Winter Park Ski Area had been open for 20 years when Dwight Miller, a development pioneer in the town of Hideaway Park, posed the question whether inexperienced skiers were getting the most from Winter Park’s terrain, or whether they might prefer a beginner-friendly hill where they could improve their skills.

Buz Koelbel, developer of Rendezvous in Winter Park, presents an original lift chair to Dwight and Jean Miller, who opened Ski Idlewild as a beginner ski area in 1960.

On Aug. 26, 2009, some 49 years after Miller opened Ski Idlewild in what is today the resort community of Rendezvous, Walter ‘Buz’ Koelbel, Jr., of Koelbel and Company presented Miller and his wife Jean with a lift chair recovered from the site. The boutique ski area where a generation of skiers, including Buz Koelbel, learned their sport is now part of Rendezvous’ 688-acre expansion area, east of the town of Winter Park. more »

By Mark Samuelson
The limos and busses have departed, the private jets are plowing the skies back to L.A. and Chicago, and commentators and bloggers are all over the map as to who came out well and by how much. But there’s little doubt about how Denver did this week. It won big.

Larimer Square, three blocks from the Pepsi Center

While 40,000-plus convention visitors were taking in the café scene and nice weather on the Mall, the Case-Shiller Home Price Index issued by Standard & Poor’s arrived showing the Mile-High City leading the entire nation in home appreciation–up 1.5% May to June–the only major market, save for Boston, headed upward.

“The reason we’re having success is that the downward trend in inventory is already affecting prices,” Jack O’Connor, managing broker at Prestige Real Estate Group, told me. O’Connor, who authors a widely read report, is predicting price increases for 2009, particularly in the under-$300,000 range where listings are disappearing fastest. more »