Double nesters dominate West

NEW YORK CITY – Ski town newspapers are rife with stories about second homeowners, and the distinction is blurring. Owners are spending as much time in one home as the other.

A headline for a story inThe New York Times about this blurring phenomenon suggests a different, more neutral phrase: double nesters. And another word: splitters.

Although never mentioning ski and gateway towns, the story is a familiar one: “Enabled by cheap airfares, flexible work schedules and technology like cell phones, Blackberrys and the Internet, a growing number of people are shuttling between two or more homes, blurring the age-old distinction between the primary and the vacation home.

“Unlike previous generations, these ‘splitters’ do not think of themselves as living and working in one place and relaxing in another,” reportedThe Times. “On the contrary, they come and go as they please, making friends and doing business in places hundreds, even thousands, of miles apart.”

The paper notes that this new peripatetic lifestyle is largely open to people who have outgrown the obligations of young families. “Many splitters are in their late 50s or early 60s, closer to retirement than to mandatory attendance at PTA meetings. But instead of the traditional snowbird migration, they are electing to travel between their homes throughout the year.”

The Times also explains that this expanded occupancy of one-time vacation homes has resulted in such things as more elaborate kitchens and home offices, but also more maintenance costs and an “underground economy” that helps splitters make the transition from one place to the next.

Noted con artist found in Telluride

TELLURIDE – James Arthur Hogue, described as a world-class con artist, has turned up again, this time with a house full of stolen booty at a home in Mountain Village.

A film about Hogue, called “Con Man,” debuted in 2003. The film tells how he has flitted from town to town – many of them ski towns – during his adult life. His troubles seem to have begun when he was in college at the University of Wyoming. A very good distance runner, he was upstaged by the arrival of several older, and hence more sturdy, runners from Ethiopia. He seems never to have recovered. That was 1979.

As related by theTelluride Watch, the then-26-year-old Hogue showed up (with an alias) at a high school in Palo Alto, Calif., where he managed to fit right in – and won a prestigious cross-country meet at Stanford. A suspicious reporter, however, discovered that Hogue was using the name of a person who had died in infancy. He was kicked out of the school. That was in 1985.

Soon after, he was teaching running in Vail, where he falsely claimed a Ph.D in bioengineering from Stanford. Then in San Marcos, Calif., he stole $20,000 in goods and tools from a custom bicycle-frame builder. Next in St. George, Utah, he applied to Princeton University, representing himself as an 18-year-old self-educated ranch hand. He got in and also a $15,000 academic scholarship, thanks in part to a combined SAT score of 1410.

At Princeton, he excelled at running, academics and insinuating himself into the social network, joining the exclusive Ivy Club. However, his sophomore year, a former classmate at the Palo Alto high school, by then a student at Yale, recognized him at a track meet and alerted police. He was arrested in a geology class.

Sentenced to 270 days in jail for his fraudulent admission to Princeton, he was subsequently imprisoned for two years for stealing gems from a lab in Massachusetts. Other inmates said he kept to himself, burying his head in engineering books. By 1997, he was in Aspen, where he was arrested for bicycle theft, and then in 2001 he was in Telluride.

In Telluride, he disappeared from official view, althoughThe Watch says he most likely was hiding in plain sight, this time once again answering to the older name, James Arthur Hogue. Now, after the discovery of what police said were stolen goods valued at more than $100,000, he has disappeared again.

Engineer sends $50,000 to Pakistan

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS – Although the human consequences of the earthquake that hit Pakistan last fall were far, far greater than that of the tsunami or the earthquakes, the response from ski towns – like that of the developed countries in general – has been tepid.

That said, relief efforts have lately been reported in Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley, Vail and the Eagle Valley, and British Columbia’s Revelstoke.

Now, it turns out that a major Chicago-based environmental engineering firm, MWH Global, also has an office in Steamboat Springs. That location allows people like Alan Krause, the president of the company’s division for natural resources, industry and infrastructure, to go cross-country skiing during his lunch hour.

It also turns out that this company has been working in Pakistan for 50 years. Krause recently was in Pakistan to deliver a $50,000 check for earthquake relief to the Pakistani president. Krause toldThe Steamboat Pilot that he believes most Americans, being focused on stories of Islamic extremism, grossly underestimate the sophistication of Pakistan.

“It’s a strange place to work; it’s a crossroads for American interests.”

Employees in the Steamboat office are working on everything from gold mining in Romania to projects in Peru, Indonesia and Australia. It is consulting on two dam-building projects in water-scarce Pakistan.

Aspen real estate jumps 40 percent

ASPEN – The old record for real estate sales in Pitkin County, set in 2004, wasn’t just topped. With 2005’s 40 percent increase in dollar volume over 2004, the record was shattered, reportsThe Aspen Times.

Last year’s sales volume of $2.24 billion easily surpassed 2004’s mark of $1.60 billion. Sales continued strong through December, notes the newspaper.

Time-share sales, now commonly called fractional ownership, played a role in this growing sales volume, allowing a lower price point for buyers to become invested in the rarified real estate market of Aspen.

“The popularity of fractional ownership in Pitkin County has made Aspen ‘affordable’ for a new segment of the population and should drive more sales in 2006,” wrote Mark Pisani, director of marketing for Land Title Guarantee Co. in an overview of the year.

The boom extended down-valley to Garfield County, which includes Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, Silt, New Castle and Rifle. There, the dollar volume hit $856 million, a 37 percent increase.

Eighth bank arrives in Steamboat

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS – Steamboat Springs is getting its eighth bank, Given the population of 10,000, some are scratching their heads. But, as one banker, Greg Dixson, toldThe Steamboat Pilot, “This community spends like a much larger community.”

John Kerst, described byThe Pilot as among the most tenured of bankers in Steamboat, said he’s unconcerned with the number of banks. Free enterprise, he said, works very well.

Kerst said the 10 to 12 percent growth in deposits per year of recent years is unremarkable given the strength and expansion of the local economy. Like nearly every ski-based community in the West, Steamboat has seen a rapid proliferation of expensive homes purchased for vacations, retirement or just mountain living. This construction is causing the improved prosperity of many full-time residents and small businesses, hence the increased deposits, Kerst told the newspaper.

Another banker toldThe Steamboat Pilot that Steamboat’s increased prosperity can be traced to the real estate growth that goes far beyond the second-home market. More full-time residents have yielded a greater number of successful small businesses.

Microbrews robust in Sun Valley

KETCHUM, Idaho – Cabin Fever Ale is among the latest offerings of what theIdaho Mountain Express reports is an expanding number of brewers in the Wood River Valley.

The oldest, founded 20 years ago, is Sun Valley Brewing Co., which is located about 10 miles down valley at Hailey. It is now large enough that it recently began selling its White Cloud Ale at 25 grocery stores in Idaho owned by the Albertsons chain.

Another company, River Bend Brewing Co., is a one-man operation in Hailey that distributes to local restaurants. The latest addition is Trail Creek Pub, which opened in November in Ketchum.

The Brewers Association reports a 7 percent annual expansion of microbreweries as sales of the major breweries are declining. Still, the biggies dwarf the sales of the locals, yielding this exhortation from the micro guys: “Drink Local.”

–compiled by Allen Best

Snowmobiles and alcohol don’t mix

WHISTLER, B.C. – Snowmobile accidents accounted for 41 percent of winter recreational injuries in specialized trauma units across Canada, reports the Canadian Institute for Health Information. The survey did not include Quebec and Saskatchewan, where statistics were unavailable.

Snowboarding and skiing accounted for 20 percent of severe injuries in winter sports, hockey 9 percent, tobogganing 7 percent, and ice skating 3 percent.

The study, reportedPique, also found that half of those severely injured while snowmobiling were drinking alcohol before their crashes, and 80 percent were men. People under 20 were most commonly injured.

Edwards dominates Eagle County

EDWARDS – The hippest place to be in the Vail area now is arguably not Vail itself, nor Beaver Creek, although those places have the highest-cost real estate. The postal address of prestige for many who wear their localness on their sleeves is a place called Edwards, about 12 miles west of Vail. It accounts for 22 percent of the population of Eagle County.

But Edwards is just a post office, not an incorporated town. While there has been talk of incorporation, the broadest sentiment is to leave well enough alone, as creating a town results in higher taxes. From the county’s perspective, however, that leaves Edwards a free-loader.The Vail Daily reports that Edwards pays $5.5 million in taxes, but requires $10 million in services.

Giant slab poured in Ketchum

KETCHUM, Idaho – What was proclaimed to be the biggest slab of concrete ever poured in Ketchum was installed in mid-January. The concrete pad is for a 20-unit condominium project that will include underground parking.

To keep the reinforcing steel warm, a circus-type tent was assembled. It took 10 cement trucks to deliver 440 cubic yards of concrete, about $40,000 worth of material. To get this done in one day, the services of 50 people from two companies were used at a total cost of $60,000, reports theIdaho Mountain Express.

–compiled by Allen Best