A century ago, 10,000 people lived in Park City, drawn by the silver under the mountains; now, 12,000 skiers might be on the slopes in a single day, atop 1,200 miles of empty mining tunnels.
And many who come to ski end up buying houses or condos. Of the city’s 8,000 residences, only about 2,600 are primary homes, Tom Bakaly, the city manager, said.
Tony Thompson, chief executive of Triple Net Properties, a real estate management company based in Santa Ana, Calif., and his wife, Sharon, were attracted by the small-town feeling when they bought their 17,000-square-foot, 6-bedroom, 10-bathroom vacation home in Park City about three years ago. “The people in Park City seem to have what I call Midwestern values - they are warm; they are very welcoming,” Sharon Thompson said. The Thompsons chose their 20-acre spread, about two miles from the touristy heart of town, after having owned homes in Lake Tahoe, Vail, Keystone, Telluride and other ski towns. One factor in their choice was the 35-minute ride to the Salt Lake City International Airport, an unusually convenient connection for a big resort town in the Rockies.
The Scene
The saying in this part of Utah, elevation 7,000 feet, with bluebird skies and aspen-colored views measured in miles, is that people come for the winters but stay for the summers.
For about $70, you can ski for a day in February at one of the town’s three ski resorts: Deer Valley, the Canyons and Park City Mountain Resort. This year, Ski magazine ranked Deer Valley as the No. 1 resort in North America, Park City Mountain as No. 5 and the Canyons as No. 14.
In the summer, when the snow melts off the mountains, you can get a $2 map and set out on 100 miles of public trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding, or go fly-fishing in the Provo River.
The lifestyle is active and casual, but there is a sophisticated side. Every January, the Sundance Film Festival takes over the town for 10 days, bringing movie figures from the festival founder, Robert Redford, to the next great director and the latest monster from Troma Films. This part of Utah has some of the best cellphone service in the mountains partly because of the need to accommodate the thousands of cinema people. The Eccles Center for the Performing Arts, which holds the Sundance opening events, also draws well-known music and dance groups the rest of the year; the Neville Brothers will be there for New Year’s Eve.
Center stage for those who want to see and be seen at Sundance and every other big event is historic Main Street, a mile-long mountainside commercial strip in Old Town that was once home to bars and brothels and is now packed with restaurants (Park City has seating for more than 11,000 diners), expensive boutiques, art galleries and a few hardy T-shirt shops and bars. Hundred-year-old buildings that survived hard times in the mid-20th century are now protected and pampered, giving the area genuine old-time charm.
The wealth of outdoor activity appeals to Jim Pathman, the chief information officer of a mortgage company in Boca Raton, Fla., and his wife, Lisa, who bought a four-bedroom vacation house for about $420,000 in 2004 in Park Meadows, a neighborhood surrounding a private golf course. But what sold them on the town was the National Ability Center, a sprawling athletic complex where disabled people get assistance to ski, snowboard, ride horses and raft on rivers. The Pathmans’ twin 7-year-old sons, Shane and Riley, have cerebral palsy.
“Compared with the rest of the West, Park City is very affordable - way better than all of Colorado,” Jim Pathman said. “We went there for the Ability Center, but now we have found there is so much more about the town that we enjoy.” They use the skateboard park, the community centers and the hiking trails.
For Rebecca and Ched Lyman of Whitefish, Mont., and their children, the special attraction was the private Winter School, which holds classes in the summer and breaks in the winter so students can train for competition in skiing and snowboarding. (The United States Ski and Snowboard Association is based in Park City.) The Lymans rented for a few years before building a second home in a new development in Park City. Now they divide their time between there and Whitefish, also a ski town. “Usually, people will have a mountain home and a beach home,” Mrs. Lyman said. “We’re like apples and apples.”
Pros
A dedication to historic preservation has directed most businesses into old, protected structures and discouraged national retailers, retaining the commercial area’s unique mountain character. However, to find the Gap, Polo, Coach and Nautica, shoppers need drive only six miles out of town to the Tanger Outlet center at Kimball Junction.
A free and extensive public transit system now reaches to the outer commercial centers, besides linking the ski resorts and the rest of town.
Golfers can find happiness. There are three public courses within a half-hour drive, plus several private golf communities in place or under development.
Cons
During busy times in Park City, the joke is that you can’t. Park there, that is. Parking on Main Street, where the action is, is limited and metered, but there are public lots and garages a short walk away.
The same elevation that keeps summer nights cool and adds height to the arc of a golf ball also creates frigid winter evenings.
Most skiing shuts down by 5 p.m. And the state’s liquor laws take some getting used to. Licensed restaurants can serve drinks with meals, but otherwise alcohol is sold only in state stores and private clubs.
The Real Estate Market
Prices have exploded in the last year and a half. Linda McReynolds, an agent with Lewis, Wolcott & Dornbush in town, said that among popular Rocky Mountain spots, Park City is “still among the least expensive” but is catching up. Of 74 home sales in the affluent Deer Valley area in the first 10 months of this year, only 8 were for less than $1 million, she said, and sales for more than $4 million are increasing.
In Old Town, where housing runs to funky duplexes and renovated old frame houses called miners’ shacks, prices have more than doubled in the last couple of years. Frank Normile, who runs the Park City Film Series, said he paid $350,000 for a small, historic Old Town home about three years ago and, after some renovation, sold it this year for $860,000. “It was 1,300 square feet, no garage, no driveway, on a small lot,” he said.
Inventory in all price ranges is fairly low, with buyers lined up for some properties. Kathy Mears, an agent with the Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Park City, said second-home buyers have a lot of options, often in a new golf course community, whether they are close to the slopes or not. “They are selling very well,” she said.
