The Future of Homewood

Balancing access and development

A year ago, Homewood Mountain Resort was a small family-friendly ski lodge known for slowly deteriorating lifts and epic lake views. Now it’s at the center of a debate about whether the future of skiing will be more or even less accessible.

In 2011, before remote work drove real estate prices into the stratosphere, a lengthy process that involved community input through multiple public and private meetings resulted in a master plan for Homewood that would bring 325 units (75 hotel rooms, 13 employee housing units & 237 condos at the North & South bases), plus a robust shuttle system and new lifts to the resort.

The idea behind that master plan was to allow development, protect the environment and satisfy community members. “Back in 2008, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) was trying to pilot the Community Enhancement Program (CEP), a way to get private property owners to invest in environmental upgrades in exchange for letting them build higher and denser, and relaxing some stringent caps on development in the Tahoe Basin,” explains TRPA Public Information Officer Jeff Cowen. “Homewood was one of those. A lot of those projects stalled or failed.”

Homewood was one of those, too. The ambitious community-supported project languished, and Homewood continued to deteriorate. And then in 2022, Homewood owners JMA Ventures brought in Discovery Land Company, who proposed transforming the entire resort into a high-priced exclusive ski club. Locals responded by forming a non-profit called Keep Homewood Public (KHP).

“KHP is not trying to oppose development. We believe Homewood is in desperate need of development,” explains their media coordinator Sean Stebbins. “I wonder if the Madden chair to mid-mountain violates some safety standards!” He adds with a laugh.

KHP just wants to make sure that Discovery adheres to the master plan. Changing that plan, or attempting to piecemeal the project, would require JMA to come up with a new master plan, an expensive and time-consuming prospect. Losing CEP status would limit development.

Discovery’s first development was seven residential units whereas the original plan called for ten, in a different architectural style than the master plan specified. With the idea of an exclusive members-only ski club in the background, locals protested loudly and filled TRPA’s inboxes. Now TRPA has let Discovery know that any changes to the master plan will be met with more scrutiny moving forward.

Discovery has only one other ski resort in full operation – Yellowstone Club in Montana. Membership is limited to 864 members, and each pays initial dues of $400,000 plus an annual fee of $41,500 – and that’s after buying or building a home, which costs around $3 million. “The whole point of these resorts is so Tom Brady can take his kids on vacation without being bothered by paparazzi or asked for signatures,” says KHP co-founder Kathy Astromoff.

Discovery claims they no longer want to turn Homewood into an exclusive ski club. “Just because we’ve done private clubs doesn’t mean that’s all we can do,” explains Discovery partner Ed Divita.  “There was a time when JMA was communicating about a different way of operating the mountain and they were going to deviate from the master plan. We decided not to, but it created concern among the public. Now we have to rebuild and regain public trust through our actions over time.”

KHP would settle for some enforceable, quantifiable verbiage. “We want them to commit to selling tickets at prevailing Tahoe rates to the same number of people who’ve been skiing over the past decades and enable all those people to arrive at the start of a ski day, while staying within the restrictions of the EIR [Environmental Impact Report] and the master plan,” says Astromoff. “Our basic premise is that we want the master plan, the thing that was promised in 2011.”

Though there’s been a lot of communication since Discovery said they no longer want to turn Homewood into an exclusive private club, KHP and locals are still wary. “Divita has been walking around saying they do intend to admit the public. What he hasn’t done is give any specifics,” says Astromoff.

Even Divita seems unclear about specifics. He says Discovery intends to offer three “ski products”: season passes, single and multi-day use passes and club memberships. But he doesn’t know what portion of total tickets will be from each “ski product”. 

He can’t give a ballpark figure of membership costs. Though he claims Discovery is committed to year-round public access, he also says that only – or mostly? – club members may be allowed to ski on holidays and weekends. On the one hand he says Discovery is committed to a robust shuttle system, on the other hand they may limit the number of tickets sold on any given day to reduce traffic congestion.

It’s easy to see why these contradictory statements might raise alarm bells. But Divita insists Discovery cares about Tahoe locals. “We want to be part of the community, we want our employees to be proud to work for us,” Divita says. “My highest priority is to relieve the community’s concerns and demonstrate we are going to do the right thing.”

But KHP will remain skeptical – and engaged – until they get those quantifiable, enforceable commitments. “We have gotten ahold of activists who have been fighting Discovery projects around the world and we are seeing a pattern,” says Astromoff. “They go into a property that has been languishing, they quietly work with local regulatory councils who can be persuaded by the promise of new multi-million dollar homes bringing in property taxes, and then they literally don’t fulfill any of the promises they make to the local community.”

TRPA, Tahoe’s regional regulatory body, admits that they are issuing more permits for multi-million dollar homes. “The market right now is focused on higher end residential developments,” explains Cowen. “A lot of those new developments are very visible, since they’re infill. Those new places are adding water quality improvements, but a lot of small houses are being replaced with big ones. That has the local community concerned.”

Their concerns will have until spring to ripen or be relieved, because no digging, grading or new foundation work is allowed in the Tahoe Basin between October 15 and May 15.

KHP intends to make full use of that time. “Our goal is to negotiate with Discovery and figure out a way to ensure access that accommodates their membership model and present that cake fully baked to TRPA and Placer County in the spring,” explains Astromoff. “In other words we have eight months to do a bunch of negotiating and legal paperwork and then come May 15, they can have all the permits they want and go go go.”

So perhaps by the winter of 2024, Astromoff and Divita will be enjoying the slopes along with Tahoe’s west shore residents at the basin’s first public-private ski club. “The only hurdle is to answer the community’s question of how do we know what Discovery is saying is actually going to happen,” admits Divita.

Stay informed and support the cause to “Keep Homewood Public” by visiting their Facebook page for updates and involvement opportunities.

MAIN IMAGE: A snowboarder enjoying fresh powder and some of the best views in Lake Tahoe as he makes his way down to the rustic Homewood Mountain Resort Lodge. Photo: silent A photography/Ambera Dodson

Read other articles by Leonie Sherman here.