Berkshire’s Brodie Mountain finds a buyer
Berkshire ski resort, near Jiminy Peak, had been closed for years
April 1, 2022 Updated: April 2, 2022 3:54 p.m.
NEW ASHFORD — The historic, long-shuttered shuttered Brodie Mountain ski resort in the Berkshires appears to have found an interested buyer.
The broker handling the sale of Brodie, which is three miles from Jiminy Peak, says the sellers have an accepted offer on the 500-acre property.
If they move forward and go under contract the sale could be finalized in the coming weeks.
“It’s an amazing opportunity for under $2 million,” said Mitch Muroff, of Muroff Hospitality, who is handling the sale.
The property, which includes three ski lifts, was listed at $1.9 million. Muroff declined to name the buyer or the offer amount pending completion of the sale.
One wrinkle is that, according to earlier published reports, the covenant on the property attached after Jiminy Peak’s ownership forbids “public downhill skiing.”
It’s unclear, however, whether the covenant has an expiration date or if it remains in perpetuity.
Brodie dates to the 1930s, and after several owners was purchased in 1999 by the Fairbank Group which owns and operates nearby Jiminy Peak.
Initially they said they had plans to unite the two areas, but ended up closing the ski operation in 2002, with a snow tubing park remaining in place until 2007.
The area was then sold to the Holiday Inn/Silverleaf company.
“This was an excess property for Holiday Inn,” said Muroff.
One possibility for reviving skiing could be to operate it as a private membership-based ski club, similar to the Hermitage Club in Vermont, which took over what was previously the Haystack ski area.
Additionally, the sales brochure said it could be used for “snowboarding” or cross country skiing. It was unclear whether the covenant could be interpreted as banning skiing but not snowboarding.
Either way, reviving the lifts would require a large investment since the existing chairlifts are decades old and would almost certainly have to be extensively re-built or replaced.
Muroff said the sale is “as is.”
Other possibilities, he said, would be to redevelop the property as a “glamping” site, an ATV track, RV park or to build vacation homes.
Brodie isn’t the first small ski center to be closed after coming under the wing of another nearby resort.
Toggenburg Mountain near Syracuse closed last year after being purchased by SkiCNY, which operates the nearby Song and Tully mountains.
rkarlin@timesunion.com 518 454 5758 @RickKarlin
An earlier version of this story said the resort is under contract. It is not.