Club History
This history was written by a member in the early 2000s.
​
The initial founding of the club was a bit less auspicious than the ultimate result. The idea of starting a ski club was initiated by two young single gentlemen living in Lexington, named John Adams and Paul Stella. They had the idea of forming a ski club for singles that would be a great vehicle to meet single girls who liked to ski. John was working at Lexington Lumber and posted a sign at work advertising an initial meeting to be held in Lexington for all interested parties. Word spread primarily among the customers of Lexington Lumber and the Lexington Ski and Sports Shop (formerly in Depot Square).
The Royal Motel
The main objective was to reduce the cost of skiing by using the combined buying power of the group to get discounts on skiing and lodging from establishments near ski areas. The idea was that we could rent an entire lodging facility and bargain for a reduced per-person charge.
​
The first unofficial meeting of the club was a cookout held at John Adams' mother’s house on Paul Revere Road in Lexington. There was a good turnout that consisted of no single women and about a dozen married couples. John had never stipulated “singles only.” It became clear early on that the “singles” club was not feasible, and the only likelihood of success was as a “Family” club.
​
It was decided to place an ad in the Lexington Minuteman newspaper to attract new and interested members. The first official meeting of the club was held at the Lexington Belfry Club. In subsequent meetings, the elders of the club (Dick Masters, Jim Myers, Norman Sebell, Dick Stone, Bill Hammer, Howard Kadash, Hugh Lyons, and others) began to meet regularly to create a charter and iron out the Articles of Incorporation. The club was incorporated in May of 1964.
The lawyers in the club (Jim Myers and Mike Shaughnessy) decided that the meetings would run under Robert’s Rules of Order to maintain order and decorum. That resulted in some interesting discussions about how issues were discussed and resolved. The first president of the club was Jim Myers.
It was decided that the first official ski weekend of the Lexington Ski Club would be unofficially called the “Let’s see if we can live together” experiment. It was held at the Hoffman House in Jackson, N.H. The group, nearing 100 including children, filled the lodge for the weekend, and it was a great success. There was a lot of drinking and partying, and it was clear that this was not an early-to-bed, early-to-rise crowd. The consensus, however, was that it was a good group of people with a common goal.
It was not long afterward that it was agreed that the membership should look for a more permanent residence for the club. The call went out to everyone to keep an eye out for a large facility in N.H. and V.T. that could be modified similar to what was done by the Penguin Ski Club in Glen, N.H.
Finding a Permanent Home
By 1965, the towns of Lincoln and North Woodstock were on the verge of total bankruptcy. The mill that had sustained the town for over 50 years had gone bankrupt multiple times in recent years. Loon Mountain did not yet exist. Interstate 93 ended in Plymouth. The business of skiing was not profitable, and what prosperity there was in the White Mountains was nearly all in North Conway. People were abandoning properties in the LinWood Valley just to get away from the mortgages.
​
That summer, while club members Dick and Rita Masters were on vacation in New Hampshire, they happened upon the Royal Motel in North Woodstock, NH. As legend tells it, Dick saw that the establishment was in dire need of attention. He knocked on the door and asked to speak to the owner. He met a kindly older woman who owned the motel with her husband. It’s believed that their name was Sterling. He asked if by chance they had considered selling the motel. It is said that she grabbed hold of Dick, pulled him inside, and wouldn’t let him out of her sight until he had a chance to talk to her husband. As fate would have it, the owners were seriously considering selling the property. The husband worked at the NH State Liquor Store in town and was ready to retire, and he had just recently won the state lottery to the tune of $20,000 (back when that was considered a real sum of money). They were ready to blow out of town and head for Florida without looking back.
​
Dick brought a proposal back to the membership, and a deal was quickly completed. The first bond of $100 was issued across the membership to raise money for the down payment. Norman Sebell was instrumental in securing the first mortgage and insurance policy. The Royal Motel (soon to become the Lexington Ski Club) was purchased for $30,000, furnished. I sometimes wonder if the Sterlings chuckled as they left town knowing that they had unloaded their white elephant on some poor suckers.
​
Not a whole lot is known about the early usage of the facility before we bought it. Some town locals have said that it was primarily built as the service quarters for the former Alpine Hotel that existed behind the club. Others have said that it used to handle the overflow from the larger hotel. During recent excavations of the building, it has been suggested that the building originally was three homes that had been moved together into its current configuration (a common occurrence in the early 1900s). In any case, during the first years of the club, it became clear why the motel had been in decline, and it was evident that this place was not originally designed for winter usage.
Getting things started
Virtually from day one, the club was a white elephant. There was almost no insulation in the walls, and nearly every bathroom leaked. The kitchen had minimal appliances, and the bedding was in poor condition. But it was a start.
The boiler was an instant and constant source of aggravation and failed almost from day one. There were numerous times we woke up in the morning to frozen pipes and no heat. There were numerous times that some of the fathers of the club spent the better part of a weekend fixing the boiler rather than skiing. Thank goodness we had great neighbors, Dave and Dottie Rogers, who became valuable local assets to the club.
It quickly became apparent that some cash was needed to help defray the costs of running the club, so it was agreed to increase the membership. There were a number of friends brought in from Newton and other surrounding towns. It was the expansion of the membership to towns beyond Lexington that immediately concerned some of the members. The primary concern was that operating the club would require a large volunteer effort, and if members were spread too far away, it would be hard to get their cooperation in the ongoing operation of the club. Thus came much debate and the eventual adoption of the “contiguous town” rule.
​
The configuration of the typical American family was a bit different back in the 1960s than it is today. Most of the families in the club back then had 3 to 5 kids. It quickly became apparent that more beds were needed. One of the first major projects was to construct bunk beds in many of the larger rooms. When we purchased the club, the “motel” suites were originally configured as efficiencies with a small stove and refrigerator appliance to accommodate larger families. The appliance units quickly became inefficient, and they were removed out of safety concerns. However, the name has always remained for those units, and they are still favored for use primarily by larger families.
​
When the club was purchased, the old Alpine Hotel building still existed behind the club, though it had long since ceased operations. The building was a grand hotel from the era of the Mount Washington Hotel. In fact, some early members of the club remember having stayed at the hotel in its more glorious days. Not too long after the club was purchased, the Alpine Hotel was slated for demolition. The town was concerned that, being a huge old wooden structure, sooner or later, someone would torch it, so they wanted to demolish it in a controlled manner. The building was ultimately demolished in a huge controlled burn that lasted for a couple of days. The Alpine condos now occupy the former hotel site, hence their name.
​
Everything in the Alpine building was up for auction. The stipulation was that everything needed to be removed from the building by a specific date (late August, I believe) or else it would be demolished with the building. Some of the members went to the auction and bought most of the kitchen appliances. The word then went out for members to get up to New Hampshire to help move the equipment. They purchased a stove, a dishwasher, a big toaster, a meat slicer, a mixer, chandeliers (still in use in the dining room), tables, a steam table, and dishes and utensils. Nearly all of this equipment either is still in use or was just recently replaced.
​
The kitchen was originally along the northeast side wall (where the toaster and milk machines are today). There was a cold storage room in the back corner (where the stove sits today) that was a total waste of space. The water pipes continually froze, and the heat was poor. The dining room was in an L-shaped configuration that was not very convenient for larger group sittings. It was decided that the configuration of the kitchen and dining area was totally inefficient for the club’s purposes, leading to much discussion about how to change it.
​
Thus, as legend has it, after weeks of discussion and debate about how to solve the situation, one morning at breakfast, Dick Stone decided to take matters into his own hands. Dick went down to the basement, returned with a large sledgehammer, and proceeded to demolish the central wall separating the kitchen from the dining area in about an hour. Decision made. Needless to say, subsequent work weekends were spent moving the kitchen to the back wall and the dining room into its current configuration. When Pete Tasker became president years later, Dick took him aside and told him that sometimes you just have to stop discussing and take action. He didn’t tell Pete about his call to action with the kitchen, but it was part of the Lodge Committee’s oral tradition.
​
It was also clear that the building was never built for extensive winter usage and during an era when heating oil prices were much cheaper. Complaints about freezing cold rooms (23/24, M4 & M5, 8 & 9, Girls’ dorm) and frozen pipes were constant. The building had never been properly insulated. The decision was made that all exterior walls needed to be insulated. Thus began a multi-year project to remove the interior walls of all the outside walls and pack them with insulation, which is why all the paneled walls throughout the club exist. There was also extensive insulation work done throughout the attic and basement. Many of the teens in the early days of the club were pressed into the nasty task of “mole crew” duty.
​
The plumbing and electrical systems were always (and still are) a source of ongoing aggravation. Vaughan Bogosian was a professional electrician, so his work weekend projects were always planned well in advance. There had always been a standing rule that if a professional plumber ever applied for membership, they would automatically rise to the top of the waiting list. Needless to say, whenever a professional plumber would come up to the club, they knew not to apply for membership. Plumbing has always been and will always be our number one maintenance headache.
Dave and Dottie Rogers were the first caretakers we hired for the club. Whenever there was a problem, they immediately came to our assistance. There were many times that Dave would be over on a weekend to help fix the furnace or lend a hand and advise. He was instrumental in putting us in contact with local resources when needed. Their two sons, Dave Jr. and Daryl, were adopted as part of the “youth group” within the club. Dave Sr. was our first caretaker until his unfortunate death in 1991.
​
When Dave died, we launched a search for a new local caretaker. When we interviewed one potential candidate and took him through the club, his eyes popped out of his head when we showed him the bar with its liquor closet chock full of members’ bottles of hard liquor. At the end of the tour, the candidate said that he didn’t think he could handle the job with all that liquor around. (We didn’t ask.) We were able to hire a local custodian, but after three years, we let him go and started another search. We discovered Dottie’s son Daryl, who owns The Breezes motel at the foot of Paradise Road. This has turned out to be another great relationship with the Rogers family.
​
Dottie Rogers has continued to do light cleaning of the club during the week and remains an important watchdog across the street. We have been very lucky and very grateful for all the times that Dottie has provided us with warnings about questionable activities in and around the club.
​
In December 1972, we had our first brush with a major disaster. Chan Morrison arrived on a Friday night to discover that the heat had been out for a long time. It turns out that someone had inadvertently turned off the furnace, and by about 10 PM, broken pipes started to defrost. Chan was up until about 2:00 AM watching for more breaks and then turned off the water. An emergency call went out the next morning, and we proceeded to have a special work weekend as volunteers kept arriving. After that, an alarm was installed on the furnace to warn the caretaker that something was amiss.
Growing up in the club
Growing up as a young person in the club was a great experience (at least for most of us). As mentioned before, nearly every family had between 3 to 5 children. Thus, on any particular weekend, there were perhaps 40 to 50 kids at the club. There were at least a half dozen kids in every age group. The club was not the place to be if you wanted a quiet evening by the fire to sip a hot toddy. It was organized bedlam. There were frequently two dinner settings (children under 18 ate at 5:30, adults at 6:30). The only refuge from kids was the bar (hence the rule about no kids during cocktail hour).
There were so many kids between the ages of 13 to 18 that we needed to build the dorms to house them all. The dorms were great places to stay, and if only the parents knew what went on sometimes (but we won’t go there). There were also many great friendships developed (and a few romances).
​
There were always groups to ski with. Most parents loved it because their kids were gone from 9 AM to 4 PM, but they always knew where they were. The Lexington Ski Club became well known throughout the valley. We terrorized Loon Mountain a couple of times. (One unfortunate bathroom incident necessitated the banning of some individuals from Loon for a couple of years.) We used to have organized race weekends that were great fun.
​
The issue of “there’s nothing for the young people to do” existed back then as much as it still does today. Early on, the issue of “kids' music” became an issue. We had no place to listen to “our” music. We were told that if we wanted a record player, we needed to buy one. The young people organized (mostly led by Debbie Bogosian), and we held a car wash/bake sale in Lexington. We raised over $200, bought a stereo system, and installed it in the dining room. Some of the parents were not pleased, but they had no choice. Rock and Roll had come to the club.
​
During vacation weeks, the club was always packed (thus the need to divide the weeks in half). Frequently, parents would leave their kids up for the whole week (with sponsors) while the parents returned to work. Finding sponsors was always easy. People were great about sponsoring anyone else’s kids.
​
The club also acquired a reputation for having some lively parties. Ray and Claire Bosselli organized many of the more notorious annual New Year’s Eve parties. Some people were known to have dropped their conservative ways, and these parties lived on in legend for many years. Not to mention any names specifically, but there were stories about games involving silverware and string that became legendary. Dick Stone was well known for introducing the club membership to “vino fino.”
​
Raising kids in the club was never easy, but on the other hand, it was a fun and exciting environment to grow up in. The club had its share of societal problems. There were incidents with drugs and underage drinking. There were even some incidents of hanky-panky going on with both senior and junior members. But in all cases, the club was able to handle the issues either individually or as a group. In most cases, it helped to strengthen the bond that holds the club together.
The Kitchen crew
Besides the general lodge maintenance, the organization and management of the kitchen has been the biggest operational function of the club. Mealtime is viewed as an essential “family” time for the club, where many wonderful relationships and conversations have developed.
​
In the 1960s, the choices of eating establishments in the Lincoln/North Woodstock valley were extremely limited, and the availability of local grocery stores wasn’t much better. Clearly, coordinating food purchasing, preparation, and cleanup was a major task that no one had signed on to handle single-handedly.
​
A core group of women—Ruth Sebell, Margaret Bogosian, Betty Chase, Kay Tally, and others—managed the early kitchen committee. Most of the food supplies were bought at the IGA in Burlington, Mass., and driven to the club on any given weekend. I personally remember on multiple occasions having to ride for hours from Lexington to North Woodstock sitting between a 20-pound roast beef and boxes of restaurant-quantity canned goods piled around the seat. Pretty much everything needed to be pre-planned because once you got up there, there was no place to purchase what you forgot, at least not without a long drive to Plymouth or Littleton. I remember there were frequent calls to people in Lexington who were “coming up later” asking them to pick up something that was forgotten.
​
It was quickly decided that there needed to be a professional cook to prepare the meals on a week-by-week basis. The first year, we had a few interesting experiences with some personalities that didn’t quite work out as hoped. One gentleman came and quit halfway through his first meal. Another one came but refused to have anything to do with the cleanup.
​
One of our first stable cooks was a kindly older woman named Mrs. Shepard. Mrs. Shepard lived locally and loved to cook for us as her “family.” The problem was that everyone often went in to assist Mrs. Shepard in the kitchen and would bring her a “little nip” to help her through her tasks. Unfortunately, sometimes dinner ended up burned because Mrs. Shepard got a bit inebriated by dinnertime. She was a very nice woman and remained with the club for two seasons.
​
Then we realized that a more permanent solution was needed. Someone advertised at the cooking school in Berlin, NH, and a young man named Mike Blake responded. Mike desperately needed a job and also wanted to learn to ski. Mike began cooking for the club in the winter and did bicycle repair during the summer. He cooked for the club for approximately three seasons before eventually buying into a bicycle repair business in Brighton and moving to the Boston area.
​
The call once again went out for a cook, and our prayers were answered. In the fall of 1970, a young man named Peter Govoni from the Berlin cooking school responded to a local ad. Peter lived in the area, was dating a local girl, and wanted to stay locally. Well, needless to say, that friendship eventually led to marriage, and Peter settled in the town. He became a permanent fixture of the Lexington Ski Club for the next 27+ years.
​
Peter was a great asset to the club. Not only did he cook and clean up, but he also coordinated all of the purchasing of food and supplies for the club. Peter became part of our family as much as we became a part of his. We watched his son, Clark Jr., and daughter, Katie, grow up in the club. It seemed that almost from the day they could walk, they always helped Peter in the kitchen and were adopted as members of the club’s family. Peter helped us countless times with maintenance tasks that went well beyond his official kitchen duties. When Katie began raising chickens, we all brought her our empty egg cartons and bought her products. Clark had a business selling ice to the campgrounds that did so well he eventually paid for his entire family to go to Disney World one year.
​
Peter is a very interesting individual outside of his duties at the club, for those who didn’t have the opportunity to know him. He is the quintessential Yankee entrepreneur. In addition to his tasks as cook for the ski club (in which cooking became quite secondary in his life), Peter became quite active in some of his father-in-law’s business ventures. Peter’s in-laws own Clark's Trading Post, an “institution” in the valley. It’s a family business that provides a very comfortable living for most of the Clark family.
​
Peter, on the other hand, became more interested in hydroelectric dams back in the early '70s when energy prices shot up and alternatives were being encouraged. With his father-in-law’s support, Peter began buying old hydro dam sites in New Hampshire. He then found old abandoned dams in other parts of the country, bought the equipment at the plants and heavy equipment in the local area, and went out to the dams, dug up the salvageable parts, loaded them onto trucks, brought them back east, rebuilt the local dams, and brought the systems online. He built White Mountain Hydro Electric Company from scratch and became its president.
​
Peter also saw the condo boom underway in New Hampshire and realized they needed extensive heavy construction equipment. He would go to heavy equipment auctions in Florida, buy used equipment, truck it all back to New Hampshire, refurbish it, and sell it to local developers for a hefty profit. When the condo boom went bust in the early '90s, he bought back much of that same equipment for pennies on the dollar, refurbished it, and trucked it back to Florida for sale at the same auctions. Peter still remains in town and now spends his time refurbishing and selling antique cars.
In some ways, the club got very complacent under Peter, so it was a bit of a shock when he announced his retirement. We had to reactivate the kitchen committee and reassume tasks that Peter had always taken care of. The kitchen committee talked to a number of possible cooks in the area and even explored some from the Boston area. We talked to other ski clubs in the area to find out what they did for food preparation. We came to a real impasse: Bob Irish, our local food supplier, was looking for work to supplement his income during his slow winter period, but he didn’t want to work every weekend. Jim Fearnside recommended the summer cook from the Three Mile Island AMC camp, Andrea. She lived in Vermont and cooked at The Mountain School during the winter, but she saw cooking at the lodge as a way of helping get her two boys into skiing. It turned out that she and her husband were reluctant for her to drive all the way to the lodge and cook every weekend. So, a deal was struck that had Bob and Andrea share the cooking responsibilities, alternating weekends and coordinating their overall meal offerings. Andrea commutes to the club with her sons, and Bob’s family visits regularly to help him cook. Bob continued as our food supplier, which also helped with some of the “beyond cooking” parts of the job that Peter had been doing.
​
Charlie Levin has been instrumental in reforming and organizing the kitchen committee to assure continuity with this team approach. Although we all miss Peter, the membership has shown its ability to adapt to change, and we have now embarked on a new set of relationships that have, thus far, proved to be very rewarding.
The Great Fire (and subsequent flood)
Not long after the club was purchased, the insurance company insisted that we take fire protection seriously. In the insurance industry, there is a saying about old wooden structures such as ours: “It’s not IF they will burn, but WHEN!” A cheery thought, but unfortunately true. They recommended that we install a dry sprinkler system. The purpose of the system was not so much to save the building in the event of a fire, but to save lives and give people adequate time to get out of the building. If a large fire got going, the building would undoubtedly go down; we just wanted to be sure that there was no loss of life.
​
Norm Sebell lay awake at night worrying about what could happen to the kids in the club if there were a fire. So, around 1970, Norman Sebell and Ray Bosselli led a campaign to install a sprinkler system in the lodge. The consensus was by no means unanimous, but a majority eventually passed it, and an additional $100 assessment was made to all members. (Thus, one of the reasons for the $300 initiation fee charged to all new members.) The system was professionally installed and, other than a few minor accidents, had never been severely tested until…
​
In July of 1987, Bruce and Jeanne Sebell (the then lodge committee chairpersons) were celebrating their wedding anniversary at an inn in New London, NH, when a call came through from Chan Morrison. Who even knew where we were? The North Woodstock police had notified Chan that someone had attempted to burn down the lodge. We immediately drove to the club, expecting the worst.
​
Fortunately, when we arrived, the building was still standing. The fire department figured that someone had poured about 3 gallons of an accelerant (probably gasoline) along the back wall of motel 4 & 5. Fortunately, this person did not look above to see that there were sprinkler heads along the back of the building. As soon as the flames got high enough, it melted a few of the heads, and the sprinkler system worked like a charm, pretty much drowning the fire on the outside of the building.
​
Of more concern was that some flames had worked their way into the internal walls and had climbed into the ceiling and second-floor walls. Fortunately, the North Woodstock volunteer fire department arrived quickly on the scene and got things under control with minimal damage. Ultimately, the final damage toll was mostly to the back walls of Motel 4 & 5, rooms 9 & 10, and general smoke damage throughout the entire west wing. There was very little structural damage, and the worst damage was mostly cosmetic.
​
That fall, all of the exterior walls of those rooms were removed. All evidence of burnt wood was removed, and everything was re-insulated and re-paneled. All in all, we felt pretty lucky to have gotten through it so easily, and we were looking forward to a good ski season. The other major project that year was the installation of new carpeting in the halls and common rooms.
​
Unfortunately, as fate would have it, that was not the end of the incident. As it turned out, the person hired by the insurance company to service the sprinkler system after the fire was supposed to come back for a follow-up visit to bleed the system a second time. Or at least inform us that it was our responsibility to do so. (After the system is filled with water, it is necessary to periodically drain the low points to remove all residual condensation.) In any case, we did not know this procedure needed to be done, so when the club was hit with the first severe cold snap in early November, the water that had accumulated in the low points in the attic froze, burst the pipes, and sent a torrent of water throughout the second and first floors.
​
Once again, we had to race up to the club expecting the worst. This time, we were not so lucky. The system burst at the main junction feed just above the top of the stairs in the attic. When the fire department finally arrived later in the day, there was a waterfall of water pouring down the main staircase. (Why it took so long for them to respond is still a mystery.) Many of the room ceilings in most of the second-floor bedrooms had become saturated with water and collapsed. Most of the suspended ceiling in the living room had collapsed, as had a portion of the dining room. There was over a foot of water throughout most of the basement (fortunately, the boiler stayed high and dry). Our initial fear was that the entire ski season would be lost. It looked like a total disaster.
​
Fortunately, fate would once again smile upon us. The insurance company was quick to respond and immediately stepped in, having a cleanup crew there within the week. They removed all of the damaged ceilings, bedding, and anything else that was damaged. They set up huge fans throughout the first floor and dried out the building fairly quickly. They then brought in a construction crew to quickly replace all of the damaged ceilings on the second floor. Most of the structure of the hung ceilings on the first floor remained intact, and we only needed to replace all of the tiles. Before we knew it, things weren’t looking so bad after all.
​
We had just installed new wall-to-wall carpeting in the living room, bar, and TV room, and the water soaked it completely. Thanks to some Herculean efforts by most of the membership, and most notably the lodge committee (Bill Hammer, Roy Lynn, Jim Fearnside, Hugh Lyons, and others), we were able to get the club back online and ready for the winter season. The crew was so good at wet vacuuming the carpets that they were salvaged. Everyone was required to put in a second late-season work weekend that fall to get the club back in shape.
​
Thanks to a satisfactory insurance settlement that covered all of the professional work and the replacement of many mattresses (that needed replacing) and the new carpet (which we did not have to replace), we were able to bank most of the remainder, which subsequently paid for the new roof that was put on a few years later. So, we have had our share of fires, floods, and more recently, a plague of drought of snow. So, what else can go wrong? (I’m afraid to ask!)
The growth of the NH ski industry (And the rebirth of the Linwood valley)
When the club was purchased back in 1965, the Lincoln/North Woodstock region was severely in need of some type of economic stimulus. The pulp mill was closing for the last time, and unemployment in the area was high. The ski industry was beginning to show signs of growth, but economic prosperity seemed to be happening everywhere except in Lincoln and North Woodstock.
​
Interstate 93 had yet to be built up through northern New Hampshire. It ended in Plymouth, and you had to travel Route 3 (a winding two-lane road) to get to North Woodstock. The mill in Lincoln was still in operation, but times were very tough. You could buy nearly any piece of property in Lincoln for a song.
​
Cannon Mountain was the destination for the hearty diehards (its slogan was "Ski the Legend"). Tenney in Plymouth and Mount Tecumseh (later renamed Waterville) were small-time operations. The truly adventurous traveled further north to Wildcat and Burke. Cranmore had the skimobile, which was novel but extremely inefficient. An all-day ticket at most areas was under $11 for an adult ($7 for a child), and if you had to wait longer than a five-minute lift line, it was considered a crowded day. There was no snowmaking, so you got what Mother Nature delivered (thus the infamous New England conditions, better known as ice and rock). There were great snow years like 1966-1968 and bad years like 1971-1973.
Sometime in the fall of 1966, Dick Stone met an elderly gentleman in downtown Lincoln who was talking about building a new ski area in Lincoln. Dick invited him to the lodge for dinner one night. The gentleman turned out to be former Governor Sherman Adams. He came by to see us and discuss his vision for the future of the Linwood Valley. He showed up with a bunch of plans and talked about building a new ski mountain on the edge of the national forest land on the other side of Lincoln. He talked about it being a multi-mountain project with hotels, restaurants, and all kinds of new features. He also talked about building hundreds of condos throughout the valley. He offered everyone the opportunity to buy in for $10,000/share (which was a real sum of money for most members back then). I don’t believe that there were any takers (Oh, if only).
​
When he left, most people were mildly amused by the visit and wished him well, with most probably thinking that they had just heard from one of life’s great dreamers. Well, it didn’t take long for everyone to be proven wrong. Sherman Adams was also chief of staff for President Dwight Eisenhower during the late 1950s, so he was very well connected in Washington. The US Congress quickly passed a bill giving him deed to all of the land that is now Loon Mountain. The environmental lobby was nothing like it is today, and the prospect of jobs for the locals got the project underway very quickly.
​
Soon Loon Mountain was in operation with the gondola, three chair lifts, nine trails, and one base lodge. The mountain kept adding new trails and lifts each year, and prices began to rise. Loon was one of the pioneers of snowmaking technology, and they quickly took it to an art form. Generally, the conditions at Loon exceeded those of every other mountain in New England. Those who were there during the early days at Loon remember when Sherman Adams himself would walk around handing out hot chocolate to everyone in line, delivering real service and asking for suggestions on how to improve things.
​
Loon was the first mountain in the area to offer the ability to pre-buy your tickets a day in advance, and it quickly became the mountain of choice for most ski club members. The mountain was often sold out before 9 AM. For many, the crowds grew unmanageable, and the diehards eventually returned to Cannon.
​
Sherman was also right about the condo craze. Throughout the '80s and well into the '90s, the building of condos exceeded everyone's expectations. The valley is now filled with businesses that few could have imagined 30 years ago. Fortunately for the club, most of the development has been far enough away and has not had a direct impact on the club facility (although it is nice to finally have a somewhat better choice of local restaurants and supply stores).
In the meantime, all of the other ski areas in the region have also benefited from the growth of skiing in New Hampshire. Cannon has always lagged behind, but it seems that the long-awaited expansion with Mittersill will finally happen. Waterville expanded to a new mountain and struggles to maintain its operation. Bretton Woods has grown enormously and seems to be quite successful. Sunday River has seemingly grown out of nowhere to become one of the premier ski destinations in the White Mountains. Tenney closed in 2000 and has yet to reopen. Burke continues to be a popular destination for those seeking smaller crowds.
​
Although you could not refer to the Linwood Valley today as a culinary paradise, it’s far better than it was in 1965 and throughout the 1970s. Back then, there were almost no restaurants open in the winter (the Chalet, Ernie’s Broasted Chicken, and the Eaglecliff for pizza was about all). There were no fast-food restaurants. The prime tourist season for the area was the summer and fall. Some of the hotels (like the Indian Head) served meals, but the quality was less than wonderful.
​
In 1975, the Common Man opened in Ashland, and that was about as close to wonderful as things got for a long while. The Beacon Motel (north of the club on Route 3) went through a huge growth phase in the '70s and '80s, adding Dad’s Disco Lounge. That was the high point of entertainment in the valley (outside of the club) for many. Dexter Hyman and the Fosters used to love to go to Dad’s to hear the guy who played dance tunes on the accordion.
For a number of years, Loon Mountain had an establishment called The Barn. It was an old barn that was converted into a nightclub. They would have folk singers there, and it was very '70s. Then came disco, and it changed to accommodate the culture changes. There were a number of incidents with illegal behavior (drugs) that eventually led to the shutdown of the club in the early '90s.
The Evolution of the Club Bedrooms
You have no doubt noticed that most of the rooms in the club have queen beds, and many have bathrooms. The move to queen beds was spearheaded under Bruce Sebell’s terms as lodge chair and president. Over the past ten years, we have replaced most of the old singles and doubles and upgraded the bunk bed mattresses. The bunk beds themselves were constructed by club members starting in the first years of ownership of the club to accommodate all of the families with kids.
​
Few of the rooms in the main lodge had their own bathrooms. About ten years ago, Bill Hammer came up with the clever idea of converting closets into bathrooms. This was no small feat in some cases. Check out the particular ingenuity involved in the interlocking space of the bathrooms in rooms 4 & 5 and rooms 20 & 21. In some cases, this meant that some rooms ended up with clothes racks in the room rather than having a clothes closet. However, many more rooms now have bathrooms.
​
Why do the bathrooms in the club have light switches outside the bathroom? If you’ve imbibed too much beer and have to make a pit stop in the middle of the night when the rest of your family is sleeping, you will be grateful for the en suite bathroom. However, you will have trouble turning on the light without waking the rest of your family because you can’t go into the bathroom, close the door, and then turn on the light. This is because the latest rewiring of the club was done by a club member who was an electrician from Massachusetts. Unlike New Hampshire, the Massachusetts electrical code does not adopt the “Live Free or Die” motto. Their code requires that light switches be outside the bathroom so you can’t stand in the shower and turn on the light. (What is Massachusetts’s motto anyway?)
Not Growing up in the Club
Because the club membership was so closely knit and many had been in the club from the early days, a body of written by-laws and lodge rules had evolved. These are interesting reading because each one has a story behind it reflecting some incident that came up in the course of the club’s 30-year history. But there were also many unwritten rules that had developed. For new families in the club, these unwritten rules were a minefield. How did I know that a particular room was some family’s special room? About 15 years ago, after a number of discussions among “those new folks,” Bobby Perlmutter, aided by Susan Foster and Pete Tasker, put together a compendium of “Helpful Hints & Other Miscellany.” This is only eight pages long, but it may save you from some personal embarrassment. (You can find it near the end of your club membership packet. Incidentally, that club packet has been produced every year since 1965 by Chan Morrison—no small undertaking!)
​
There were many kitchen duties that Peter Govoni took care of, and over the course of his tenure as our cook, many members forgot how to make a club kitchen and dining room function. With Peter’s retirement, there were processes that needed to be committed to paper, and some new processes needed to be established to handle the job sharing of the new cooks. So, at the end of your packet, you can find the “Kitchen Guidelines.” Reading these will help with the functioning of the club (and may also save you some personal embarrassment).
(Disclaimer: Some of the information contained within was accumulated from past years of memories that may be influenced by parental perspective and folklore. Wherever possible, we have tried to adhere to the facts as best as they can be recalled and to give proper credit where credit is due. If there are any incorrect references to details or individuals, we apologize and encourage you to correct the record. We hope that the information herein is correct and fair to the truth.)