THE BENEFITS OF JOINING A PRIVATE SKI CLUB

As you approach the chairlift, an attendant welcomes you by name. The trails on the mountain above are pristine. There are few, if any, tracks. Even though it is midafternoon on a sunny, crisp winter day, only a handful of skiers are visible. If you think this sounds more like a dream than reality, you haven’t been to a private ski club.

Private ski clubs are the answer to long lines at the ticket booth and chairlifts. “We have eliminated what people don’t like about public skiing, from crowded parking lots to poor food and long lines at the ski lifts,” says Jim Barnes, founder and president of The Hermitage Club, a private ski club on 1,400 acres in Wilmington, Vt.

Yellowstone Club, near Big Sky, Mont., the first private ski community to have its own mountain, counts Bill and Melinda Gates among its members for a reason. “Privacy, security, uncrowded skiing, and pristine terrain set Yellowstone Club apart,” says Hans Williamson, the club’s general manager. And just because a ski club is private doesn’t mean it’s small. Members of Yellowstone Club ski on 2,200 acres with 16 chairlifts and over 60 runs that are groomed daily, with a diverse mix of beginner and intermediate terrain, as well as expert chutes, trees, and gullies.

The mountain at The Hermitage features 45 trails with 194 skiable acres and 1,400 feet of vertical drop, plus five chairlifts, including a high-speed, heated, covered, six-person Doppelmayr, the only one of its kind in the U.S. Members of yet-to-open Cimarron Mountain Club, near Telluride, Colo., will enjoy unlimited rides up the mountain (no chairlifts here) in a Snowcat, an enclosed, tracked vehicle that maneuvers over the snow, as well as guided skiing on 1,000 acres that include over 60 groomed runs, glades, chutes, and open bowls. The Greenbrier Sporting Club’s mountain, in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., will soon encompass 30 acres of skiable terrain with trails accessed by a single high-speed quad lift.

Turns out that safety is one of the biggest appeals for private ski clubs. “The single biggest draw for families has been the safety and security they feel while skiing our mountain with their children,” says Rees Pinney, vice president of membership development at The Hermitage. Translation: A sparsely populated ski run means fewer people to collide with.

Initiation fees and annual dues can be steep (see table). And some clubs also require homeownership, including Yellowstone Club, where homes range from $4.25 million for a condo, to $6.9 million to $19.5 million for a custom home. Undeveloped home sites are available for $2.5 million to $7.5 million; a ranch on the premises is priced at $19 million. Members aren’t allowed to rent their homes to nonmembers, but guests receive all of the benefits of membership.

The Greenbrier Sporting Club, a private club within the famous 11,000-acre resort in West Virginia, also requires homeownership and doesn’t permit renting. It has 37 homes on the market ranging from $915,000 to $5.99 million, and 52 undeveloped sites from $75,000 to $1.79 million. Club membership will be capped at 1,340.

The Hermitage Club is offering 3,400 square-foot town homes priced at $1.4 million and up, while 4,900-sq.-ft. homes are available for $2.8 million to $3.4 million. Homeownership isn’t yet a requirement for membership, but will be; the club plans a total of 600 homes and condos.

The Cimarron Mountain Club might be the most exclusive private ski resort in the country, at least in terms of members per skiable acre. The 1,750-acre property, nestled between Telluride and Crested Butte, and still under development, will be available only to homeowners and their guests. The club has 12 undeveloped lots priced from $2.5 million to $3.85 million. (Two are on reserve for the developers.) Cimarron will allow as many as four families to share in the ownership of an individual property, as long as only one residence is built. The club is being developed by an experienced team that includes the former chief executive of Crested Butte Mountain Resort, the former president of Vail Resorts, and the chief operating officer of Auberge Resorts.

Real estate at a private ski club typically sells at a premium because of the amenities. According to Barnes, The Hermitage has sold 40 homes for 25% or more per square foot compared with luxury properties elsewhere in Vermont. Yellowstone Club homes often sell for a multiple of local similar-size homes not on club property.

Annual dues at these tony clubs often cover much more than access to a private ski area, such as amenities resembling a five-star resort. Yellowstone Club has a Tom Weiskopf–designed golf course, state-of-the-art fitness facility, 75-ft. heated pool, tennis and platform-tennis courts, basketball, and a spa with yoga, personal training, and therapeutic massage. Mountain air fans your appetite? The club offers seven different dining outlets.

Upon completion of the Cimarron Mountain Club, members will mingle at a clubhouse that will include fitness facilities, a spa, swimming pool, restaurants, and bar. During the winter, members of The Hermitage can use an ice-skating rink and a tubing hill, and during the summer, members can play golf on its par-72 course. The Greenbrier Sporting Club’s members have exclusive use of the club’s private amenities in addition to all of the indoor and outdoor facilities at The Greenbrier resort, including restaurants, golf courses, spa, casino, equestrian facility, indoor and outdoor pools, tennis and squash courts, bowling alley, and ice-skating rink.

Membership at a private ski club isn’t without risk, however. Members may be subject to an increase in dues or assessments, should capital improvements be needed, and there is always a chance that the developer will run into financial trouble. In 2008, Yellowstone Club’s previous owners (and founders) Tim and Edra Blixseth defaulted on a $375 million loan, the assets of the club pledged as collateral.

Many contractors and workers went unpaid, and new development came to a standstill. Membership sagged, and property sales stalled. More than 200 members contributed funds toward legal representation.

When the club filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in November 2008, it was losing $20 million a year as a result of operating expenses and debt servicing. In 2009, CrossHarbor Capital (run by Sam Byrne, a Yellowstone Club member) came to the rescue by purchasing the club for $115 million and pledging more funds to pay off unsecured creditors and make capital improvements. Today, the thriving Yellowstone Club is cash-flow positive.

While a handful of new private ski clubs have been developed, it is unlikely there will be many more, according to Chris Cushing of SE Group, a strategic planning and design firm that specializes in mountain resorts. “Ski areas are very capital-intensive, with high operating costs,” he says. “Creating the right membership model can be tricky, as well as balancing the practical size limitations—relative to capital and operating costs—with providing a facility that will be significant enough to attract adequate membership enrollment at sufficient price points to pay the bills and be sustainable.”

Nor will there be many public ski resorts converting into private clubs, predicts Hermitage Club’s Barnes. “It’s hard to take an existing ski resort private because of all the condos and homes that have been built around it,” he says. “It is very expensive and time consuming. There is difficulty in putting the genie back in the bottle.”

Any private clubs without a residential component? HoliMont in Ellicotville, N.Y., offers 52 slopes covering 135 skiable acres, but it does not even have a full-service restaurant. Annual membership dues at 82-year-old Mount Graylock in South Williamstown, Mass., are $150 with no initiation fee. But you get what you pay for: With no paid employees, members are required to take turns manning the rope tow, act as ski patrols, clear trails, and cut firewood.

Thanks, but we’ll opt for the heated, high-speed ski-lift cab instead.

Original Post: https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-benefits-of-joining-a-private-ski-club-1481347109

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