The History of the Onondaga Ski Club and Lodges
By Art Zimmer
The Onondaga ski club first got into the lodging business in the late 1950s.
The club leased, on a seasonal basis, a lodge near Snow Ridge for several years.
The OSC lodge was later purchased by Otto and Ann Frey and became their home
as well as a bed and breakfast inn called Friehof lodge. Otto and Ann are
the ones who have run several European ski trips for OSC. For many years
Otto was ski school director at Snow Ridge.
In the early 1960s ski club members wanted a bigger challenge and leased
a lodge for a few years at Whiteface Mountain. About 1965, for one season,
OSC leased a lodge in Vermont on the back side of Mad River Glenn. This
lodge was owned by Fred Gruner, owner of Dewitt Sports Shop.
After many years of leasing the various lodges, OSC members decided the
"way to go" would be to purchase its own lodge. The club was doing very
well; membership was over 1500 members; the sport of skiing was booming.
In 1965 a lodge purchase committee was formed with Bob Baxter (a past OSC
president) as chairperson. After a full year of careful planning a detailed
plan of action was mapped out. The cornerstone of the plan was the selling
of lodge bonds to raise the money for the purchase of the lodge.
The plan was presented to the Board of Directors and rejected. Many
people in the club did not think OSC should be in the real estate or hotel
business. Another major problem was that many board members would support
a lodge purchase only if the lodge was located at their favorite ski area.
So the era of OSC having a lodge came to an end, including no more leasing
of lodges.
Two years later I became vice president of OSC. I had been a member
of Bob Baxter's committee. Most of the members of the previous lodge purchase
committee were so disgusted with the action of the board, seeing a year's
worth a volunteer work go down the drain, that they did not want to get
involved in another major "lodge battle." I then recruited about five
club members who had not been involved with the previous committee. These
five OSC members were all in strong favor of having OSC purchase a lodge.
We worked quietly behind the scene for a year and a half. I felt that in
order to succeed we needed to, in advance of going to the board, select
not only the location area but the specific building to be purchased as well.
Each of the committee members were assigned a specific area to scout
out the possible lodges available. We selected five areas: Whiteface,
Gore, southern Vermont, central Vermont, and northern Vermont. Each person
made many trips at his/her own expense to a specific area, working with real
estate agents, scouring local newspapers and just driving around looking
for For Sale signs. Some committee members even spent their own money to
place "lodge wanted" ads in local newspapers.
During all this time, the committee received NO funds from OSC for any
expenses. At each committee meeting all the lodges found were reviewed
in detail. After a year the one best prospect in each of the five areas
was selected. The committee as a group visited each one. Committee member
Tom Conley had located one prospect in central Vermont that was finally
selected as the lodge to try to purchase. A detailed plan was formed to
sell lodge bonds to OSC members to finance the down payment and the initial
cost of renovations and equipment necessary. It would be a big undertaking
and no club in central New York had ever done this before (or after).
The plan was presented to the board and hotly debated, then tabled. For
the next three months, at all club meetings and events, the lodge purchase
was the primary topic of discussion.
During that year I had become president of OSC. After two board meetings
of hot debate I announced that next month a final vote would be taken on
the purchase of the lodge. I pretty well knew where each board member
stood on the issue, and it was going to be a close vote. The outcome could
be decided by who was absent at the next meeting. After I called the meeting
to order, the lodge purchase motion was made. I asked for a show of hands
in favor, quickly asked for a show hands opposed, and quickly said, "Motion
passed, next order of business please." There were no questions or protests.
Soon the meeting was over and that was it.
At the next board meeting, the question was raised on what the actual
vote was. I said it was a tie, and in case of a tie, the president votes
to break the tie. Of course I voted for the lodge purchase. The question
of the vote never came up again. For many years only a few of my close
friends knew the motion actually went down to defeat by one vote.
Now the work began in earnest. First order of business was the sale
of the lodge bonds. It even surprised lodge committee, that had now been
expanded. Sales were brisk and on target to our original projections.
Then one day Tom Conley called me. He had been to Vermont that weekend,
and Floyd Bagley, the farmer from the we were purchasing the lodge, had
changed his mind on financing. In those days no bank in New York would
finance a lodge in Vermont. No bank in Vermont would finance a lodge
purchase for a bunch of New York skiers. So one of the prerequisites of
a possible lodge to purchase was an owner willing to hold the mortgage.
Lodge bonds sales were going well, but the most we could hope for was to
raise a good down payment and do immediate renovations necessary to make
it over from a private home to a club lodge. I had grown up on a farm so
it was decided at an emergency lodge committee meeting that I should go to
Vermont and try to change Floyd's mind.
I put on my oldest work clothes and planned my arrival in lower Granville
for milking time. I sat on a bale of hay in the barn at Floyd's son's farm,
a half-mile south of the lodge, and talked "farmer to farmer" to Floyd for
two hours. All of Floyd's friends and family were telling him he was crazy
to hold a mortgage for a group of wild skiers from New York. After two
hours Floyd was unconvinced and the deal was dead. On an impulse I made
Floyd an offer: I would personally guarantee the mortgage and back it up
with a pledge to put one of my apartment complexes up as collateral.
Floyd said okay.
Several more months passed and lawyers in Vermont just weren't doing much.
They were used to moving at a snail's pace. After the third report to
the OSC board from the lodge committee that no closing had taken place and
none was scheduled, a motion was passed to cancel lodge purchase if it
were not completed in thirty days. It was getting close to the end of the
thirty days so I called Bob Gang, a lawyer and OSC member and asked him
what we could do. He said "Let's drive up there tomorrow and do whatever
it takes to get the deal done." So we did. We went to the barn, and Bob
"lit a fire" under Floyd. We went to each lawyer's office, and Bob "kicked
some legal tail." We made two trips to the state capitol to get necessary
papers, and the next day the final closing was done!
Now the big problem was beginning-- how to sustain the lodge financially.
Lodge usage fees just about covered the mortgage and taxes. There were the
lodge bonds that had to be paid back with interest and major expensive
renovations to make the place usable for a club lodge, such as electrical
systems, heating, plumbing, hot water, bathrooms and furnaces. I conceived
the idea of having the lodge committee sponsor a major annual fund-raiser
to support the lodge and payoff the bondholders--> the birth of the OSC Ski
Show and Sale (*see note below).
The first several years the ski show was a function of the lodge
committee. It eventually grew so big that it was spun off into a separate
committee. The ski show profits paid off the mortgage to Floyd early,
repaid the bondholders with interest ahead of time, and paid for major
improvements to the property.
Now twenty-five years later here's an update on the three key players
who made the lodge a reality. Tom Conley died several years ago from a
head injury he suffered from a fall off a ladder at his home. Bob Gang is
retired but still an active member of OSC. I am still a member of the
club (35 years of continuous membership), retired from active involvement
in a leadership role for several years. My last major role in OSC was 16
years as Director of the Ski Show, along with serving on the Board of
Directors for 21 years.
I feel that a large part of the continued success of OSC over the past
twenty-five years has been due to the lodge and ski show, probably the club's
two most important projects.
I wish Onondaga Ski Club continued success and hope for a long, successful
lodge operation.
Best of luck in the future,
Art Zimmer
P.S. The lodge and ski show were not the first mega-projects that OSC
undertook. In the mid 1950s OSC operated their own private ski area for
club members only. It was called Little Tuck and was located on the highest
hill in Onondaga County, about five miles north of Song Mountain. At that
time most of the current local ski areas were nonexistent. You either
skied at Drumlins or Snow Ridge.
By 1960 commercial ski areas were open and had new, modern high-tech
equipment like J Bars, T Bars and indoor bathrooms. Little Tuck could
not compete with these modern marvels. In 1961 to club decided to raise
a lot of money (equivalent today to about $600,000) and do a major upgrade
At Little Tuck. Ski area bonds were sold to club members to raise money.
The land was owned by Syracuse University and OSC leased it. A long-term
lease was necessary before such big money was invested. SU would not
give a 10 year lease and as a result, the entire area was abandoned by
1963. The land remained abandoned and unused for 20 years. Finally SU
sold a building a lot at the bottom of the hill. To this day the rest of
the area lies unused. You can still drive along Woodmancy Road and see
where some of the old trails were cut through the woods.
*note:
As you have read above, the Onondaga Ski Club over the years undertook
the tasks of organizing, arranging for sales items, entertainment,
location, and staffing with volunteer club members for the annual Ski Sale.
Over time, economic conditions have changed, and so has the club. While
we enjoyed putting on the Ski Sale each year, it took a lot of time and
energies that we now are utilizing in different ways. The club has moved
on to other things now and the void has been filled by "for-profit"
organizations. As they say, "It's been fun."
For more information about the Ski Sale you may want to read A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SYRACUSE SKI SHOW
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