Lance - Just a thought - you are more than welcome to build an observatory on top of the hill on our 120 acre property near Cooma, NSW (about 4.5 hours from Sydney and heading towards our snow fields). It's heading up into our snow country, and is in a double rain shadow - resulting in typically dry weather most of the time. The air is pretty stable and in winter it's nice and cold - down to about 20 deg F on some days, resulting in fabulous seeing.
There's no permanent accommodation, but we are building a shed to stay in, and the Murrumbidgee River runs right through the place. The top of the hill is at around 3,000 feet, which in US terms isn't high - but this is Australia.
There'd be no need to purchase land - just build the observatory - easy! As long as there was room for my 12" LX200GPS I'd be happy. There'd be no rent - I'd love someone to stay on the place just so that there's someone there from day to day. We go down every month or so for a weekend, but that's about it. Nice and private! To build on the hill you'd need a 4WD to get up there, but that's no problem over here. There's no power as such, but we were thinking of going with a decent wind turbine and/or solar anyway.
The township of Cooma is 15 mins by car, so it's close to amenities without being too close. Light pollution from that township is very low as it's tcked down in between the hills.
Anyway - just a thought - the offer is there. Have a look at our website:
http://www.omaroo.net and click on the location map link in the menu.
Here's the view from the top of the hill (elevation 300 feet above the rest of the property). The second shot - those black dots are cattle: