"Many California towns, because of growth pressures and second-home development, are facing the question of what they are going to become," he said.

Others are on the South Fork, where waves of second-home development, particularly in Southampton, have sharply reduced farmland.

The fashion game is also being played in cities like Miami, Palm Beach and Las Vegas, where second-home developments are booming.

Begun in 1983, the Harbor's 188-unit complex is one of the largest of the area's recent second-home developments.

On both sides of the border near here in far western Maryland, second-home development is booming.

Mr. Jerry spent half his life protecting one of the country's great wildernesses from large-scale second-home developments and other intrusions.

In one of Hood River's older second-home developments, the Timbercrest condominiums, built in 1990, stands what looks like a tight grouping of four octagonal grain silos.

Immediately to the north, Mr. Taylor shares a fence line with Trinchera Ranch, a 250-square-mile property owned by Forbes Inc. and operated largely for elk hunting, second-home developments and low-level logging.

"There are concerns about second-home development in Wyoming," he said.

Now, defenders of the fragile lands in the Rockies are also worried that out-of-state demographic pressures will result in a proliferation of second-home developments and swelling crowds at ski areas.