Bend couple buys Idaho ski area

Published 12:00 am Friday, November 6, 2015

A Bend couple, Matt and Diane McFerran, on Thursday found themselves the owners of Soldier Mountain Ski Area, 1,150 acres in Idaho with 36 runs, two chairlifts and 1,400 vertical feet of downhill.

They paid less for their mountain of dreams — $149,000 — than the cost of an average house in Bend.

“Owning a small ski area has been a dream of mine since I was doing (high school) ski-race training at Hoodoo every Thursday night,” Matt McFerran said.

The board of directors at Soldier Mountain Ski Area, just north of Fairfield, Idaho, selected the McFerrans’ bid from among thousands of others submitted on Facebook starting Oct. 15. The board only seriously considered five proposals, said board President Dr. Jim Johnston, a retired orthopedic surgeon from Boise. The board required serious bidders to put the full purchase amount in escrow, which eliminated most contenders, he said.

Soldier Mountain Ski Area, founded in 1948 and once the property of actor Bruce Willis, has never made its owners much money, Johnston said. However, it provides furnished outdoor recreation for local farm families, and thousands learned to ski there, he said. It’s an affordable place to ski for middle-class families. Lift ticket prices for this season were unavailable, but in the past they cost $38 for adults and $22 for children per day, according to OnTheSnow.com.

“I love it,” said Annie Frostenson, a Camas County, Idaho, deputy county clerk in Fairfield. “There’s some technical terrain, and the (snow)cat can bring you to some more challenging terrain.”

A lack of snowfall has hindered operations at Soldier Mountain recently, and the place needs some maintenance, Johnston said. But the equipment is in great shape, and more snowmaking capability and additional lodging are what the resort needs in the short run, he said. The base lodge is at 5,752 feet elevation; the highest of two peaks is 9,529 feet, according to MountainVertical.com.

“It’s not going to make anyone a very rich person,” Johnston said, “but it can make a little profit.”

Matt McFerran said he planned on giving notice Thursday at Bend Research, where he’s worked nearly 15 years. His wife, he said, is planning to sell her business, Move Pilates and More, on SW Industrial Way. The McFerrans plan to move to Fairfield, a town of about 400 people 11 miles south of the ski resort.

“I will be heading out Sunday to be on the ground to start getting operations going,” Matt McFerran said. “I’m doing all I can to get snowmaking up and running.”

The ski area, which is about 65 miles from Sun Valley, belonged to Willis’ company, Valley Entertainment Group, from 1996 to 2012, when he donated it to the Soldier Mountain Ski Area, a nonprofit created for that purpose, according to a history of the ski area by Bob Frostenson, one of its founders. Johnston said the board tried selling the ski area through a real estate broker, but the offers it received were withdrawn. The members decided to post the property for sale on Facebook at $149,000, the nonprofit’s debt, he said. The posting received more than 2,000 inquiries within 72 hours, Johnston said.

“We were afraid of being inundated,” he said.

The five the board finally reviewed included bidders from Kentucky and Portland, Johnston said. He said the McFerrans impressed the board with their financial and personal commitments to the community that supports the ski resort.

“Matt McFerran put himself in Fairfield on three different trips,” Johnston said. “He was there taking the lifts off to check the wiring; he was learning the ski hill.”

Matt McFerran said he grew up near the Tumalo Reservoir and worked at Mt. Bachelor ski area as a grooming supervisor while attending classes at OSU -Cascades.

Running a ski resort was a retirement dream for the McFerrans, who are in their late 30s, but the moment seemed right, he said.

“We drove and took a look at the resort and knew this was the one for us,” he said Thursday. “We’re all in; we’re going for it.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7815, jditzler@bendbulletin.com