Corporate Leader Daily § These High-Altitude Homes Justify Your Climb

Article
Portfolio : These High-Altitude Homes Justify Your Climb

Credit crunches. Subprime hysteria. Burgeoning recession fears. For an executive with a vested interest in such things, these are times to try one’s soul. One response — and a time-honored one, at that — is the noble act of running away. Quitting. Giving up. Cashing out. Divesting yourself of your global economic woes and fleeing to the high hills. Best of all, thanks to the recent profusion of high-altitude, high-luxury residential clubs, those hills are now more inviting than ever.

By: Nick Kolakowski
Spring 2008 , Page 88

Page 1 of 2 » Next

It’s a simple plan: Just acquire yourself a lofty, ultra-exclusive perch in the mountains — one blessed, of course, with world-class skiing, concierge services, helipads and the requisite contingency of in-house chefs (what, you’re going to shoot and boil a squirrel every night)? Then sit back and peer down upon the world as it wrestles with all those rising uncertainties. From where you’re sitting, it will all be miles below.

The Idaho Club

Location: Sandpoint, Idaho
cSize: 900 acres
Cost: Homesites $300,000+; lodge homes $850,000
Properties: 425 total units
Nearest Skiing: Schweitzer Mountain Resort (25 minutes)
Nearest Airport: Sandpoint Airport
Contact: 800-323-7020; theidahoclub.com

Men of means looking to unleash their inner Hemingway — by which we mean embracing nature and rugged living, not blowing one’s head off with a shotgun — might well find themselves gravitating toward the Idaho Club, located outside the small (population 6,835), remote (only, um, 620 miles to Twin Falls) and tidy burg of Sandpoint. Arrayed along the hilly shores of Lake Pend Oreille (the largest, deepest lake in Idaho) and within easy hiking distance of the nearby mountains, the resort features an 18-hole Jack Nicklaus golf course, in addition to a multitude of regular and arranged hunting, rafting and fishing trips. The Schweitzer Mountain Resort — with its 85 trails on 2,900 skiable acres — is minutes away, and there’s a full-service spa on-site to work your aching muscles at the end of a long day spent playing wilderness warrior.

Even the architecture here is of a style that Papa would have appreciated, combining strong elements of stone and wood, with hand-scraped maple hardwood dominating each interior and a masonry fireplace in the Great Room. Not that this is your grandfather’s plywood sweat lodge — as evidenced by the optional climate-controlled wine rooms and outdoor gourmet pizza ovens. And for those who suffer seizures when separated from their software (and on rafting trips keep their BlackBerry stuffed down their shorts in a waterproof bag), a second-story loft can be easily converted to a high-tech headquarters-away-from-headquarters.

Iron Horse

Location: Whitefish, Montana
Size: 820 acres
Cost: Homesites $250,000–$1.5 million; cabins and finished homes $1.3 million–$5 million
Properties: 264 homesites; 50 cabins; 74 luxury homes
Nearest Skiing: Big Mountain Ski Resort (Five to 10 minutes)
Nearest Airport: Glacier Park International Airport, Kalispell (20 minutes)
Contact: 406-863-3000; ironhorsemt.com

There’s a time for the bespoke suit, the Salvatore Ferragamo briefcase, the $2,000 Berluti shoes. But sometimes, all you really want is to don your favorite pair of tattered old sneakers and jeans and head into the great outdoors for a mountain-bike trek or some backcountry skiing — or perhaps an unexpected mauling at the hands of a grizzly bear. Iron Horse, in northern Montana, caters directly to that impulse. “It has great access to the natural beauty of Glacier National Park and some of the best fly-fishing in the world,” boasts Mike Meldman, CEO of Discovery Land Company, developer of the site. “It’s a place rife with tradition, but not stuffy.”

Which isn’t to say that everything here is casual — witness the grand dining room of the Iron Horse clubhouse, with its massive stone hearths and cedar-trunk supports reminiscent of a Viking hall, or the luxury-home options that include beamed cathedral ceilings (homes themselves range from some 3,750 to 8,000 square feet — and still seem small amid the sweeping vistas of Whitefish Lake and the massive nearby peaks). Still, if you want to throw on a pair of scruffy Nikes and sneak out onto the championship-caliber 7,028-yard Tom Fazio course, who exactly is going to stop you? Besides, of course, that bear.

Page 1 of 2 » Next