It is very possible...possible, I said... that this 15 million dollar
project on the Trapps part will keep the greater operation alive. I
suspect that selling trail tickets to people like us in Subarus is not
that profitable. But calling someone a "nasty greedy lout" for running
a ski operation and doing what he wants with HIS money on HIS land
within the law...that's uncalled for.

Let me be clear why I called Johannes von Trapp a "nasty, greedy lout."

It's not particularly because he chooses to subdivide his land to make a huge
profit. I don't begrudge anyone to do what they wish with their own property.

It's because he made public statements when he bought the property, holding himself
out as a conservationist, and then ... forgot what he had said.

It's because he blames the town for his change of plans, rather than just saying
that he changed his mind and decided to make several million dollars of profit
because he feels like it.

It's because he says that he "has to".

Now, of course, I haven't audited his books, but I sincerely doubt that he is in
financial distress. I agree that the cross-country ski business is not
particularly profitable; it is a sideline to his successful hotel business. (The
Trapp Family Lodge is the second highest-rated and most famous hotel in Stowe,
which is the biggest resort town in Vermont.) Several years ago, I would have
believed that he needed the money, because he owed a considerable sum to his
relatives whose share of the business he had bought out for control of the hotel
empire. So he added a big new wing onto the hotel, renovated some of the less
desirable parts of the old hotel, and cultivated convention business for the
hotel. More recently, he added on a set of luxury timeshares. So far as I can
tell, he is a smart businessman. It's quite possible that he's losing money on
some of his business ventures, although I doubt that. But he is not subsisting on
a woodlot and gravel pit. More to the point: I would be more sympathetic if it
were the case that one of his business ventures didn't work out as well as he had
hoped, regardless of whether this was his own fault or bad luck. I don't begrudge
him for taking chances in business, I would not begrudge him if sometimes those
chances were to fail, and I would not begrudge him for trying to bounce back from a
business failure. Quite the contrary: I admired him for bouncing back and
reinvesting in the hotel after the collosal loss in court to his relatives, just as
his family bounced back after losing their European fortune by famously reinventing
themselves in America. So, if he had said: I took a gamble with the high-end
timeshares, and it didn't work out as well as I would have liked, so I regretfully
have to go back on what I said I wanted to do with the other property, then I would
have respected him. But, instead, he says, the town screwed up, and now I "have
to" go for this big quick profit, and, I can't even remember saying anything about
conserving the property. That lacks credibility, and it has cost him my respect.

Lew Lasher
Cambridge, Massachusetts and Stowe, Vermont