A Vision of Mammoth In the 1930's, Dave McCoy and his friends envisioned a bright and promising future for Mammoth. The legendary founder of Mammoth Mountain not only saw Mammoth as one of North America's best loved ski destinations, but also as an extraordinary four-season resort playground. Today Dave McCoy's dreams for Mammoth are being realized.Dave has now moved on, and a new owner has come to be. Together, Rusty Gregory and Barry Sternlicht  will help shape Mammoth's future. This will  include World Class amenities and top ranked hotels, with a "Wellness Theme" that will be good for everyone.

An interview with Barry:  "What does Mammoth the place want to be when it grows up?" Sternlicht asked. "We want to participate in that discussion."

The soft-spoken hospitality mogul offered his vision of a wellness resort, commenting that it involves reinventing the box. Right now the entrance to Mammoth is so ugly it's like driving in a New Jersey strip mall. Tallus developer/designer Eric Fishburn is intrigued by Sternlicht's vision. "I think he's right. We need to develop a sense of place, an identity for the outside world. California has a cachet of being healthy. Mammoth fits into a sustainable image of wellness and a healthy lifestyle."

According to Gregory, Sternlicht believes in mountain lifestyles and a brand built on the idea of a wellness center-the right kind of food on the mountain, athletic programs, holistic medicine, all fused together throughout town. "Wellness, it's the whole place. You can't just have a couple of small pools of tranquility in an ocean of chaos," Sternlicht said.

Sternlicht talked about the esthetics, and the importance of elements as a whole-architecture and sense of place, transportation, amenities. While he considers Mammoth the number one real estate opportunity in the nation, for him to develop hotels without restaurants and shopping and the ability to walk through the town wouldn't bring a suitable return.

"He's a big thinker and a big implementer as well, a big reason we chose him," Gregory said in a phone interview on Sunday. "In nine years he moved his company from $8 million to $20 billion. That's impressive." Sternlicht developed the "heavenly" bed, which is now ubiquitous in his hotels, and other hoteliers are coming on board with comfortable beds and the realization that a good night's sleep in a hotel is a great concept. This kind of vision takes a common sense detail to its broadest application, and the response is often, "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?"

"This project is a frame of mind, health and activity. We're talking lifestyle culture. A resort that provides a platform that helps people do that provides an overlay for the whole community to be involved," Gregory paraphrased.

While not based on any particular models, Sternlicht's vision would focus on European resorts that are built around the experience of a person returning home healthier than when he or she left, of being revitalized. So, Mammoth may well have its second-generation visionary in Barry Sternlicht, arriving right on the heels of Dave McCoy's foresight that created and carried Mammoth Mountain Ski Area from its inception into the present.
Sternlicht sees the whole possibility of Mammoth the resort. "It's time for Mammoth to step out and do things of a high-quality nature, right down to the beds, linens and service to go with it. Most of all, our vision spotlights a place that irresistibly draws us back to ourselves, while at the same time, lifts us up where we belong, to Mammoth heights.  Although Sternlicht steers his Starwood Capital Group's extensive investments all over the world, chances are good that he'll be hands-on in Mammoth. He liked it, his sons liked it. "He's coming back to Mammoth a lot," Gregory said. He observed that before this recent visit to Mammoth, Sternlicht knew Mammoth from a business standpoint, "but he was blown away by the outdoor amenity and really enjoyed himself." 

Highlights: Rusty:  In five years I think that we won’t be as far along as we think we’re going to be today. I think it’s going to be tougher slogging than today’s economy would indicate. I think that interest rates will go up, I think there will be challenges, and I think that Starwood partnering up with Mammoth is the right mitigator to those circumstances that I think we’ll face at some point. Having said that, I think you’ll see a strong focus at the high end of the market. Understand that that’s not the sole focus of Mammoth, but it’s a significantly underserved element of our current market today. Starwoods short term stratergy will be to buy the remaining land that Intrawest has in town. Intrawest would stay involved as a developer, but the direction of the property would go strategically in accordance to Starwood’s dictates. At this stage in Mammoth’s development there is some merit in marrying back up real estate and Mammoth Mountain under one ownership. It’s also very important that Mammoth’s financial success isn’t dependent on just real estate, and it won’t be. We won’t be dependent like a lot of resorts are. Starwood is famous for creating whole brands out of experiences or properties, such as it did with the W hotels. So Mammoth will be a whole new kind of brand concept of a resort, of a place, of the hospitality, services and experience, absolutely. Barry and his group at Starwood Hotels, and Barry personally, really, invented out of thin air the W hotel and that whole brand and image, which was then incredibly successful. That’s why he was interested in Mammoth, quite frankly, because of the opportunity to do that here. Barry doesn’t look at this as a ski area. He looks at it as a resort play—a combination of all of the positive impressions that we as a community and as a company can create. It’s the branding of the whole visit that he thinks is the opportunity here. He very much doesn’t look at it as a ski area in a traditional sense. It’s really the whole connection to Yosemite and the beauty of the area; it’s not just selling lift tickets. What Barry brings to this is a vision of the opportunity here that is significantly broader than was here before, and I think that will be a good thing for us. Barry’s contribution, if things go well, will be a completely different view of what we can be.