by James Dwinell, Vermont Business Magazine -- Topnotch Resort and Spa in Stowe has a new management team. According to Arthur Kreizel, a longtime adviser to Topnotch and a former owner with the Cummings family of Stowe and Montreal, This is a done deal. The Capital Source Bank of Delaware took possession of Topnotch as a gift from the Cummings family and the Terra Resort Group of Jackson, Wyoming, has taken over management duties.
According to a hotel management executive in Boston, The bank lost confidence in the management of the Cummings family s management. They decided to take possession of Topnotch and go in a different direction.
Kreizel concurred saying, Topnotch had made a number of significant investments in facilities recently which, in today s resort environment, were not working out. They invested $60 million just before the recession in a new condominium development which just didn t sell profitably.
You know, Kreizel said, I once was Vermont s Secretary of Development and then, as now, Vermont just does not spend enough money on tourism. I see others states and countries constantly promoting tourism but never Vermont.
Interestingly, the chairman of Terra Resort Group is Rob DesLauriers, whose family developed and managed the Bolton Valley Resort from the 1960s until 1997. Rob is an extreme skier who opened terrifying chutes at Bolton before moving on to ski Mount Everest and the North Face. The Terra Resort Group web site www.terraresortgroup.com, claims that it manages or owns hotels in Jackson and Sausalito, CA.
In an exclusive interview with Vermont Business Magazine, Rob DesLauriers said, "We got involved because Topnotch is the premier hotel in the area. We think that its intimacy, charm, and privacy can be the source, with some investment and attention, of profitability.
"Topnotch suffered during this very tough travel world we now find ourselves in. The (Stowe) Mountain Lodge was a very tough competitor with so much inventory, with very aggressive rates. Fewer are traveling today and it is tough to compete and maintain profitability.
"That said, I really like our opportunity and it gives me a chance to come back to my roots from time to time."
DesLauriers said that both his parents still live at Bolton, which they and Rob's grandfather began building in 1963 and opened Christmas 1964. The family had moved to Vermont in 1952, buying a farm on Williston road in South Burlington, which became exit 14 on I-89.
Jamie Yarrow, President of Terra Resort Group, confirmed that the Group is now working with the bank and Topnotch (www.topnotchresort.com). He met with the employees yesterday afternoon. He said, The Cummings folks said good bye to their employees and thanked them, and we said hello and welcomed them all into the Terra Resort Group family. We are onsite and will continue to be. The Delaware Savings Bank gave us a long term contract to manage the property, years not months. We plan to do a total makeover in the near future after reviewing the potential capital improvements.
Vice president for operations for the Terra Resort Group, Bruce Grosbety, was with Yarrow and will remain on site for some time.
The Cummings family had no comment.
Topnotch began as a private ski club in the early 1950s developed by Dick Hood and Don Schole. They sold Topnotch to Don Boardman, an eccentric from Georgia, in 1958. After Boardman s suicide on Christmas Eve in the early 1970s, Arthur Kreizel and Jack Cummings bought the lodge and its acreage on both sides of the Mountain Road, did major renovations, and created a huge spa and tennis program. The tennis facility attracted the world s tennis stars to Stowe for a United States Open warm up tournament in the late 1970s. In the 1980 s Cummings family bought Kreizel s interest and operated it until yesterday. Throughout it all, the graceful lobby with its grand chimney adorned with a moose head, reportedly from the Metropolitan Museum, remains.
Author s Note: I was manager of Topnotch in the winter of 1968. The Henderson family, who had owned a lodge on Cape Cod, bought it from Don Boardman, but alas it started raining about March 8 and never stopped. This was before snow making and the Hendersons went out of business and Boardman took it over. He shot himself Christmas Eve up by the well with a rifle. It took some time before his body was found. He was beyond eccentric by then, taking reservations and not opening, or opening without reservations, etc.
Source: Vermont Business Magazine, 6.22.2010