Hunter Mountain Ski Bowl celebrates its 50th birthday

Slutzky family continues to prove critics wrong

BY BOB WILLIAMS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

SKIING AND SNOWBOARDING

HUNTER, N.Y. — Ask ski guru Orville Slutzky for his greatest accomplishment in the past 50 years, and he'll tell you point blank.

"They said it couldn't be done, and I proved them wrong," says Orville, the 92-year-old patriarch of Hunter Mountain Ski Bowl here in the heart of the Catskills. Hunter just celebrated its 50th birthday, marking the phenomenon of what has become one of the longest-lived, family owned and operated ski areas in the country.

You can probably chalk up Hunter's success as a modern ski resort to Orville Slutzky and his late brother, Israel — and their families. It was nearly 60 years ago that the pair gazed at this bare mountain and decided to turn it into a ski area — despite the pessimism of just about everyone they spoke with.

"They said I'd never make a ski mountain out of it, but they were wrong," Orville says with a smile, as he eases into an easy chair here in his base lodge office.

"First they said the mountain was too rocky, then they said it was too hilly, then it faced the wrong direction, then the weather here was too mild," Orville relates. "No one knew what they were talking about."

But the Slutzkys realized the others were full of beans. For one thing, Orville and Israel, who was known as Izzy, owned and operated a local construction business. They knew their way around the mountain.

"We drilled and blasted the rock and we built roads," Orville explains. "Those obstacles didn't mean anything to us."

Then, when critics pointed out that the ski area's southern proximity would keep temperatures pretty mild, the brothers created and perfected one of the country's first snowmaking systems. Before long, Hunter was dubbed the "Snowmaking Capitol of the World."

Today, as it enters its 51st year, Hunter Mountain Ski Bowl is a state-of-the-art resort with condos, a family center, 55 trails, 11 lifts, two terrain parks, a tubing park with nine chutes and two tows and a full-service slopeside hotel — and 100 percent snowmaking!

If you think the recent economic crunch crimped Hunter's style, think again. "We'll take ten more seasons like the past two," says Brian Czarnecki, Hunter's director of sales and marketing.

But the ski trail to success, so to speak, didn't come easily.

As writer Karen Lorentz tells it in the current issue of Snow East Magazine, back in the 1950s New York State officials were seeking a way to revitalize the declining Catskills. But they turned down the prospect of Hunter Mountain becoming another state-run ski area (similar to Whiteface and Gore) because of the perceived terrain problems.

Local leaders here at Hunter were disappointed with the state's decision. They saw potential for their hometown mountain, so they decided to advertise in a New York City newspaper, offering a "free mountain for someone to develop."

The novel offer caught the attention of skier Jimmy Hammerstein, son of Oscar of "South Pacific" fame, so the story goes. He, too, liked the ski area idea.

He met with Izzy and Orville, whose father had emigrated to New York City in 1905 and then relocated here to Hunter. Born and raised here in town, the brothers now owned the mountain as well as a successful construction business.

With Hammerstein's theatre and show business friends buying stock — Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Kim Novak, Morey Amsterdam and Chris Plummer among them — Hammerstein formed the Hunter Mountain Development Corp. And it was off to the races.

The brothers' construction company carved trails and installed two double chairlifts. Larchmont Engineering installed snowmaking, and the Hunter Mountain Ski Bowl officially opened for business Jan. 9, 1960. A cadre of television and movie stars rode the lifts and mugged for photographers.

The trails named for New York City streets reinforced the Slutzky family's connection to the Big Apple. There was Fifth Avenue, Broadway, the Battery, Grand Concourse, 42nd Street, Bleeker Street and the ever-popular Belt Parkway — a long, winding run that took intermediate skiers from the summit to the bottom. Skiers traveling from New York City's five boroughs immediately related to Hunter.

But the initial snowmaking system didn't work out quite right, and a short 30-day season was followed by a mere 60 days of operation the next year. That's when the brothers, who were owed money, stepped in and took over day-to-day operations.

With Orville as general manager and Izzy running the construction operation, they began to expand and improve the mountain, making a cascade of trails covered by snowmaking. Along with residents of New York City, skiers living in New Jersey and New York began to enjoy Hunter. After all, it was big, the slopes and trails were varied and, best of all, Hunter was close to the country's biggest metropolitan area — New York City. In no time, Hunter began to draw media attention.

Because the brothers were fully involved running the operation, they decided to hire a Madison Avenue public relations firm to deal with the New York City media. As the word continued to go out, Hunter continued to become even more popular.

The 1960s were boom years. The brothers reinvested their company profits in the mountain, and it kept getting better. With the addition of Hunter West, the area joined the ranks of the Northeast's major mountains.

Hunter's original base lodge was a renovated hotel, but the structure built in 1963 was a cavernous 47,000 square feet that included a swimming pool, health club and great hall with many food venues (Hunter opened a sushi restaurant even before sushi became the rage) and a humongous bar. The bar made for one of the resort's claims to fame — the largest singles' location between New York City and Montreal!

In the go-go ski years of the 1970s and 1980s Hunter managed to attract weekend crowds second to none. It was often said that if a guy wanted to meet a girl from Brooklyn, all he had to do was visit Hunter.

Then there was the snowmaking, which the brothers perfected. They shared their snowmaking expertise with other ski areas while installing the country's first fully automated snowmaking system in 1989. As you read this, David Slutzky, Izzy's son, is off to Chile to advise the government on snowmaking systems at high elevations.

Today, Hunter is a thoroughly modern four-season resort — a five-star ski industry success story, so to speak.

Over the years, groups and organizations honored the brothers for their leadership and interest in skiing. In fact, the framed awards and plaques given to the brothers share a special wall in the base lodge.

The National Ski Areas Association presented its Lifetime Achievement Award to Orville and Izzy in 2007.

With all the milestone hoopla these days here at Hunter, and with Orville approaching his 93rd birthday Feb. 13, you'd think he would ease off a bit.

"Over the years, I used to go out for a run every now and then, but I don't ski much any more because it interferes with my work," Orville says. "I'm taking it easy. I'm here only seven days a week!"