The Mountain Times

Once Upon a time in history: Killington Village gets a start building condos

Editor's note: the is the second part in the historical series about Killington's quest for a village following Lorentz's initial story, True Obstacles.

With Killington's 1968 revised master plan calling for a 400-acre site to be used for a destination resort village, the ski area embarked upon building the Edgemont condominiums.

"It wasn't so much a burning desire to get into the condominium development business, but rather the fact that at the time the concept of condominiums was relatively new to Vermont, and there were no other developers who really wanted to experiment with it. Since we wanted to commence development in the 400 acres, our only choice was to do it ourselves," recalled Martel "Marty" Wilson in a 1988 interview. Wilson, who had joined Killington as controller in 1966, had been put in charge of Killington's real estate department.

Built at the periphery of the new 400-acre village so as to avoid making any mistakes with the village center itself, Edgemont represented a tentative, first step with forty units built and sold.

The next project was the Killington Village Inn (aka The Villager) built in 1972-73. Built as a hotel, the company retained ownership and later used the rooms for the School for Tennis lodging. Whiffletree (48 units built 1973 to 1975, 24 units, 1978) was Killington's last venture into the direct development of condominiums.
The year 1973 saw a national economic downturn with interest rates rising as fuel prices escalated. Simultaneously, the East experienced disastrous weather and snow conditions. This made for drastically reduced interest in condominiums and Killington experienced a decline in sales revenues.

In 1974, ski business in the East was severely affected by combined impacts of fuel shortage and increased costs, which were exacerbated by lean snow and substantial lack of skier days. Killington found itself with unsold condominium units and $200,000 (almost $1 million in today's dollars) of interest charges. The unsold units were put into Killington's rental program, and the net receipts helped offset the interest and other carrying charges.

At the same time, Killington CEO Pres Smith studied what was happening at Vail and Aspen. He determined that at Vail net profits lagged in spite of greatly increased real estate revenues, but that Aspen fared better with its revenues generated by its ski lifts.
Hit with the increased costs of operating in 1973 and 1974, Smith saw that Killington could nevertheless make a profit from its ski and snow operations. Although real estate sales stagnated, rentals and property-management revenues continued to increase.
Commenting at the 1974 Annual Meeting on what he saw as "an undesirable problem with real estate development as a source of ski company revenues," Smith indicated that Killington would now look to the recurring sources of real-estate revenues (rentals and management services) but not to sales and construction of their own projects. From this point on, Killington would leave real estate development to others.

This deliberate change was founded on the desire to produce a steady stream of revenues and delete the risks inherent in the real estate development field. As such it echoed an important company objective - to build a record of consistency and dependability not only on the ski trails but also in terms of overall business performance.

This is a key factor in understanding why a Killington Village Center was never completed under S-K-I Ltd. leadership. But who can argue with operating one of this country's most successful ski enterprises? Still, the intention was to complete the village. Looking a bit deeper into history we can see why that goal was never accomplished.

Smith felt Killington had demonstrated to area developers that condominiums would sell and could be profitable. So the decision was made to have different developers build within the village. (The 1968 Master Plan suggested that different architectural styles would produce a more aesthetically pleasing village.)

So after 1977 Killington's policy was to sell or lease land in the 400-acre village to private developers. The Killington Architectural Review Board enabled management to maintain control of village aesthetics while also determining the types of buildings - hotels, condominiums, lodges - and timetable for construction.

A major step in the development of the originally conceived Killington Village Center came with the first hotel, the Mountain Inn, built (1977) on land leased from Killington by developers Bob Montgomery and Jack Donnelly (opened 1978).

In 1979, in response to the growth of destination resorts in Colorado and elsewhere and the trend of vacation home purchases, Vermont Governor Richard Snelling urged ski areas to build villages with slopeside housing and amenities like sports centers, shops, and restaurants so the state could compete. Vermont had gone from skier visits that were even with Colorado in 1969 to well behind in 1979, from the number-one ski state to number three in the nation. The resulting 1980s' condo boom brought slopeside accommodations to many mountains and prosperity to some while others got into trouble.

In 1982, Killington had developed a new master plan and pursued disposal of treated wastewater for its proposed Village Center which required a C-Zone in a nearby river. It was granted, but opponents successfully appealed, so it wasn't until a July 1990 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the permit that the plan could proceed.

However, during the 4.5-year delay, the economy had soured in 1989, and by 1990 a severe recession had set in. Without a developer to build the Village Center, Killington attention went elsewhere.
Next week we'll look at how this missed opportunity changed Killington's direction and place in history, once again.