What a lovely surprise I received in my inbox today from a colleague...An article in The New York Times about my fave place...Eville!
"A travel writer and broadcaster Lowell Thomas visited tiny Ellicottville in New York’s westernmost cfavorite Rocky Mountain town. In the decades since, the Aspen of the West became, well, Aspen, while Ellicottville stayed a quaint, rural town even as more and more outsiders discovered the wonders of its winters.
Today Ellicottville is on the rise, one of only two genuine ski towns in New York State (Lake Placid is the other). It was ranked No. 5 by Ski magazine in its 2007 list of top resorts in the East, thanks to its two growing ski areas and the Victorian-era village of gingerbread porches and narrow brick storefronts.
The 1,400-acre Holiday Valley ski resort (716-699-2345; www.holidayvalley.com), celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and its neighbor, the equally large private ski resort of HoliMont (open to the public Monday through Friday; 716-699-2320; www.holimont.com), fan out on the flat-topped, tree-covered ridges above the village, where the slopes hold tight to the lake effect snows that blow off Erie to the west.
The skiing isn’t Alpine but there’s a lot of variety for all abilities. Jane Eshbaugh, Holiday Valley marketing director, says the breakdown is roughly 30 percent each for beginner, intermediate and advanced runs, and unlike resorts at 9,000 feet in the Rockies, there’s a lot of night skiing, since the temperature doesn’t plummet after dark.
The population of Ellicottville, about 55 miles south of Buffalo, swells by the thousands in the winter with daytrippers and weekenders from Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Toronto and Rochester, all within a five-hour drive. There is no airport. The town center has only one traffic light, and cellphone service can be dicey, but when it’s time to get up the ski hill, a high-speed quad can get you there. Après-ski, several local spas offer such services as basalt hot-stone massages and herbal facials.
The village itself is in transition, with tourism and a still-thriving vacation-home market causing some angst in certain quarters. Longtime residents are experiencing property-tax sticker shock as their home values skyrocket, said the former Town Supervisor Norm Stocker, who lost his bid for re-election in November.
“That’s why I’m out of a job,” said Mr. Stocker, adding that the taxes haven’t slowed a booming market in luxury vacation homes, many going to Canadians.
But the atmosphere in E’ville, as its friends call it, remains downright down home. The only thing like a chain store among the restaurants, boutiques and galleries is Watson’s Chocolates, a family business with other shops around Buffalo.
Tim Hunter, a massage therapist, said he left New York City corporate life behind four years ago, taking over a spa called Earth Worn Body Company (9 Monroe Street; 716-699-2508; www.earthwornbodyco.com). Small-town life nurtured his sensibilities in the same way his customers unwind with a pomegranate facial scrub. “If I’m busy and someone wants a service we don’t have, I send them to Oasis,” another local day spa, he said. “Everyone is very supportive of each other, during the slow season especially.”
Slow is not the problem this time of year. Despite a warm and nearly snowless start last winter season, the resort reported having 470,000 visitors. The year before, like this season, saw earlier snow and brought in more than half a million guests. To keep up, Holiday Valley finished nearly $3 million in improvements to its properties before opening for the current season. A new quad chairlift serves three new runs (bringing total lifts and tows to 13, with 56 runs and trails for 28 total miles of skiing). The Rail Fun Park, one of four terrain parks for snowboarders, was rebuilt, even after being ranked in the top 15 in the East by Ski magazine’s readers. Its pipe has a 13-foot vertical slope and is 250 feet long; the new Fox Fire set is 1,000 feet of tables, rails and boxes, made so the growing number of boarders can move up a level.
Near the base, the Inn at Holiday Valley gave all its guest rooms decorating makeovers, with a homey, New England look. The lobby, with its soaring curved center staircase, is a cozy hangout in the evening with a fire burning and tables set up for board games near the indoor-outdoor swimming pool.
“It’s not the latest technology — it’s more about kicking back and hanging out with your family,” Ms. Eshbaugh said, summing up the whole atmosphere at Holiday Valley, which was founded half a century ago by friends in the Ellicottville Ski Club who saw a hill that got a lot of snow and put their clubhouse in the middle of it.
On the slopes, lift tickets are a bargain compared with New England and the West. Prices range from $52 for eight hours on weekends to $30 to ski after 4 p.m. during the week (runs are open until 10), with rates at HoliMont generally less.
Other recreation can still be a cheap date. Cross-country skiers and snowshoers have free run of the resort’s golf course, Ms. Eshbaugh said, where a snowcat packs a 10K track, and they can buy an inexpensive two-ride lift ticket to reach a 4.5-kilometer ridge trail that gives trailblazers access to hundreds of acres of state forest.
There are nearly two dozen restaurants in and around the village with a handful of bars continuing the party into the night with live music throughout the week. Balloons (20 Monroe Street; 716-699-4162; www.balloonsrestaurant.com) has dancing, too.
About half the restaurants are burger, wing and salad places. At the higher end, expect what is called “casual fine dining,” meaning they will serve you intriguing Mediterranean pasta and scallop salad on a paper place mat.
At the Gin Mill (20 Washington Street; 716-699-2530; www.ellicottvilleginmill.com), comfort food tops the menu, and almost all lunch dishes are in the $6 to $10 range. There’s a choice of burgers, including ostrich — “People order it because they think it’s healthy,” according to the server — along with specials like the roasted-garlic broiled haddock. There’s live music on weekends, a game room in the back for kids and a fun-house mirror in the ladies room.
Tips Up Cafe (32 East Washington Street; 716-699-2136) serves fresh seafood ($15 to $20 range) and steaks (a 16-ounce Delmonico is $21.95), although tired skiers can carbo-load on spaghetti for as little as $9. Four homemade salad dressings come in their own cruets with each salad.
Nowhere gets more in the spirit of the area than Ellicottville Brewing Company (28A Monroe Street; 716-699-2537; www.ellicottvillebrewing.com), where a sampler of five four-ounce micro brews ($5) is served on a Brew ski — a real ski.
Shopping in the village belies its comparison to Aspen, with most of the commerce tucked into four blocks, including a gas station, a grocery store and a lumber company. Although there’s no furrier or Bulgari in sight, shoppers can pick up the latest boot designs from Ugg or a $300 Brighton handbag at Daff, the closest thing to a Rocky Mountain-style boutique (17 Washington Street; 716-699-2293), or objets d’art and one-of-a-kind jewelry at Earth Arts (24 Washington Street; 716-699-2169; www.eartharts.com).
There are three full-service ski shops in town besides those at the resorts, and the cluster of shops carries most necessities.
The shops and the Quality Markets grocery are an easy walk from anywhere in the one-square-mile village, which is a good thing. Holiday Valley runs a free shuttle to its Holiday Valley Tubing Company (716-699-8823) on Bryant Hill Road, and from its mountain rental properties to the resort center. Otherwise, there is no public transportation around Ellicottville.
For Aspenites accustomed to door-to-door delivery via limo or private jet, it may seem primitive. For the spiritual descendants of the Ellicottville Ski Club, who once arrived by train and sleigh, it is just keeping it real.
DISCOVERED BUT UNSPOILED
The Inn at Holiday Valley (Holiday Valley Road and Route 219; 716-699-2345; www.holidayvalley.com) has rooms starting at $122.50 a person per night weekdays and at $174.75 a person per night weekends, double occupancy; suites have fireplaces, microwaves and a mini-fridge.
Prices include lift tickets and Continental breakfast. Rooms have exterior corridors and guests can walk to the lift. There is small spa and indoor-outdoor year-round pool.
The Ellicottville Wingate by Wyndham (11 Mill Street; 716-699-6000; www.ellicottvillewingateinn.com) opened two years ago in the heart of Ellicottville and is an easy walk from local shops and restaurants. Rooms start at $129 weekdays, $249 on weekends during ski season, including breakfast. Suites have fireplaces; all rooms have microwaves and mini fridges. There are an indoor pool, Jacuzzi and workout room. Ski packages include tickets for HoliMont.
The Sugar Pine Lodge (6158 Jefferson Street; 716-699-4855; www.sugarpinelodge.com) has five private suites, four with two rooms, with fireplaces (one suite accommodates families with children); breakfast is included. Ski weekends require a two-night stay; there is shuttle service to Holiday Valley. Winter rates start at $125 weekdays and $185 on weekends."
How Fricking cool is that? Full on shout out to Eville in the NY Times!!?? oh ya!
V.
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