The owners of the North Conway ski area are trying to balance tradition with long-needed investment

The new Fairbank Lodge, which opened in late 2023, and the Kearsarge Brook Condominium complex, right, completed in 2020, dominate the base area of Cranmore Mountain Resort. (Courtesy of Cranmore Mountain Resort)

For visitors who haven’t stopped by Cranmore Mountain Resort recently, be prepared. This is no longer your father’s, or grandfather’s, cherished North Conway ski area. That’s not to say it’s not better. But it is certainly different. And the changes that have been implemented in many ways reflect the changing face of the ski industry.

Over the past 14 years, owners Brian and Tyler Fairbank and Joseph O’Donnell, under the watchful eye of general manager and president Benjamin Wilcox, have transformed this well-loved hill into a solid mid-sized resort. More than $65 million has been invested into the area’s snow-making and grooming facilities, lift capacity, main lodge, resort amenities and lodging options.

Therein lies the rub.

Those changes, say Wilcox and longtime journalist and author Tom Eastman, have also changed the look and feel of the ski area. Depending on your perspective, those changes have been celebrated, or met with skepticism.

“There are some people who lament the loss of the old Cranmore,” says Eastman, who wrote the 1989 “Flight Without Wings: A Celebration of Hannes Schneider and 50 Years of Skiing at Mount Cranmore” and the 2012 “History of Cranmore Mountain.” “As Ben Wilcox says, Cranmore needed a hug, and that’s what the Fairbank Group has given it. And modernized it.”

Cranmore is one of a triumvirate of nostalgia-laden ski hills in the Mountain Washington Valley, all of which share a common history but stand in stark contrast to one another today. In Pinkham Notch, the venerated Wildcat boasts the region’s best views of Mount Washington and the magnificent Tuckerman Ravine. It also boasts exceptional terrain, building on trails first carved by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. This is an old-school ski area, without overnight accommodations. The old lodge is a bit threadbare, but that translates to “character” for most fans.

Meanwhile, in the serrated hills outside Jackson, Black Mountain (formerly Whitney’s) continues to chug along, albeit in fits and starts. First opened in 1937, the area has been teetering on the cusp of closure the past few years, and is unquestionably showing its age. Recently purchased by Indy Pass, Black is now being considered for a cooperative ownership arrangement similar to Mad River Glen in Vermont.

A bronze statue of the “Father of Modern Skiing,” Hannes Schneider, created by sculptor Edward Materson, was unveiled in February 1989, during the 50th anniversary celebration of Schneider’s arrival. It still welcomes visitors at the roundabout by the resort’s ticket office. (Courtesy of Cranmore Mountain Resort)

By contrast, Cranmore has enjoyed 14 years of fairly consistent development. First opened in 1938 by North Conway native son and legendary financier Harvey Dow Gibson, after renting a rope tow from ski shop founder Carroll Reed and moving it to Cranmore Mountain, the ski area has deep roots in a community that is synonymous with the sport.

Just this year, North Conway was named the country’s “Best Ski Town” in USA Today’s 10 Best 2024 Readers’ Choice Awards, and Cranmore, with its rich traditions, is a major reason why. Tales of the ski trains that brought a pioneering generation of skiers to New Hampshire’s north country, George Morton’s radical-but-distinctive Skimobile lift, the establishment of the Eastern Slope Inn and subsequently the Eastern Slope Ski Club, are the stuff of local lore.

Gibson also brought Reed’s ski school, with its crew of Austrian ski instructors, including Benno Rybizka, to Cranmore. In 1939, Gibson flexed his financial might to pry the “Father of Modern Skiing,” Austrian Hannes Schneider, founder of the world’s first ski school in 1907, from Nazi Germany. Schneider, who developed the renowned Arlberg Technique, put his stamp on North Conway, bringing a new cachet to the area and convincing Gibson to expand Cramore’s ski trails to the top of the mountain.

A bronze statue of Schneider, unveiled during Cranmore’s 50th anniversary celebration of Schneider’s arrival in 1989, still greets visitors at the roundabout by the area’s ticket office. Schneider and his son, Herbert, were tireless advocates of the Eastern Ski Slope Junior Program that introduced thousands of local children to skiing, for free, and continues to this day. That program, in addition to the Local Yokel Recreational Ski League (now the Mountain Meisters), helped create a sense of ownership among residents and longtime visitors.

Wilcox, a resident of the Mount Washington Valley for more than 40 years, since he was in high school, took the reins of the ski area in 2004 and was quickly immersed in Cranmore’s traditions.

“I instantly met Herbert Schneider, the son of Hannes,” he says. “It was like coming into ski royalty, being at Cranmore, because there were so many people that had been here forever and been part of the history. It wasn’t until I got here and realized, oh my god, there is this culture and multigenerations that have skied here.”

Herbert Schneider and several partners bought Cranmore from Gibson’s widow in 1963, and ran it until 1984.

After Les Otten’s American Skiing Company purchased Cranmore in 1995, the area became a political football, and Otten sold it a year later to Booth Creek Holdings. Despite an initial infusion of capital, by 2004 Booth Creek officials no longer considered Cranmore a part of their long-term plans, Wilcox says.

Everything changed, and changed rapidly, with the arrival of the Fairbank Group in 2010. Wilcox acknowledges that the success of Brian Fairbank at Jiminy Peak in Massachusetts was critical in convincing him that they were the right owners to write Cranmore’s next chapter.

“When the Fairbanks came in and looked at the mountain, they said: ‘Oof, this place is tired. You need bubblegum and duct tape to keep it together,’” Wilcox says.

“It quickly dawned on me that, if we don’t find the right partner here, this place might not be here.”

Goodrich Falls mechanic George Morton built the distinctive Skimobile lift, which transport Cranmore skiers up the hill for almost 50 years, starting in 1938. (Courtesy of Cranmore Mountain Resort)

The Fairbanks infused new capital, expanding snowmaking and grooming capacity, the tubing park, and the state-of-the-art Arlberg Children’s Center, and retrofitting the resort’s chairlifts. In 2011, Cranmore launched summer operations, including a mountain coaster, and in 2016, the Fairbanks broke ground base-area redevelopment project.

The first phase included Kearsarge Brook Condominiums, with 18 residences, followed by the Artist Falls Lodge in 2021, the Fairbank Lodge (with 15 condominiums) in 2022, the 89-room Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott in 2023, and the first phase of the Lookout Lodge (17 condominiums) in 2024. Two more additions to the Lookout Lodge, with 42 more condominiums, new ski school and rental facilities, and a new restaurant will complete the anticipated $85 million project.

Those improvements, however, have come at a cost.

The area has lost some of its old New England charm, with the piecemeal lodge (literally built around the original log cabin) and quintessential après-ski spot, Zip’s Pub (coined after Herbert Schneider’s nickname), being replaced by bigger, more versatile and more energy-efficient buildings. Those buildings have not only enhanced the resort’s year-round offerings (Cranmore hosted five weddings last summer and a number of business meetings), but also increased its ownership offerings via condominium sales.

Cranmore Mountain Resort owners Brian Fairbank, left, and Tyler Fairbank, center, and general manager Benjamin Wilcox have shepherded the ski resort through 14 years of growth. (Courtesy of Cranmore Mountain Resort)

As a result, the views from the parking lot have been severely limited. At one time, the fabulous statue of Schneider seemed to being skiing right off the slopes into Cranmore’s drop-off zone. Now, the Father of Modern Skiing has a backdrop of glistening-if-nondescript buildings.

“They are handsome structures from the slopes,” says Eastman of the new, multistory lodges. “The only detriment is that they block the view to some extent of the slopes when you first get there.

“Those who remember the old Cranmore miss what it was, and being able to see the ski slopes without obstruction by the new penthouses,” he says, noting some natives still grieve the loss of the Skimobile in 1990. “But those penthouses paid for the new base lodge. And they’ve modernized the lifts, the snow-making, So, it’s not just real estate development — improvements have been made to the ski area because there’s capital to do it.”

That speaks to the balancing act that Wilcox, as Cranmore’s general manager, performs on a daily basis. While those trade-offs weren’t ideal, he says, they were necessary for the ongoing stability of the ski area. In short, continued investment is the lifeblood that smaller and mid-size ski areas need to survive.

“I’m so happy that we are improving Cranmore, but I have also learned that we have to be very sensitive and continue to work and educate everybody about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” he says. “I’ll still run into somebody who says, ‘Oh, you built that big wall up in front of Cranmore.’ And I’ll say, have you been through the wall? Have you been in the building?

During the late 1930s and through the 1940s, skiers at Mount Cranmore were serviced by George Morton’s Skimobile and the area’s original log cabin lodge. (Courtesy of the North Conway Public Library)

“You need to come in, you need to go out on the patio, sit out there, watch the skiers coming down,” says Wilcox, adding the rustic mountaintop Meister Hut is an untouchable. “We built the ski area so you could come to the ski area and go ski. I’ve definitely felt the impact of the change too, but I also realized that once we get through that initial change, people will see the good, and they’ll be able to plan on having Cranmore here for the next hundred years.”

Eastman recalls Christoph Schneider, son of Herbert and grandson of Hannes, telling him at one Cranmore groundbreaking: “I get asked all the time, ‘Do I miss the Cranmore of my youth? Of course, I do. But I realize that it had to move on.’” “So, I would say, as a preservationist and ski historian, part of me longs for the old days,” Eastman says. “But I understand why Cranmore had to change. I love all the connections to Cranmore’s past, but I also knew that it was tired and it needed the capital. And it’s gotten that.”