Feted as hot new resort, Idaho's Tamarack goes bust

Tamarack Resort in central Idaho billed itself as the first new destination ski resort in a quarter century when its first customers climbed aboard lifts in December 2004. Four years later, the resort operation, including lodging, is shutting down Wednesday, leaving owners of resort real estate once worth millions fearing the worst. Factors dooming Tamarack, at least for now, include a spending spree by French owner Jean-Pierre Boespflug that drained a $250 million construction loan, tight credit markets, collapsing resort real estate demand, foreclosure litigation and $20 million in unpaid construction bills. Mom-and-pop ski areas come and go, the victims of fickle weather and fickle finances. Where there were once more than 800 such U.S. resorts, there are now about 475. Still, to find a failed Western resort approaching Tamarack's size and aspirations, Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association, can recall only the 1974 demise of Stagecoach Ski Area, about 20 minutes from Colorado's Steamboat Springs...Seattle Post-Intelligencer