Vail Resorts
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vail Resorts, Inc. runs four ski resorts in Colorado, as well as one in Lake Tahoe (on the California-Nevada border) and a summer resort in Wyoming. They also own luxury resort hotels throughout the United States. The company trades on the New York Stock Exchange, symbol MTN. The company is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado.
Vail Resorts operates the Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, and Keystone ski areas in Colorado, and Heavenly Ski Resort on the California-Nevada border. It acquired the Grand Teton Lodge Company within the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming in 1999. The GTLC properties include the Jenny Lake Lodge, Jackson Lake Lodge, and Colter Bay Village.
Originally founded as Vail Associates by Pete Siebert (from the famed 10th Mountain Division in WWII) in 1962, Vail Associates changed its name to Vail Resorts in 1996 when it went public after Gillette Holdings (owned by George Gillette) went bankrupt. The Apollo Group, headed by Leon Black, bought the company out of bankruptcy and took Vail Resorts public, controlling Vail Resorts through its growth until around 2003, when Apollo divested themselves of the controlling interest. Former Apollo executive, Rob Katz, currently runs the company. The skating rink at Beaver Creek was named the Black Family Skating Rink after Leon Black.
In 2001, Vail Resorts acquired the renowned luxury hotel chain Rockresorts, which contributed substantially to their brand recognition. RockResorts (with the second "R" now capitalized) was named for its original owners, the Rockefeller Family. As of April 2007, the properties include:
The Pines Lodge, CO
Keystone Lodge, CO
The Lodge & Spa at Cordillera, CO
The Lodge at Vail, CO
La Posada de Santa Fe Resort & Spa, NM
Snake River Lodge & Spa, WY
All of the company's retail operations are run by a smaller company, [Specialty Sports Venture, aka SSV], of which Vail owns 51%. The owners of the other 49% are the Gart Brothers, specifically Tom Gart, Ken Gart and John Gart. The Gart family have been in the sporting goods business for 3 generations and were the former owners of Gart Sports, the large chain of sporting goods stores in the western US. Gart Sports was sold by the Gart family in the 1990s and then recently sold again to Sports Authority, which discontinued the use of the Gart Sports name in 2006. In addition to all of the ski shops in the Vail Resorts portfolio of ski areas, the SSV chain of stores includes Bicycle Village in Denver, Colorado Ski & Golf, Boulder Ski Deals, Aspen Sports, Telluride Sports and Mountain Sports Outlet in Summit County and Glenwood Springs and many others. SSV is reportedly the largest Trek bicycles dealer in the world.
Vail Resorts also owns just over 50% of Slifer, Smith and Frampton (SSF)Vail Real Estate, the largest real estate brokerage company in the Vail region, controlling over 70% of the real estate transactions in the market. Slifer, Smith and Frampton was called Slifer, Smith and Frampton/Vail Associates Real Estate, but they dropped the "Vail Associates" name in 2003. The founders of SSF are Rod Slifer, a former ski instructor who was recently the mayor of the Town of Vail, Mark Smith, a real estate broker/turned developer who currently also runs East West Partners with Harry Frampton, who was the former President of Vail Associates and currently owns East West Partners. East West Partners has built most of the large building that make up the Beaver Creek Village, including the Marketplace Building, Village Hall and One Beaver Creek. They also run the Park Hyatt, the Poste Montane and the Hyatt's Vacation Club (fractional ownership).
Vail Resorts Development Company (VRDC) is the wholly owned real estate development company that Vail Resorts uses to develop all of its company-owned real estate, other than the projects that East West Partners develops. VRDC developed Bachelor's Gulch, one of the most upscale, ski-in/ski-out resorts in the business with its own Ritz Carlton and just over 100 slopeside mansions. President Gerald Ford's ski house is in the Strawberry Park section of Beaver Creek, which is between Beaver Creek and Bachelor's Gulch. Arrowhead is the third "peak" in the heavily promoted "village to village ski experience" in which you can ski from Beaver Creek to Bachelor's Gulch to Arrowhead and back again. Arrowhead was a separate ski area unrelated to Beaver Creek for years before they were finally bought by Vail Associates in the early 1990s. VRDC also runs the "club" division of Vail Resorts, which owns and operates the Beaver Creek Club, the Arrowhead Alpine Club and Game Creek Club (in Vail). VRDC also developed Red Sky Ranch in Wolcott (approximate 10 miles west of Beaver Creek), which includes two golf courses and many million dollar golf course homes.
