Hermitage is back.

https://www.mynbc5.com/amp/article/former-members-acquire-bankrupt-ski-resort-in-vermont/32543016

A blast from the past:
https://forum.nyskiblog.com/Haystack-VT-Advertising-Campaign-td4045841.html

Private skiing clubs for the rich may have a new life in the age of Covid

Weren't they in arrears on property taxes?  If so, how is that gonna work?

Good point.

The question remains, how often will pandemics happen, and/or how long will we care.

What is the terrain and snowfall at Hermitage?

Harvey wrote

Good point.

The question remains, how often will pandemics happen, and/or how long will we care.

What is the terrain and snowfall at Hermitage?

The skiing is boring. The  advertised 1400' vertical is including the lifts that serve the slope side lodging below the lodge. The true vertical is a low angle 1100 feet over 1 mile. The Witches triple chair 'black diamond' pod is 685ft vertical and 2350 feet in length. It is lookers left at the top and it has some fun drops, but they are very short. The lifts top out at about 3200 feet.

Snow fall is probably in the 125"- 150" range - similar to Mt Snow which is about 3 miles north on the same ridge.

What else could potentially turn private and get a new life?  Hickory comes to mind as that was thier previous play
The private ski club thing is big in Buffalo and Ontario
I could see it expanding East to the Syracuse hills for sure

Depending on things play out I could see Windham potentially charging a private golf club type initiation fee (20k?)  from rich NYC ski families and doing better than the how things maybe if a reduced volume post Covid world.  Tie in a strong race program by hiring some top shelf coaches to boost that.

I might be wrong, but I think Windham was a private club at one time..

I can't imagine private clubs would make a comeback. Quite a few of private golf clubs are struggling. The private club in my town has been struggling for years. To their credit the do keep holding on.

Windham was a private club for a few years in the early 70s. The club sold the ski area (in 1975?) but it is still active with some of the original families. Several of the original houses built for club members have been replaced with really nice houses and the newest houses there are Hamptons level extravagant.

Windham and Catskills real estate generally got a big boost after 9/11. Covid might do something similar.
 
I don't think the club + race program really works. A club wants weekend child care, and especially supervision of teenagers. A real race program needs full time training for committed athletes.

mm

Z wrote

I could see it expanding East to the Syracuse hills for sure

Speaking for hills west of Syracuse there is this
https://www.skiskan.com
and this existing now.
http://www.camillusskihill.com

The private club + race program is THE model for the western Ny and Ontario clubs
Hunt Hollow, BSC hollimont, and all the Canadian clubs are built on their u8 to u14 Race programs
In NY the top athletes then migrate to Nysef / NW for U16 and FIS levels or go to a academy in VT To train full time
3 of my sons teammates at Fis level are from these clubs

I remember reading about some of the Kennedys being members of Windham in the late 1960s. I did remember correctly.

Here is a great Sports Ill article from Jan, 1970, that is chock full of info about Windham:
https://vault.si.com/vault/1970/01/12/a-cold-country-club-for-the-real-cool-crowd

There is no way Windham will ever go back to private.

Windham has tried to get a top level race program going. They brought the Holimont coaches in when that mountain closed, they hired Mergenthaler for at least one season. I think the problem is that there are too few parents who really want ski racing. One told me he took his kid out of racing because a ski academy education wasn't rigorous enough intellectually. Rich guys are hyper-competitive, and weekend sports don't do it for them.

Ski area operations in the Catskills or southern Vermont are just too expensive, and the money you can make from the public too large, for the club model to work there. Windham's model is a public ski area with high priced clubs so the rich guys don't need to mix with the bubs. Ski school lets them skip the lift line and the race program watches their kids.

mm

Only around 20% of kids that start racing continue at u16 USSA level and less than 10% compete at FIS level.  It doesn’t have to be an academy level program to drive good number and the one thing you do need to ski race is money

I agree most academy’s are not strong academically.  There are 3 exceptions in the East  - Northwood, Holderness and Proctor which existed as high end boarding schools for 100 years and are not just ski programs

Z wrote

...I could see Windham potentially charging a private golf club type initiation fee (20k?)  from rich NYC ski families ...  Tie in a strong race program by hiring some top shelf coaches to boost that.

Windham has hired top shelf coaches in the past but I think their program is still more custodial than competitive. It already has 3 clubs, or maybe more, and converting the whole place to a private club would require booting at least 2 of them out of there. A $20k initiation fee wouldn't cover the annual dues of at least one of those clubs.

Several of the children and grandchildren of original Windham club owners still ski there.  I know some of them still feel they were burned by the whole club experience. They're not going back to a club operation.

mm

IMHO, (which isn't worth much these days), Windham makes Haystack look like Jackson Hole. O.k., maybe a bit harsh, but they are both quite boring to me.

Dilbert's dad, Scott Adams, was valedictorian of Windham.
Don't know whether he skied it, but must have, just guessing, as it was in his backyard.
He has youtubes and periscopes every day and has been on the money lately and for the last several years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE8YACOuHII

I just can't get away from the idea that if pandemics are here to stay, or if we continue to believe that (right or wrong), social distancing is going to drive the cost of things that require space is going to rise.

tirolski wrote

Scott Adams... has been on the money lately and for the last several years.

No he hasn't. He has some sort of idea that the President is a "persuasion master", but he leaves out the part that lots of people (black people, young people, etc.) aren't persuaded at all. Lots of blind spots with that guy.