. He had gotten several offers from other interested buyers, he said.