Coastal Traveler - Winter 2008 - (Page 42)

coastaltraveler Not long ago, Mammoth Lakes, Calif., was the kind of place where night life might involve hanging out in the condo-village game room and pumping quarters into the Elvira-Mistress of the Dark pinball machine. Its sleepy assemblage of shingled mini-malls, bait and tackle shops and Alpine-style motels was clustered in a small downtown, and a few cabins and vacation houses were on the outskirts. At 7,800 feet near the Sierra Nevada’s eastern edge, it drew visitors mostly for the skiing — Mammoth Mountain averages close to 400 inches of snow a year. I have been going there since preschool, and I grew fond of its scruffy charm. My family went in summer, staying in ski condos rented out for the off-season — places with shag carpeting, snowshoes nailed to the walls and bashed-up Scrabble sets in the closets. We rented paddleboats, failed to catch trout and rode ill-tempered pack horses into the foothills. The town, with 7,093 year-round residents, is nestled beneath California’s most stark and rugged backcountry. And then, a few years ago, an army of second-home owners descended on Mammoth Lakes. The catalyst was the news that Intrawest, a company with a track record of luxury development, was buying into the ski area. Real estate prices soared, and Southern Californians snapped up spreads. Now brochures list houses for $4 million or $5 million, and twobedroom, 1,000-square-foot “starter homes” are selling for more than $500,000. The typical second-home buyers are doctors, lawyers and other professionals; business owners; and film-industry types. Justin Timberlake has been spotted at the local Lakanuki tiki bar. Lingerie Lounge, a boutique, opened just up the street from the A-Frame Liquor store. Now the Federal Aviation Administration is considering a proposal to let 80-passenger planes fly from Los Angeles to the Mammoth Yosemite Airport, which caters to tiny charter planes. The town receives an estimated 1.5 million visitors in summer — surpassing the winter visitors, numbered at 1.3 million. “It’s a fairly well-documented evolution that a ski town goes through,” said Robert Clark, 53, the town manager. “When it’s young, the function of the town is just to support the ski area. We’re becoming more mature now.” When I went back to Mammoth Lakes for a visit this spring, I found I could still get a $1.75 taco al pastor at the crowded Salsa’s Mexican restaurant and a $4 pint of double-nutbrown ale at the Mammoth Brewing Company. But the center of the action had shifted to the Village, a faux downtown of homes, shops and restaurants built by Intrawest, which is based in Vancouver. Kathryn Joosten, 67, an Emmy-award-winning actress whose main home is 315 miles away in Los Angeles, uses her Mammoth Lakes condo — purchased six years ago for $99,500 — as a peaceful retreat from her busy life playing the eccentric Karen McCluskey on “Desperate Housewives.” She relishes the changing landscape as she drives there. “You see plain, pure desert, then you get into the foothills and then the Alabama Hills,” she said. She estimates her 700-square-foot unit, with a living room, bedroom and loft, is now worth about $300,000, based on sales of neighboring units. Her complex, Sierra Manors, sits on the route of a free winter shuttle to the ski area, but she prefers the summer activities. “I do a lot of hiking,” she said. “I don’t like snow. I tried skiing twice and hated it entirely.” Her TV alter ego once placed her dead husband in a freezer, but Ms. Joosten is kindlier. She spends time with locals when she visits, and once in a while gives a performance in town with her Los Angeles-based theater group, Theater Neo. She’s not sold on some of the town’s changes. “I went into a shop that was selling a jacket that was dyedblue leather and fur, and I thought that was such an insult to the area,” she said. Eric Fishburn, 55, a developer from Malibu, is one of the luckiest homeowners. Skiing at Mammoth Lakes in 1995, he spied a three-story, 4,000-square-foot, five-bedroom house, right on the slopes, with a “for sale” sign on it. “I said, “ ‘Oh my God, this would be my absolute dream,’ ” he recalled. After several months of negotiations, it was his for $440,000. Gentrified M By Dan White Now he estimates it’s worth $2.5 million, but Mr. Fishburn, who has five children, wouldn’t dare sell it. “My family would be very upset,” he said. “We literally ski out the back door.” The two-million-acre Inyo National Forest surrounds Mammoth Lakes. It would be possible to take a shuttle bus to the small nearby resort of Reds Meadow and hike 200 miles south without crossing a road. “Because of the forest, we’ll never 42 coastaltraveler winter

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Coastal Traveler - Winter 2008

Coastal Traveler - Winter 2008 Contents Coastal Hotel Coastal Adventure Coastal Gambler Coastal Rider Coastal Skier Coastal Art Santa Barbara Pismop & Avila San Luis Obispo Big Sur Carmel Monterey Santa Cruz San Francisco Sausalito Mill Valley Stinson Beach Bolinas Olema Point Reyes Station San Geronimo Fairfax Iverness Marshall, Tomales Sebastopol Petaluma Sonoma Coast Redwood Coast Napa Map

Coastal Traveler - Winter 2008

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