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Winter 2012
Escarpment Magaz ine
We therefore cancelled all capital plans, especially the installation of
a $500k snowmaking system, before moving forward.Urban led us in
discussing and defining our respective goals which we put in writing.
We then named our financial manager as GM to help give us stability.
We carried on and grew from that stable base. Timing was on our side
— it wasn't difficult to be successful in that period — the Baby Boomers
were on the scene. Young, highly educated, energetic and armed with
lots of disposable income, this group wanted what we had to offer.
Succeeding took something else though, perhaps even more important.
The Weiders had grown up here and were emotionally tied to Blue
Mountain and the skiers who had visited the area over the years. The
Weiders "lived the life", skiing, racing etc. We knew if we could keep
the business side going, emotion and passion would keep us together
as investors.
Although we had a very small and mostly newmanagement team, there
was a key player who had been with us for some time — Bill Skelton
made an enormous contribution especially as we were learning the fi-
nancial side of the business. Bill's dad, Ken Skelton had also been with
us since the thirties. Bill and his group knew lifts and snowmaking—
knowledge which we didn’t have. He kept that important aspect of the
business running smoothly and managed the expansion of our lifts to
meet the Baby Boomer demand. He showed engineering skill and sage
judgement as we moved forward.
Escarpment:
Under your presidency, the 80’s and 90's were decades of
tremendous growth, development and expansion. When you look back on
those years what memories stand out the most?
Gord:
I'd like to start by looking back first at the 70's. We had to run
to keep up with the 'wants' and energy of the boomers. We installed
three chairlifts in the 70's, two triples and a double — doubling our ca-
pacity. Across the road, rental accommodations were rapidly being
built by the Martinek Family in Tyrolean Village and it quickly became
the place to be on weekends — ski during the day and party later on.
Those were good times. It was lots of fun!
In 1976 we converted a seldom used swimming pool in the BlueMoun-
tain Inn into an overnight success called Jozo's. Getting a liquor licence
back then was next to impossible. We could not sell it in cafeterias and
even the legislation regarding furniture made no sense for our industry.
At one meeting, with the Chairman of the Liquor Board, I actually took
a pair of ski boots and plunked them on his desk to illustrate why furni-
ture had to be rugged. The ski world was small in those days and provin-
cial decision makers really didn't understand the scene at all.
In 1977 we were blessed by German innovation. The Alpine Slide was
invented. Ours was the fourth one installed in North America — we
called it The Great Slide Ride. It was the most successful of all our in-
vestments and often had hour-long line-ups. It magically attracted large
numbers of visitors to Blue Mountain in the Summer.
This single $600,000 investment changed us strategically. We began
to think about lodging beyond our 20 unit Inn that Jozo had built in
1964. Now that we had Winter and Summer covered, all we had to
do was find people for Spring and Fall occupancy. Conference groups
were the solution and in 1980 we invested almost $6M in the new Blue
Mountain Inn and we were on our way.
We continued to expand skiing through the 80’s but also set the stage
for creating a true resort destination. With ReeveMcNichol, we lobbied
Provincial Government for support for municipal water and sewage
services. At the same time, we designed a Village plan with a firm from
Aspen called Design Workshop. The Municipality eventually granted
approval for our plan.
In the late 80’s Boomers were looking for upscale accommodation. We
hooked up with Bruno Suppa, a young developer from Toronto and
our first townhome project, Chateau Ridge near the Innwas a sellout!We
then began to develop the secondary area around the Village Core —
several proposals were received including a Factory Outlet Mall - to
which we said a definite “No” and waited for the most sensible plan.
Escarpment:
In January of 1999, Blue Mountain entered into an agree-
ment to sell a 50% interest to the Intrawest Corporation. In a separate
transaction, Intrawest also purchased 100% of a 32-acre parcel of devel-
opable real estate at the base of the resort which has become The Village
at Blue. This marriage of mountain resort operations and real estate ex-
pertise must have presented monumental challenges. Given the chance,
would you change anything or would you do it all again the same way?
Gord:
Intrawest was the perfect partner. It had already developed vil-
lage real estate at Whistler and Tremblant and in the US. — it was on a
roll and had become a public company with lots of capital. They also
knew the ski business. At first, we refused to sell equity in the Resort and
they refused to build a village unless they had equity in the operation.
Our side was too emotionally tied and concerned about loss of control
and the impact a large public company might have on our community.
They wanted equity so they could share in any spinoffs from real estate
they developed but finally they relented and agreed to build the Village
without their having equity in BMR and a development schedule was
proposed. Once the deal was done and we modeled the real estate
and Resort as a combined entity, we realized we would not have the fi-
nancial capability to keep up on the Resort side — that is when we pro-
posed that Intrawest purchase 50% of the Resort. That led to the
injection of capital into the treasury of the company to allow Resort ex-
pansion in parallel with Village development.
The partnership has been very good. The Village was developed as
proposed and Intrawest, while not being involved in the operation, has
been especially helpful at Board level. I would do it exactly as we did
if I had to do it all again.
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