Editors Note: Nobody could ever accuse ski area planners and builders of thinking small. They are a special breed. They have mostly created their ski operations from scratch, some bulldozing their hills into existence from the midwestern plains, others by taming massive mountain peaks. They have blasted, cleared, culverted, thrown up all manner of uphill conveyance and then have colonized their creations with Alpine villages of dazzling diversity.
Their imaginations have soared to dizzying heights (high mountain anoxia, perhaps?) with everything up to proposals to the AEC to create a massive ski bowl with an atomic blast. We’re glad to see that this same spirit thrives, even in today’s more sober, MBA-dominated business world.
Walt Disney and Walt Schoenknecht, move over and make room for Heritage Mountain Resort in the Mormon fastness of Provo, Utah. Awestruck, we present below — considerably shortened, but otherwise untainted by our editorial blue pencil — the description of things to come.
Tourism in the Utah Rockies is about to take a giant leap forward thanks to Heritage Mountain Resort, a major new facility that seems to have just about everything for the vacationer of the 1980’s.
The $100 million Heritage Mountain this summer in the mountains just east of Provo, Utah, some 40 miles south of Salt Lake City, has plans which call for “unmatched” skiing, restaurants, theaters, shops, hotel rooms, condominiums, and heritage villages. The uniqueness of it is that the visitor has the opportunity of living in a theme park!
There will be 79 ski runs (a size that contain most of Utah’s major ski resorts combined), with a series of recreated villages of Europe and Mountain West America–a fully planned resort catering to recreation 12 months a year.
The villages are divided into four major groups–Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland); the British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man); Continental Europe (the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Italy); the Mountain West (American Indians, early Spanish explorers, and pioneer mountain men).
Upon stepping inside this new Old World re-creation, visitors will not only see the buildings, they will see and hear an array of sights, sounds and activities that will bring to life the “spirit” of the times of 1776-1876.
Suppose a visitor elects to stay overnight in the Scandinavian Village. He will check in at a small, low-rise Swedish or Norwegian country inn patterned after the many which dot those countries. He will be shown to a cozy, intimate room furnished in the Scandinavian style complete with down-filled quilts and hand-embroidered pillow cases. After a night’s sleep, he will come down from his second-story room, and enter into a village square built exactly like the ones in Scandinavia. He will see a cluster of buildings, with shops filled with Nordic products — Swedish crystal and cutlery, sheephide rugs, leather goods, ski wear and more. He will see a clock tower with animated figures that strike the hour, or off in a corner, he will see a puppet show in progress, or someone giving lessons in playing the 18 feet long alpenhorn or a Hans Christian Anderson story-telling center. He will walk on cobblestones, drink from the town fountain, enjoy the flowers and he can take a few steps and watch (or better still, he can learn) a Schuplatler folk dance accompanied by a typical oom-pah German brass band. He can buy his favorite cheese or pick out some cross-country ski equipment in an Alpine ski shop.
And this is only one of 14 villages!
Also planned will be a series of street vendors who will offer a variety of pastries, snacks and novelty foods from decorated carts, kiosks and sidewalk shops. Chestnuts, ice cream, tarts, fish snacks, cheeses, juice, dried fruit, and much more, will carry out the theme of Heritage Mountain in detail.
In addition to all the village activities, a uniquely designed revolving theater is being planned that will feature six stages, while the audience, seated on a giant turntable, views the presentation as it rotates from scene to scene. Special effects and a very large cast will bring to life the music, song and dance of the many nations which sent their emigrants to the U.S. Bell choruses and alpenhorns from Switzerland, Welsh men’s chorus, Scottish sword dance — all of these and more will be blended and choreographed into a top-notch production.
The 46 miles of planned ski runs will be served by more than 20 chairlifts and gondolas. The very popular night skiing should be spectacular on the flood-lit Rocky Mountain slopes.
Access to the ski runs, and indeed, to the entire upper area of the resort, is the funicular railway. It will climb from the base site up to 7690 feet in elevation.
The funicular, the safest form of mountain transportation known, can transport 3000 people an hour each way, up and down the 29 degree slope.
At the upper terminus of the funicular will be what the developers claim is to be one of the West’s top-ranked restaurants. Designed to rotate 360 degrees every hour, the restaruant will offer a view of the mountain, lake and valley. Perched 7690 feet above the valley, it overlooks a panorama that stretches westward to Wheeler Peak rising from the Nevada desert 200 miles to the west.
Young people will be hired, part-time, to guide, entertain and to serve as hosts and hostesses for Heritage Mountain guests. The planners have designed a training program that will teach high school and university students all forms of guest relationships including good manners, courtesy, politeness, attentiveness to the guests’ needs, good grooming and conduct.
Perhaps the heart and soul of Heritage Mountain will be the senior citizens who will provide the authenticity, the romance and the know-how so critical to the heritage villages. Many residents of Utah speak with old world accents and these are the ones the Heritage Mountain people want to hire to man the villages. Especially important will be the craftsmen who will demonstrate and teach hand skills to the young students as well as to the guests. They will be clock makers, jewelers, music box artisans, wood carvers, and others.
According to the planners, all the employees will be correctly dressed and groomed to authentically represent the village in which they work. Even the security men and parking lot attendants will carry out the ethnic themes of the villages.
The project is far and away the largest visitor destination resort ever built in Utah. Opening date is late 1979 for skiing and summer of 1980 for the villages.
