Brodie Mountain

[Adirondack Johnny]

 

[Harvey]

Well that answers that.

 

[MarzNC]

Well that answers that.

I have the sense that Fairbanks knew exactly what they were doing . . . and could not do . . . after they bought Brodie. They used it just for tubing to start. Then hoped a timeshare resort would be built there. The amount of money and effort that would've been required to upgrade the lifts and snowmaking didn't make sense for the potential demand.

The Kelly family that owned Brodie still has the golf course I think. From what I've read they were interested far more than just Brodie as a ski area. Jiminy Peak was able to grow their ski business better, perhaps partially because they were more focused.

Last updated in 2022

Jim Kelly - New England Ski History Biography

www.newenglandskihistory.com

 

[Adirondack Johnny]

I have the sense that Fairbanks knew exactly what they were doing . . . and could not do . . . after they bought Brodie. They used it just for tubing to start. Then hoped a timeshare resort would be built there. The amount of money and effort that would've been required to upgrade the lifts and snowmaking didn't make sense for the potential demand.

The Kelly family that owned Brodie still has the golf course I think. From what I've read they were interested far more than just Brodie as a ski area. Jiminy Peak was able to grow their ski business better, perhaps partially because they were more focused.

Last updated in 2022

Jim Kelly - New England Ski History Biography

www.newenglandskihistory.com

There isn't a big enough water source on the property for competitive snowmaking. I've heard and read that the clause on the deed was only for 20 years, and most recently someone commented online that it was for 30 years. From 2003 I believe.

 

[MiSkier]

I have the sense that Fairbanks knew exactly what they were doing . . . and could not do . . . after they bought Brodie. They used it just for tubing to start. Then hoped a timeshare resort would be built there. The amount of money and effort that would've been required to upgrade the lifts and snowmaking didn't make sense for the potential demand.

The Kelly family that owned Brodie still has the golf course I think. From what I've read they were interested far more than just Brodie as a ski area. Jiminy Peak was able to grow their ski business better, perhaps partially because they were more focused.

Last updated in 2022

Jim Kelly - New England Ski History Biography

www.newenglandskihistory.com

When Jiminy owned Brodie they started to upgrade the snowmaking system, they had built a reservoir on the top of the mountain to help with the lack of water and were going to put a new lift in if a certain number of season passes were sold and that didn’t happen. Brain Fairbanks said from the start he would not use Jiminy Peak money ti keep Brodie open. It seemed to me a case of not enough people showed up to ski and the hill needed a lot of work. But I could be wrong

 

[MarzNC]

When Jiminy owned Brodie they started to upgrade the snowmaking system, they had built a reservoir on the top of the mountain to help with the lack of water and were going to put a new lift in if a certain number of season passes were sold and that didn’t happen. Brain Fairbanks said from the start he would not use Jiminy Peak money ti keep Brodie open. It seemed to me a case of not enough people showed up to ski and the hill needed a lot of work. But I could be wrong

I remember something about needing to sell a given number of passes.

According to Jeremy Davis in "Lost Ski Areas of the Berkshires," the original plan the Fairbanks had for a Brodie 4-season resort was huge, meaning in the tens of millions includes a few hundred condos and a waterpark. That did not work out and the land was sold to another company that hoped to build a timeshare resort, which also never happened. The clause forbidding a public ski area was part of the sale to that company.

The last few years of snow tubing was based on a lease arrangement. The last season for tubing was 2006-07, just before the 2008 recession.

In some ways, Massanutten is what Brodie could have been in terms of a large resort with snowsports, golf, and a waterpark. The difference is that Mnut started as a 4-season timeshare resort in the 1970s. Over 5000 acres of land was bought relatively cheap from the start. The man who had the initial idea was the grandson of the man who had put a "spa resort" on the farmland there long before snowmaking was invented. Although the original developer went bankrupt and another was a crook, a local group of businessmen took over in the 1980s and their thinking was long term. When snow tubing was put in, that was a cash cow. The water park was built in the mid-2000s. It's literally taken over 50 years to complete the original plan for the ski terrain on the upper mountain.

 

[Zykamps]

I grew up skiing Jiminy and Brodie. There was a point when Jiminy raced head with improvements. Eventually they started cutting all the wide straight trails down the mountain. I found Jiminy more interesting before that and Brodie more interesting after.

Also Brodie chairs were so slow. Jiminy would crank that exhibition double up to 11...

 

[jamesdeluxe]

I ran across this 50-minute clip of a visit to abandoned Brodie with, as the title says, virtually everything still there.