Location, Location, Location: Mountain Village, Colorado
July 4, 2002
Everyone needs a hideout. Oprah Winfrey, New Jersey Senator Jon Corzine and Dan and Marilyn Quayle choose to hide out in Mountain Village, Colo., an exclusive 2,100-acre gated community perched above Telluride. Tucked into a bunker of a box canyon 750 feet above Telluride and 65 miles from the nearest stoplight, Mountain Village is a haven for its privacy-seeking residents, who also include Jeff Bluestein (CEO of Harley-Davidson), Ted Waitt (founder of Gateway Computer), Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall (producers of assorted Steven Spielberg films) and Dick Ebersol (president of NBC Sports) and his wife, Susan Saint James.
The modern European-style village is stocked with all the amenities: golf, tennis, spa, restaurants, a conference/performing arts center, slopeside access to 1,700 acres of skiing, and a one-stop activity center. Chain stores are excluded in favor of boutiques and art galleries.
Telluride (which refers to both the Victorian town and the world-class ski mountain) and Mountain Village are linked by a gondola that provides a complimentary over-the-top commute in just 13 minutes (it takes 20 minutes to drive). When completed in 1996, the gondola not only helped eliminate the need for cars, it also initiated Mountain Village’s real estate boom. Wyndham Hotels quickly erected Wyndham Peaks Resort, a luxury hotel anchored by a Golden Door Spa and a golf course. Since then, Mountain Village has evolved into one of the country’s most coveted resort villages, with property values appreciating at double-digit rates over the past five years.
But Mountain Village is more than just another vacation destination. In 1996, one year after its incorporation, it passed groundbreaking legislation that made it the only resort town in the country to allow second homeowners (85 percent of residents) to vote. The new town also strives to offer what many other second-home developments lack—a tightly knit neighborhood with a social scene. “The difference between Telluride and other mountain towns like Vail is that Telluride is a community struggling to keep from becoming a resort and Vail is a resort struggling to become a community,” says Mike Shimkonis, a broker for Telluride Properties.
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