11/13/2024
Very cool
Josh Parnes and Martin Schapira won the Big Tupper Ski area with a $650,000 dollar bid.
The auctioneer listed the property’s full market value as $2.3 million.
Parnes and Schapira are New Jersey residents who own second homes in the Tupper Lake area. The duo told the Adirondack Daily Enterprise that they plan to restore the ski area for public access.
They said their hope is to run it as a public-private partnership with the town.
The Big Tupper Ski area has been in limbo for decades now. It closed in 1999, was reimagined as a luxury home resort that never materialized and was reopened by volunteers between 2009 and 2016.
Franklin County foreclosed on the property in 2023, after the former owners stopped paying taxes.
The new owners, Parnes and Schapira, said they’re against over-development of the ski area.
They said that they bid on the property defensively, to keep it out of the hands of, "a developer that’s not going to do the right thing for the town, the area, and the nature of it."
The pair outbid Stanley Rumbough, who is separately trying to obtain 5800 acres adjacent to Big Tupper. He’s expressed interest in reviving the luxury resort project known as the Adirondack Club and Resort.
Town officials say it will take millions of dollars to restore the Big Tupper Ski area to an alpine skiing facility.
Photo courtesy of Rick Godin.
More here ➡️ https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/50776/20241109/big-tupper-ski-area-bought-buyers-say-they-ll-reopen-to-public
