Second homes: Head for the hills outside Aspen

ByABC News
December 31, 2008, 3:48 PM

— -- In 1967, a sleepy ski resort named Snowmass-at-Aspen opened with five chairlifts and lift tickets for $6.50. Today, skiers would be lucky to find a $6.50 hamburger.

What hasn't changed in the intervening 40 years is that the resort has continued to live in the shadow of its sexier sister, Aspen until now.

With its name shortened to simply Snowmass, the ski resort is one of four owned by Aspen Skiing Co. But while the other three (Aspen Highlands, Buttermilk and Ajax, aka Aspen Mountain) are in or around the vibrant town of Aspen, Snowmass is 8 miles down the road and a world apart.

Absent a town, deluxe hotels or fancy eateries but with ski-in/ski-out condos flanking its trails, Snowmass traditionally has been a family resort. Compared with posh Aspen, the nightlife was so non-existent that some called it "Slowmass." Still, it was always known locally as the best of the four ski hills and claimed to be the nation's second-largest and bigger than the other three combined.

This winter, Snowmass enters uncharted territory. A new $2 billion, 80-acre base village features rental condos, restaurants, shops and arguably the finest children's facility in skiing. Under construction is a Viceroy hotel, a residential spinoff of Aspen's ultra-posh Little Nell hotel, an aquatic center and new gondolas. Millions of dollars more have been poured into on-mountain improvements.

"The new base village is a great boost," says George Huggins of Huggins & Co. Real Estate. "A lot of the infrastructure was 30 years old. We were losing people to places like Beaver Creek."

Snowmass has never been inexpensive. A small slope-side condo in a 30-year-old complex starts at about $385,000, and studios in the new base village begin at $535,000. There are entire neighborhoods of ski-accessed, single-family houses where nothing costs less than $10 million.

Snowmass buyers put a high price on convenience, Huggins says. "We've been known for ski-in/ski-out since Day One. We're not trying to compete with Aspen, but we attract families and large groups because they realize that it is a lot easier to go to Aspen for dinner than to drag all the kids and equipment here for a day of skiing."