Voted the #1 ski area by SKI Magazine this year, Powder Mountain somehow keeps the “good old days” of skiing alive. Unlike popular ski areas like Vail and Breckenridge in Colorado, where long lift lines and crowded slopes make for a weekend getaway, Powder Mountain (located just outside of Eden, Utah) is known as a skier’s paradise. . “Uncrowded slopes, great snow, and a price that everyone can enjoy,” reads the SKI article. As many people have written, the visitor feels like he owns the whole mountain, since there is a limit on the pass or his one-day ticket.
Still, powder is no stranger to difficult times and has changed hands many times over the past few decades. Former Netflix CEO Reed Hastings became majority owner last September and recently announced his vision for the resort’s future. Most notably, Hastings plans to transform the winter attraction into a year-round destination that offers both skiing, hiking, and contemporary art, while also offering new luxury housing. It could be an opportunity to stabilize the nation’s largest ski resort, creating a new economic model that attempts to balance the retro feel of powder with the economic security that only luxury can afford.
As many lifelong skiers can tell you, corporate owners continue to kill classic resorts. Over the past few decades, conglomerates such as Alterra and Vail Resorts have purchased ski areas across the country, resulting in soaring lift ticket and season pass prices, Disneyization, and financial strain on ski areas. It happened. This is wisely explained by YouTube’s “edutainers” Wendover Productions in his 25-minute documentary “How Corporate Greed is Killing Ski Towns,” which talks about the issue of climate risk avoidance. By purchasing multiple resorts, companies can offset losses between dry and snowy resorts. Vertical integration, or purchasing at all points of sale, including ski rentals and snack bars, is another strategy. Economic instability has created a race to build the most luxurious alpine experiences. In the process, we lose the strange appeal of escaping the city and spending a few days on the slopes.
Before Hastings, Powder’s most recent owner was the Summit Series. Summit Series is a group of millennial entrepreneurs whose ambition, according to a 2018 Guardian article, was to transform the resort into a “mecca for the altruistic-minded global elite.” They bought the resort in 2013 with the backing of venture capital and celebrity capital to house 500 homes, as well as infrastructure for events, including a cafe, juice bar, and adjacent to the private Aspen Ideas Festival. Developed. But as Fortune magazine reported in 2023, plans for the summit took a turn south last year. “In recent years, the original Summit founders have had less and less involvement with the mountain and less ownership. Changes in the structure of the group developing resort holidays.” Its future is in question. ” Of the 500 homes promised, 90% had not yet been built. Mr. Hastings, who had built and owned one of the homes on the mountain, jumped in with a $100 million investment and brought in Alex Chan, who had previously produced events at the summit, to rework the plan.
Chan, now Powder Mountain’s chief creative officer, has begun discussions with Hastings to determine how the property will be managed in the future. “I think we felt the easy way out was to hire a major developer and build a ton of shopping, retail and restaurants,” Chan says. But both sides agreed that the resort’s accolades came from its rustic and “rugged” nature, he continued. Large-scale new development will disrupt what makes a ski area special or unique from other ski resort experiences. They will continue with their housing projects. Zhang said there are currently 80 multi-million dollar homes on site, many designed by world-class architects, with a total capacity of 600 homes. They have commissioned architects from Johnston Markley to create home design guidelines, which Chan says will create a new type of alpine living.
“Typically, alpine architecture destinations have either this log cabin, classic ’80s American Rockies architectural approach, or a Bavarian-inspired style, but really there’s something in between. There’s nothing like that. And in the last decade, there’s been a big push toward modernity,” Chan explains. “We believe there is a really exciting opportunity to create a new language that is particularly suited to alpine environments.” Looking to aesthetics specific to harmonious conditions like Sea Ranch He believes these new homes expand on the architectural excellence of the existing 80 homes without feeling “disjointed or ego-driven.”
However, the problem of the off-season still remains, and even in the winter there may be fewer skiers flocking to resorts, especially when the weather is unpredictable. Part of mountain management also includes creating other types of activities. Hastings and Zhang decided to include new contemporary art elements and a 5,000-square-foot welcome center, which will also include a cafe as a “hospitality touchpoint,” according to Zhang. The facility, which Zhang said is expected to open within two years, will allow visitors to hit the slopes (or paths) and admire artwork scattered throughout the resort.
The art is reminiscent of the early land art movement of the 1960s and 70s, when artists created site-specific installations in remote locations. Ripples of this movement include the Storm King Art Center, an outdoor museum in New Windsor, New York, and Marfa, Texas, where sculptor Donald Judd’s monumental land works established the city as a cultural haven. It can be seen in places such as. Recently, however, there has been a resurgence in the production of highly selective cultural spaces such as Desert interest in the space is increasing. economic engine. “I am passionate about (Hastings) and its ability to integrate art into the core DNA of this place, attract a global audience of like-minded, curious and down-to-earth people, and develop arts programs and development.” It’s a symbiotic relationship,” Zhang says.
The art team, which includes Los Angeles-based independent curator Diana Nawi, has assembled about a dozen artists who will contribute to the scattered installations. They include the Paris-based duo Brennan Gerrard and Ryan Kelly, who created the Relay, a transparent vinyl tube with multicolored stripes that transports novice skiers onto the slopes. did. In artist Susan Phillips’ sound installation, a recording of the 18th century American folk song “Am I Born to Die” plays through the trees (maybe not what you want to hear before plummeting down a hill, but still It’s interesting). .
The group also acquired James Turrell’s “Gantsfield Appani.” This is one of the artist’s notable colored light installations, originally created for the 2011 Venice Biennale, and will be installed in the new trailside pavilion. Such facilities are accessible all year round, but can be accessed by skiing during the winter months. (In warmer months, hiking and biking to the powder landscape and art installations are free; in winter, visitors pay for a lift ticket). Zhang said a new elevator is being built to make it easier for visitors to explore the grounds and facilities. Wayfinding and landscape design is being led by landscape architecture firm Reed Hildebrand, which also designed the Storm King Art Center site.
Unlike Burning Man and Desert X, which create temporary biennial-style installations, visitors and residents can expect permanent land art installations and exhibits in the Welcome Center. This is an interesting proposition that capitalizes on a completely different type of tourism than outdoor sports and far-flung land art installations like Michael Hiser’s “City” in the Nevada desert. By combining the two, Zhang hopes he can move away from extractive tourism and create a “cultural halo,” rooting powder placemaking as an art form. “Before[Hastings]was founded, Powder Co. changed hands every five to seven years and went bankrupt. There weren’t enough tourists to support the economy of maintaining such a ski resort. “The cost was especially high because we didn’t have anyone,” he says. Instead, he suggests “the right kind of tourism, without the quotation marks.”
“The arts and culture conversation injects the right level of care and creativity into the DNA of a place, and if done properly and strengthened over time, will lead to large-scale development and readability, rather than comparison. We create something that is easy, interesting, and attracts the right kind of people: tourism,” Zhang says.
Of course, this doesn’t preclude the possibility that Powder’s future could be an ultra-luxury hotel like those found at other resorts. According to Deseret’s report, Powder’s land cost $2 million, with annual fees ranging from $30,000 to $100,000, and includes “more than 2,000 acres of private ski land not open to the public.” It is said to include “place”. Unlike many other incorporated resorts, Hastings told the New York Times in March that “probably where[independent resorts]should go is in boutique, upscale, private places,” according to SKI. Ta. It will cost $1,399, but the daily rate has not yet been established. Achieving a sustainable economy may require a Davos-like retreat for the elite proposed a few years ago, but the hope is that it will keep the resort wild and weird. There may be some people. Few adventurers can afford it during the ski season.