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« Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » An IR Exclusive: That Blake Family Legend Called Taos Readies For 'Urban Renewal'By Craig Altschul 
So, the burning question in the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains is how do you renew a legend and still keep Taos, well, Taos? "It's time for urban renewal in the village," Chris Stagg, Vice President of Marketing, told The Industry Report in an exclusive interview. Stagg, in his 35th year at Taos, is no doubt close or has established a longevity record as a mountain resort industry marketing chief. He's part of the Blake family tradition as well, married to Ernie's daughter, Wendy. "Times and taste change. Our lodges were built in the sixties and seventies and we have to compete with the new villages and luxurious accommodations at other destinations," Stagg says. "Now people have a taste of those places and think, 'this is what it's supposed to be like.'" Stagg had just returned home from the Mountain Travel Symposium and noted how Lionshead at Vail was morphing in front of our eyes from a sleepy suburb to a dramatic resort within a resort. That was a fact trumpeted loudly at a monster party for 1,200 MTS attendees hosted by the Town of Vail at the extravagant new Arabelle - a grand hotel at the foot of the gondola. Hundreds of sales executives got the same message. The bar has been raised again. Nothing quite as lavish or high-rise is being considered at the foot of Al's Run, but there's the 1970s and then there's the 2008s and the years ahead. Taos Village remains stuck in the seventies, charming as it was, and is. "The challenge we have is handling redevelopment in a way that is different from other resorts and unique to Taos," Stagg said. He would not be the first to infer, without actually saying it, that many of the mountain resort villages have a sameness about them that simply wouldn't work for Taos. "We haven't found the answer yet, but we're working on it," he said. "This village will have to be fresh, not like anyone else's." Taos is consulting with the Jack Johnson Company, the Park City, Utah-based architectural firm with a bag full of resort developments under its belt. "Jack came in and looked at the several parcels of land we owned at the base, had some ideas, and went back and thought about them. "He came back and told us we would be better off putting together the parcels we own, acquiring more we don't own, and develop an 18-20 acre base village," Stagg said. How will it look? Nobody's sure yet. Is Pueblo style architecture the answer? Probably not. How much Swiss influence (Ernie was a Swiss immigrant)? "We just know we can't go too far out one way or the other," Stagg thinks. What motivates the development of many of the new base villages at resorts does not appear to be the primary motivator at Taos. "A huge profit is not our goal at all. Increasing the bed base by any great levels isn't part of our thinking, either. We do, however, want to create units where the beds stay warm and get rented and guests feel like we're competitive." Taos has about 1,000 beds right now and that can translate to 2,400 people or so on a busy February weekend day or, perhaps, 1,500 on weekdays. Not big by most important destination resort standards. Stagg said about half of Taos' guests come from Texas and New Mexico. The balance come from the usual suspects of So. California, Chicago, New York, and Florida. "We get lots of families coming back to Taos year after year," he says. "They understand that things need to change. Really, the only lodge still maintaining the original Taos tradition is Jean Mayer's St. Bernard. He arrived in 1958 and has been the technical director of the ski school ever since. Mayer still serves gourmet French cuisine at breakfast, lunch, and dinner and, in his seventies, can still out-ski anyone on the mountain." What would Ernie think about the "new" Taos? Who knows. But, the IR talked Stagg into hazarding a guess. "I think he'd be happy we're moving ahead, but he'd be worried about taking on the debt. I remember when we built the resort center at Kachina Peak and borrowed about $2 million. Ernie couldn't sleep. He loved the idea, but he was terrified about the financial part. Of course, we paid it off in two years." The changes won't stop with a new village, no matter what shape or look it develops over the next few years. Snowboarding finally came to Taos this spring. "We knew it was inevitable. We looked at each other and said, 'if it's inevitable, what are we waiting for? So, we just did it.'" He said his biggest surprise about the snowboarding introduction was the mixed pairs and family groups of so many skiers with snowboarders and riders with skiers all over the mountain. The spring intro probably added 10,000 "skier" days to the season total. Changes in management? Sure, but there are more apples to fall from the tree. Mickey Blake (Ernie's son) may retire from the president's chair in the relatively near future, but Ariana, 37, now in the marketing department, and Alejandro (called Hono), 30, currently managing special events, (Ernie's grandchildren) will certainly keep things in the family way. The financial underpinning for the new village will likely come from "banks we have good relationships with now. Plus, there are some long-time Taos skiers who really care about the place and whom we think will be interested in investing in the resort's future. We'll certainly give them the first opportunity." Stagg laughed when recalling a story financier Dick Bass told him recently. "Things could have been much different for Taos. Dick told he had met Ernie in the fifties and said he and his brother, Harry, might have some interest in developing Taos with him. Ernie said 'don't come until I'm further along.' "The long and short of it is, that season had terrible snowfall, so he and Rhoda went to check out what was happening in some European resorts. The Bass brothers and their wives showed up at Taos while they were gone and stayed at the old Hondo Lodge – it didn't have running water yet. They went back home. Vail and Snowbird were the winners of the Bass treasure. Ernie just said, 'I told them not to come yet.'" The IR tries never to let an opportunity go by without asking industry veterans their take on the future of the industry. "I think many of the people with passion for the sport have been run off by financiers, developers, and business people," Stagg said. "We're not Disneyland where there's purposely little interaction with employees. Even the mouse doesn't talk. Our industry thrives on relationships – people riding up Al's Run on a chairlift, time spent with family on vacations carved out of too busy lives, getting to know ski instructors. I'm afraid much of that is going away. "I had lunch at a mid-mountain restaurant a while back - not here - with an old friend. The three young guys working there were pleasant enough, but they were foreign workers. They didn't even ski. They probably couldn't tell anyone which way to ski down the mountain. They didn't have a passion for the industry or sport at all." Taos skiers (and now riders), employees, and the "royal family" have a passion. Always have. The trick will be to meld the old world into the new. Messing with a legend is not for the faint of heart. « Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » |
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