Robert Redford - Michael Feeney Callan [84]
Sitting on the perimeter fence of the homestead one day, admiring Timpanogos with Frankfurt, Redford said, “I’d like to own it all, Mike.”
Frankfurt smiled. “What? A mountain? You’d like to own the entire canyon?”
“Yep. I’d like to make sure no one screws it up. I mean it. Could we afford it?”
Frankfurt remembers thinking, He doesn’t have the cash to own it, but he’d make the perfect custodian. Redford explained that a few days earlier Stan Collins had informed him that the Stewarts were negotiating a sale to two rival property developers. “Their plan was for tract housing,” says Frankfurt. “Clear the screw pines, dig into the ski slopes, build, build, build.” Frankfurt recalls that Redford was upset by the plan. “He said, ‘Can you imagine why anyone would just ditch this beautiful place for money?’ It was so heartfelt that I was moved. I told him, ‘Okay, you want the whole canyon? The answer is no—you cannot afford it. But let’s give it a shot anyway. There are tax breaks for second properties. We can leverage. We can be inventive. It might work.’ ”
At that moment, says Redford, the notion of an arts sanctuary was not in his thoughts: “I wanted to preserve the land, that was all.” Stephanie Phillips, an agent who had begun working with Redford, recalls it differently: “I know Bob says that, but in my memory he already had more than a hunch about what this property could eventually be used for. We were in the middle of a cultural revolution in America. So much was changing, with the counterculture, with entertainment. Bob was onto it. Even then, at the very start of his expansion in the canyon, the idea was fermenting. Here, he thought, can be a haven for the arts, an experimental place. New York and Los Angeles were the centers, of course, but he was pondering how he could bring this virgin hinterland into the equation.”
Frankfurt turned to a friend, the Los Angeles lawyer Gary Hendler, for advice on acquiring a substantial acreage from the Stewarts. Hendler’s advice was to use the 1966 tax break for second-home purchases to obtain credit. He agreed with Frankfurt that the lands could then be sustained by expanding the recreation facilities, while holding development in check. Accordingly, two separate plots were purchased that defined a large family estate for the Redfords north of the ski area and, on the opposite side of the Alpine Loop road, the nascent resort itself. The family estate amounted to 1,179 acres; the resort, 2,200 acres. The cost, almost entirely leveraged, including the resort’s assets, was $1.6 million.
On August 5, 1968, in a press conference at the Utah Travel Council in Salt Lake City, the deal was announced. Wildwood Developments, a company composed of Redford, Frankfurt, Bob Gottschalk (Frankfurt’s business partner), Boston banker Hans Estin and Stan Collins, would relaunch Timp Haven as a year-round public recreation venue. From the podium, Frankfurt said the business objective was to double current facilities “while still maintaining the present beauty of the area.” To ensure year-round business, there would be a snowmaker installed and a lodge built to draw the vacationers who usually gravitated to Colorado. Eventually, said Frankfurt, a Swiss-type village would be erected, “with architecture strictly controlled to maintain uniformity and harmony with the natural surroundings.” Redford then took center stage, emphasizing that “the new enterprise will be geared toward family recreation,” emphasizing camping,