Bretton Woods celebrates 50 years by paying it forward in the Mount Washington Valley

The base lodge ate Bretton Woods, as it appeared in 1973. (Bretton Woods)

It might be getting up there in age, but Bretton Woods is still New Hampshire’s baby. 

The Granite State ski resort, the youngest of New Hampshire’s major alpine ski areas, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this season with a calendar of events and a unique auction. Together, Bretton Woods and the Omni Mount Washington Hotel, the majestic property across the street, form one of New England’s most popular winter destinations. The hotel is one of the few surviving historic vacation retreats erected in the White Mountains between 1850 and 1930 and the last of New Hampshire’s grand hotels to be built, a distinction it shares to a degree with the ski area that came 1973.  

“Ironically, it’s the youngest, or the last, of the great ski areas to be built, and the Mount Washington was the last of the great hotels to be built,” Bretton Woods director of sales and marketing, and resident resort historian, Craig Clemmer said.

The hotel, built by New Hampshire native Joseph Stickney in 1902, predates the ski area by some seven decades, yet it has been a marriage of proximity and elegance since the lifts debuted. 

“Without the ski area, this hotel wouldn’t have opened in 1999 for the wintertime,” Clemmer said. “It’s that continuing expansion, that continued investment from ownership that — which is very much a hotelier — but to put $60 million into this property, adding new products over here to continue to invest in that.” 

It was in the summer of 1969 when investors from Philadelphia, operating under the name Mount Washington Development Co., acquired 10,000 acres of land and the stock of Mount Washington Hotel Corporation for a $100 million project that included a ski area, two golf courses, 2,000 homes and 500 condominiums. Bretton Woods, the new ski area designed by Sno Engineering, officially opened for business just after Christmas day in 1973. The inaugural season featured 1,100 feet of vertical, two double chairlifts, a T-bar, 30 acres of snowmaking, and 18 miles of nordic trails. 

Today, Bretton Woods is billed as New Hampshire’s largest ski area, boasting 464 acres for skiing and riding. A total of 63 trails and 35 glades are accessed from 10 lifts, including four high-speed quads and the Bretton Woods Skyway eight-passenger gondola, the resort’s centerpiece lift, which, in 2019, replaced the “B-lift,” a chair that dated back to 1973. 

The two-person B-lift was a fixed-grip chairlift originally manufactured by Heron Poma in 1973 and installed that same year. For nearly 45 years, the B-lift gave skiers access to trails partway up the summit, most notably as a streamline to the race course and terrain park features.

As part of its 50th celebration, Bretton Woods has launched the “Lift Up Our Community” campaign. The resort has selected 50 chairs from its original lift to go up for auction. Net proceeds will go directly to selected beneficiaries in nearby communities in the Mount Washington Valley. 

“We recognize that our neighboring organizations don’t always get the funding they need,” Clemmer said. “We hope that this helps in some way, while allowing ski enthusiasts the chance to own a sought-after piece of Bretton Woods’ 50-year history.”

The auction will benefit local food pantries in addition to regional ski teams, adaptive programs and outdoor organizations. The participating organizations were nominated by an auction committee comprised of resort associates. Among the recipients; Mount Washington Observatory, Kennett High School, New Hampshire Food Bank, Appalachian Mountain Club, Mount Eustis, and the Woodsville High School ski team.

“You’ll be able to go online and purchase those chairs and not only have a little bit of Bretton Woods history, but kind of pay it forward as well,” Clemmer said.

That sort of “paying it forward” partly has been recipe for the resort’s success over the years. “If you’ve got a great vision, and you’ve got a great product, that’s what’s going to endure. That’s what’s going to survive. And that’s where that stewardship comes in,” Clemmer said. “It’s the stewardship of the folks that have worked here; people who have worked here for generations. From Joe Cushing and snow engineering with the initial vision and building that sort of state-of-the-art ski area; the expansion that Chris Holmes is overseeing, adding to it year after year and having a good, quality product.” 

Ski Magazine readers recently chose Bretton Woods for having the best grooming in the East. The resort finished first in the family skiing and on-mountain dining categories in New England Ski Journal’s own ski resort rankings released last month. 

“There are going to be ski areas that are bigger, that have more vertical than us. But I think we compete at a national level and definitely on a regional level,” Clemmer said. “Our continued investment in grooming is something that people seek for that Bretton Woods product, year after year to come up here for a quality family ski day.”

The online auction continues throughout the season and closes on March 4. Net proceeds will be presented to the 50 recipients at a special reception before the end of the ski season.

Each chair weighs 150 pounds with a height of 106 inches. The lift was retired in 2018. For more information, visit brettonwoods.com/auction.