BROWNSVILLE — Glenn Seward was a West Windsor Selectboard member when Ascutney Mountain Resort closed in 2010 due to financial problems and unsuccessful efforts by the owners, MFW Associates, to find a buyer.

To recoup their investment, the New York-based MFW began removing chair lifts and snow-making equipment, sure signs that the ski area, which first opened in 1946, would not reopen as it had after a bankruptcy in the early 1990s.

As he looked around the local landscape during that time, the picture was bleak for the town, Seward recalled in a recent interview.

“If you dial back to that time, we were desperate,” Seward said. “The store (Brownsville General Store) was shuttered, the ski (area) had closed and property values had plummeted.”

Now, Ascutney Outdoors, the mostly-volunteer nonprofit that brought skiing back to Mount Ascutney, is celebrating 10 years.

Residents and many others who live outside of West Windsor have transformed what appeared to be the end of skiing on Mount Ascutney into a revitalized, albeit smaller, ski area and a year-round hub for many public events and private gatherings. Additionally, property values diminished by the resort’s closing just two years after the 2008 recession have rebounded.

“It has been amazing. Everything has worked out just as we had hoped,” said Seward, a former AO board member and an integral part of the decision to buy the shuttered ski area.

Though privately owned, the ski area was always thought of as a community asset with generations recalling the days when they learned to ski on the mountain and then watched their children and grandchildren learn.

“There was always a true sense of community and no one wanted to experience losing that,” said Glenn’s wife, Shelley Seward, another founding member of the nonprofit organization.

It began with some informal discussions between town officials and MFW Associates about acquisition, Glenn Seward recalled. MFW kept the town apprised of what was going on prior to and during removal of equipment, which helped inspire community members to come up with alternatives.

“We took a deep breath and then decided to go down this road,” he said.

Plans began to take shape when the West Windsor Conservation Commission suggested reaching out to the Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit dedicated to creating parks and conserving open space, to see if it was interested in helping the town acquire the ski area’s 470 acres, Seward said.

“They were all in after my first meeting with them,” Seward said.

When a packed crowd at Story Memorial Hall overwhelmingly, and without much discussion, approved a plan in October 2014 to pursue purchase and place a conservation easement on the property, the die was cast for rebirth.

Conserved and rebuilt

With the Trust for Public Land taking the lead role, organizers tapped a combination of sources to raise in excess of $1 million for the land acquisition, land protection, Brownfields assessment and transaction costs. Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, private donations and several different foundations were among the funding sources.

“We were raising money where we could in any amount we could,” Glenn Seward said.

The plan to buy the ski area and conserve it included adding the abutting 1,100-acre town forest to the conservation easement. The total easement of nearly 1,600 acres was conveyed to the Upper Valley Land Trust for management. Ascutney Outdoors was established as a nonprofit in 2015 to manage and develop the land with recreational, educational and community amenities, as well as conservation of the land. The purchase was completed in 2015.

The group’s first task was to develop a five- to seven-year management plan and start raising money, Glenn Seward said.

“One of the promises of this project was that it would be self-sustaining and we wouldn’t look to the town for annual support,” he said.

Donors’ generosity exceeded expectations, the Sewards said. For example, in 2024 the annual fund drive and other donations accounted for nearly 65% of revenues for the operating budget of $200,000.

Construction of a rope tow in 2015-16 brought back skiing for the first time since 2009.

In the second year the former base lodge, destroyed in a fire in the winter of 2015, was purchased and demolished. Construction began the next year on the Ascutney Outdoor Center which opened in 2018.

Also in the second year, a warming hut was constructed and several events were held including the Lucy MacKenzie Humane Society 5K-9 fundraiser. Other projects in 2017 and 2018 included construction of the tubing lift, purchase of a groomer and a 1,800-foot T-bar, which was installed a year later. Ascutney Outdoors now has eight trails on 26 acres, serviced by the T-bar.

Tom Kucia, a Massachusetts resident and a member of the National Ski Patrol, who owns property in Grafton, Vt., said he and his wife discovered Ascutney Outdoors a few years ago.

Kucia said he had been paying about $1,000 for an Epic Pass, which allows skiing at multiple resorts.

“It has been wall-to-wall people on the weekends,” Kucia said in a phone interview. “And that degrades the snow conditions quite rapidly.”

He and his wife found the Ascutney Outdoors “deal and for 150 bucks my wife and I ski for the entire season and the conditions have been absolutely phenomenal.”

Kucia said he loves the “family feel,” at Ascutney, something he grew up with as he learned to ski on a small hill in Connecticut.

“It has been very positive over the last three years since I started skiing there,” Kucia said. “And It fits the bill. My wife is not a huge skier but she absolutely loves it there.”

With snow falling on Thursday, Ellie Stone, of Grantham, waited for friend in the outdoors center parking lot for some backcountry skiing on the former resort’s upper trails that are not serviced by the T-bar.

“I usually ski here a couple of times a year,” Stone said. “It’s easily accessible and the times I have come here when there are people it is a really nice vibe. I just feel like there is nothing else like this around.”

Volunteers vital

The Sewards credit donations of time and money for allowing AO to achieve its goals sooner than they imagined.

“Absolutely first and foremost it is the volunteers,” Shelley Seward said. “Volunteers not only from the immediate area but also surrounding communities.”

Volunteers come from Cornish, Hartford, Lebanon, Reading and Hartland, he said.

Though there are paid employees for management and director roles, Seward said the 160 volunteers, including the roughly 40 who assist with the skiing programs that bring 50 children from the Albert Bridge School in Brownsville and another 80 from Windsor to the mountain once a week, are invaluable to to the nonprofit.

On the financial side, more than 400 donors have contributed to AO’s success. The financial support has enabled AO to complete a number of projects and make it a sustainable operation.

Shelley Seward described the donor support for AO over the years as: “Incredible,” adding that “people who don’t even ski have supported us, buying season (support) passes (for $100).”

Steve Wood, chairman of the AO Board of Directors, said annual contributions range from as little as $10 to multiple thousands.

“It is a way for people to support AO and what it has as its mission,” Wood said.

More than a ski area

Because AO relies solely on natural snow, the organizers understood winters with very little or no snow were a possibility and they could not rely on winter recreation alone for consistent revenues. This year, for example, due to very little snowfall, the skiing and tubing runs opened for the first time the first weekend in February.

“We recognize we can’t put all our eggs in the ski basket,” Shelley Seward said.

The center has become a popular gathering place for hikers, mountain bikers, runners and skiers to rest or get warm. There is no on-site food service, but there is a kitchen for catered fare.

About $80,000 in revenue was generated last year from not only lift ticket sales and season passes, but also numerous public events including music festivals, mountain biking and running races, and rental of the lodge for private functions.

The Ascutney Trails Association maintains roughly 45 miles of mountain bike trails on both the AO property and the town forest. Many of those trails were in existence years before Ascutney Outdoors was formed and several new trails have been built recently on the old ski acreage that start or end at the center.

“Ascutney Outdoors has definitely acted as a hub for everything on the mountain,” Alex Cormier, board president of the trails association, said in a phone interview. “It definitely brought a lot of attention and the outreach and community building they have been able to do has been pretty substantial.”

The outdoor center and the general store, which reopened as the Brownsville Butcher and Pantry in 2018, have worked together frequently. The ski area is visible from the store’s parking lot on Route 44.

Peter Varkoyi, who owns the store with his wife, Lauren Stevens, said the store provides food for a number of events at the center. He credits the outdoor center with helping to improve the store’s customer traffic.

“What we have been able to achieve with our relationship with AO and the level of support for each other has definitely helped Brownsville at-large,” Varkoyi said one afternoon at the store. “They have galvanized the community to believe in change and a sustainable future that they can control.”

Property values andcommunity bounce back

Those involved with Ascutney Outdoors say the mountain’s decline and subsequent revitalization coincided with a decline and then bump in neighboring property values.

“The sharp decline in 2011, ‘12 and ‘13 was heavily influenced by the loss of the ski area and the store closure,” Wood said.

A town-wide property reappraisal in 2013 reflected the drop in values Wood described. Assessments on Mountain Edge Road condos, for example, fell as much as 35% in a year, according to the reappraisal booklet. Most went from around $160,000 to less than $120,000. Single-family homes held their value a little better, but many, including several on Skyhawk Lane, which is near the AO Center, also saw declines of 15% or more.

As skiing and other pieces of the management plan began to come together, property values stabilized and many part-time property owners became full time, the outdoor center organizers said.

As Ascutney Outdoors became more established, Glenn Seward said condominiums that had been dormant with low values were beginning to increase in value and attract new buyers.

While the COVID-19 pandemic was a major reason why property values, based on sales, skyrocketed as they did throughout New England, Deb Spackman, who served on the Board of Listers for West Windsor before the town hired an assessor and is now the lister clerk, said that she doesn’t discount the impact of Ascutney Outdoors.

“It appears it (AO) helped to stabilize property values,” Spackman said. “I would say AO has a lot to do with how well the town is doing.”

Pat Nowlan bought her West Windsor condominium in December 2023. Looking to downsize, Nowlan, a skier and hiker, said she looked around and wanted a place that was “very active.”

“I was enthusiastic about how very active the community was,” Nowlan said, adding that Ascutney Outdoors was her primary motivation to settle here.

She has been further amazed at the activity at the center.

“What really surprised me was how busy it is at Ascutney Outdoors,” said Nowlan, who is the runs the ski program for the schools. “They have concerts, bike races, running races. It is just so active every weekend.”

Mark Higgins and his wife were still renting in Boston when they first bought a home in West Windsor in January 2018, though they were not familiar with the area. Though still based in Boston, they spent time in their new home, including after they had their first child.

“With the mountain and the community, we absolutely fell in love with it,” Higgins, now chairman of the West Windsor Selectboard, said.

Though the West Windsor home was intended as a second home, it became the family’s primary residence in 2020 after Higgins found a job where he could work from home.

“We liked it so much and the mountain is a huge part of that,” Higgins said. “And the community the mountain represents.”

His children, 6 and 4, are learning to ski and he likes being able to ski some in the morning before work. On the first weekend in February, they spent both days skiing with the children on the rope tow or bunny slope, then sat in the lodge celebrating a friend’s birthday while meeting other friends.

“The mountain in a lot of ways is the center of the town and the community,” Higgins said. “It’s been the dream we wanted it to be when we came up here.”

The vision that the Sewards and many others in town had for remaking the ski area has been achieved, said Wood, who became the board chairman last May is to hold the role who is not a founder of the nonprofit.

His leadership signifies a transition for the organization and its founders, he said.

“They have done their job and built what is there, and now we move to sustainability,” Wood said. “We are going from building things to running things.”

Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.