I recall that one could ski from Stowe Mtn x-c ski center to Trapp's.
Is that going to obliterated?

Gene

Lew Lasher wrote:

It's hard to tell yet whether any of the Trapp trails (such as
the Haul Road, which is one of their main trails) would
be ruined by the planned development.

Most of the damage would likely be to the relatively under-
utilized trails, controlled by Topnotch but seldom groomed,
that go downhill from the Haul Road.

The new road would necessarily cross the Catamount Trail as
well as the route for the Stowe Derby.

So much for Johannes von Trapp's legacy as a conservationist
and skier.

Lew Lasher
Cambridge, Massachusetts and Stowe, Vermont

Trapps plans 50 lots on Adams land
513-acre development would include Trapp-Mt. Co. road
By Pete Hartt

The Trapp Family Lodge plans to subdivide 513 acres above the Ranch Camp
Valley and along the Haul Road into 50 residential lots, lodge owner
Johannes von Trapp disclosed this week.

The proposed development includes a new road linking Trapp Family Lodge
to Stowe Mountain Resort, roughly along what is now the Haul Road.

The proposal is among the largest residential developments in Stowe’s
history, along with the Robinson Springs subdivision off Edson Hill
Road, and Stowe Mountain Resort’s $300 million project currently
underway.

The Trapp’s project, currently in the design stages, is being carried
out on a parcel of land purchased from George F. Adams Co. in 1998 by
von Trapp.

The proposed road would go from Luce Hill Road, proceed somewhat
parallel to Route 108, along the edge of the ridge down into Ranch
Valley, serving the 50 proposed house sites along the way, and coming
out near the current location of the Stowe Mountain Resort Ski Touring
Center. Discussions have been held with Stowe Mountain resort officials,
and there is an agreement in principal on running the road through the
touring center property, von Trapp said. In all, the new road will be
about three miles long. Von Trapp hopes to get the plan permitted,
locally and at the state’s Act 250 level, sometime this summer, and
begin working on it within a year. Von Trapp did not disclose cost
estimates for the road and other infrastructure.

The proposed development is somewhat at odds with statements von Trapp
and others made at the time of the $800,000 purchase of the property
when he said he intended to leave the parcel wild.

“I honestly don’t remember what I said at the time,” von Trapp said in
an interview this week. “It was not my intention to develop the
property. When I took over the title of president in 1969, I set a goal
of buying most of the land that our trails were on, to control what went
on on the property.”

In a story in the July 9, 1998, Stowe Reporter, von Trapp was quoted as
saying that he would “...like to keep it (the property) wild.”

Olivier Garrett, then the general manager of the Adam’s Co., said in the
story that: “Part of the (reason for selling to Trapps) was the feeling
that the land was likely to remain as it was.”

Despite those comments, Bill Adams, who was on the board of the
now-defunct company, said his family had no expectations that the
property would not be developed at some point.

“To my recollection there was nothing promised,” Adams said. “The sale
was not based on any promise. We sold the land based on there being a
legitimate offer with legitimate financial backing.”

Adams noted that the land had previously come very close to being sold
(in the early 1990s) for the purpose of development, but an inability
for the buyer to get the necessary permits caused the deal to fall
through.

“I think that some family members hoped that by selling the property to
Johannes (von Trapp), it might be preserved,” Adams said. “But my father
(Curtis Adams) had told me years before, when we were out hunting, that
I should enjoy it, because it wouldn’t be there forever.”

According to von Trapp, efforts to sell the development rights to the
property to the Vermont Land Trust were unsuccessful. Eventually, other
factors led to the decision to develop. One of the factors cited by von
Trapp was the delay in bringing the expanded sewer plant on line, which
pushed back other development on the Trapp Family Lodge property.

“If I could have developed the villas five years earlier I might not
have had to develop the Adams land,” von Trapp said. “The delay of the
sewer project has cost a lot.”

The new development will likely use about 60 percent of the 513 acre
Adams property, and von Trapp expects to conserve the remaining 200 or
so acres and split that land into two parcels on either side of the
development.

When the land was purchased it increased the size of the Trapp
landholdings from nearly 2,200 acres to 2,700 acres.

The lots in the proposed development are expected to range in size from
three to 12 acres. Lots of those sizes are currently selling anywhere
from 150,000 to $400,000, with the median price of an acre at almost
$30,000. At those kinds of prices total sales could exceed $15 million.

“The price (of lots) will be in line with the great increase in land
prices in Stowe,” von Trapp said. “They are not going to be ‘ski out to
the lift’ types of sites, with the prices those can command, but they
will carry a premium price.”

The entire project will have to be approved by Stowe’s Development
Review Board as well as the state’s Act 250 panel and von Trapp expects
permit applications to be filed later this summer.

Copyrighted Stowe Reporter 2004