M16| Friday, September 20, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
MANSION | MOUNTAIN & SKI HOMES ISSUE
BYAMYGAMERMAN
THE MARKET
The White Mountains Heat Up
The ski resorts of New Hampshire, famed for majestic scenery and less-than-ideal ski conditions, are attracting buyers
Gosia and Mark Moreau with their children, top from left, Mya, 5, Aiden, 9, and
Ashton, 6. This home, above, is one of the family’s four New Hampshire properties.
ON YOUR RIGHT!
The ski lingo you need to
know if you ski the White
MountainsEdge or die: The Way, the
Tao, the prime directive to
all who ski the WhitesEdge Guy: The person in
the ski shop who sharpens
your skis’ edges; daily visits
advised for duration of N.H.
ski vacationACL: The ligament most
likely to tear if you fail to
visit Edge GuyMoving yard sale: Losing
your ski gear over a swath
of the trail as you scream
down the glassy slope on
your back (or front if you’re
exceptionally unlucky)
Football field: A perfectly
straight ski run that goes
from the top to the bottom
of a mountain; common in
the Whites; ideal for mov-
ing yard salesCorn: White Mountain’s
version of powder. It’s ice,
but chopped up into teeny,
tiny pieces by a grooming
machine, or, occasionally,
naturally occurring when
snow is followed by a melt
and refreeze.Virgin corduroy: Freshly
groomed, artificially made
snow; the closest thing to
powder most people ever
see in the WhitesSoft day: Ice covered with
a few inches of actual snowLumpy: Fluffy moguls with
unskiable ice in between; a
soft day an hour after lifts
open
Jerry: Super-enthusiastic,
novice skier whose butt is
writing checks his skis can’t
cash (See: http://www.jerryofthe-
day.net, click “blog”)
Mahogany Ridge: The barPowder Day: Rumored to
occur but evidence scant—Kris FrieswickFOR GOSIA AND
Mark Moreau
and their three
children, owning
a New Hamp-
shire ski home is
great—but two
are even better.
After buying a
six-bedroom
chalet at Loon
Mountain, in
Lincoln, for $680,000 in 2018, they spent $1.21
million on Black Bear Lodge, a 5,700-square-foot
home about 40 miles east in the Mount Wash-
ington valley town of Glen in January.
“Glen is a log cabin home, which is unique
and cool. It’s very private and has beautiful
views of Mount Attitash, and there’s also shop-
ping at the outlets,” said Ms. Moreau, 45, a soft-
ware designer who currently spends her time
managing her children and her multiple homes.
Whereas, “there are so many activities at Loon.
For Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, they do
crazy fireworks and have people ski down the
mountain and make a loon out of torches.”
Despite its reputation for icy slopes and pun-
ishing winters, the Granite State is drawing ski-
home buyers with its mix of year-round recre-
ational opportunities, its
family-friendly vibe and
easy access to restaurants
and shopping. According to
a study by Realtor.com,
home sales in New Hamp-
shire’s White Mountains
region grew 24% between
January and May of 2019
compared with the same
period last year. (News
Corp, owner of The Wall
Street Journal, also oper-
ates Realtor.com under li-
cense from the National
Association of Realtors.]
Ms. Moreau and her husband, 47, who
founded an operations management software
company, own four New Hampshire homes, in-
cluding their primary residence in Windham
and a lake house in Meredith. Black Bear Lodge
is the more remote of the two ski homes, with
mountain views, its own movie theater and a
playroom with bunk beds and a slide. The Loon
mountain chalet is more convenient—just 90
minutes from the Moreaus’ home base—and so
close to the mountain that they can watch ski-
ers swoop downhill from their living room. A
shuttle bus to the ski lifts stops across the
street from their house.
Both ski homes have proved solid invest-
ments. “We were renting the Loon house so
much we barely got to use it last winter,” Ms.
Moreau said.
A pioneer of ski tourism, New Hampshire was
among the first states to offer European-style
skiing schools, groomed trails and overhead
wire-rope ski tows. In the late 1930s and 1940s,
weekend “snow trains” ran between Boston and
North Conway, N.H., near Cranmore Mountain,
then one of largest ski resorts in the country.
Convenience is still a draw. Most N.H. ski ar-
eas are near major highways and many are clus-
tered close together. Cross-country and snow-
shoeing are popular, and there’s growing
interest in backcountry skiing at places like
Baldface Knob in Chatham and Crescent Ridge
Glade in Randolph.
“Our luxury homeowners are coming here for
the lifestyle. They can ski at Attitash on Satur-
nets. In the summer,
there’s a moun-
tain adventure
park and a zip
line ride and
new bicycle
paths are un-
der construc-
tion. The first
18 condo units
sold out at prices
ranging from $439,000
to $629,000. Another 19 units,
with top prices of $729,000,
will be completed by December
of 2020.
Katherine Morse, a doctor
of anesthesia practice, and her
husband James Morse, an
emergency medicine physician,
live with their three children
in the coastal town of Rye.
They bought a three-bedroom
condo at Kearsarge Brook for
over $600,000 in 2018.
“We did look in Vermont—
we were tempted—but we felt
this was perfect for our family,”
Ms. Morse said. “Cranmore is a
very family-friendly mountain.
All the trails wind back to acentral area in the middle, so
the kids can head off and then
come back. And even if you
don’t ski, they have so many
other amenities. It’s becoming a
one-stop kind of area.”
The Morses have embraced
New Hampshire’s “loud pow-
der” a local nickname for its
icy slopes. Their children, ages
8, 9 and 11, are all enrolled in
freestyle and pre-racing pro-
grams. “They’re daredevils,”
Katherine Morse said. “They
go downhill backward.”
For some, the masochistic
pleasures of skiing in the
Granite State are a point of
pride. Kevin Killourie, a real-
estate agent and president of
the Jackson Ski Touring Foun-
dation, which maintains 60
groomed miles of Nordic trails
in the White Mountain Na-
tional Forest, takes a dim view
of those who flee the state
during sleet season.
“A friend of mine is going
to Vail for February vacation,”
Mr. Killourie said. “That’s a
wimp.”day, King Pine on Sunday and
Wildcat on Monday, and hit all
those locations in less than an
hour,” said Diane McGregor, a
real-estate broker with Badger
Realty in Jackson.
In July, Vail Resorts, a Colo-
rado-based company that
owns 16 ski resorts across the
U.S., announced the purchase
of New Hampshire’s Crotched
Mountain, Attitash and
Wildcat ski areas. The
company acquired
Mount Sunapee ski
resort last year.
Ms. McGregor ex-
pects the acqui-
sition to boost
home sales,
largely because of
its multi-mountain
pass program.
Other ski resorts are
upping their game. Waterville
Valley Resort is in the midst of
a $7.5 million upgrade and ex-
pansion, with new trails, a
renovated lodge and 500 new
high-efficiency snow guns for
snow-making. Two months
ago, the resort announced the
acquisition of 33 acres of com-
mercial land in the town cen-
ter, which it plans to develop
with a hotel, retail spaces and
a gondola to the mountain.
Cranmore Mountain Resort’s
new Kearsarge Brook condo-
minium complex is part of a
$50 million development plan
that will add 106 condo units
and 45,000-square-feet of new
lodge space over the next six
to eight years. Along with ski-
in, ski-out access from its two-
and three-bedroom condos, the
complex has a four-season
heated outdoor pool, fitness
room and private locker room
with mahogany storage cabi-Black Bear
Lodge, above, a
5,700-square-
foot log home
in the Mt.
Washington
Valley. A condo,
right, at
Kearsarge
Brook at the
Cranmore
Mountain
Resort.SHAW NIELSEN (MAP); PETER GREENWOOD (ILLUSTRATION); JESSICA WEBB FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (3); RACHEL SIEBEN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (KEARSARGE BROOK)24%
Jump in home sales in
the White Mountain region
between Jan.-May 2019
and Jan.-May 2018PRICE
$1.21 millionPRICE
over $600,000Black Bear Lodge
in Glen, N.H.NEW HAMPSHIRE SKI HOMES FOR SALE
$825,000
Birch Ledge Road, Bartlett
3 bedrooms, 3 bathroomsWith 2,200-square-feet of fin-
ished living space, the home has
mountain views and is close to
North Conway. The home fea-
tures a chef’s kitchen, master
suite with a walk-in shower and
great room. Agent: Theresa
Bernhardt, Keller Williams Lakes & Mountains Realty$1.5 million
South Peak Road, Lincoln
5 bedrooms, 5 bathroomsSet on the slopes of Loon
Mountain with back-trails to
the resort, the 4,150-square-
foot, post-and-beam home
overlooks the Pemigewasset
River. The home has a gym and
a three-season porch, as well as
an outdoor hot tub.
Agent: R. Stephen Loynd, Alpine Lakes Real EstateTHERESA BERNHARDTSTEVE LOYND