Ellicottville, N.Y.
The Ski Town That Aspen Used to Be Like
Dan Cappellazzo for The New York Times
Holiday Mountain, a ski resort in Ellicottville, N.Y., 55 miles south of Buffalo and a world away from ski-town glamour.
By MELINDA MILLER
WHEN the travel writer and broadcaster Lowell Thomas visited tiny Ellicottville in New York's westernmost corner some 50 years ago, he called it "the Aspen of the East," a flattering comparison to a favorite 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
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