Tag Archives: featured

Tahoe’s Coachman Motel raising the bar for renovation

November 21, 2017 Sebastian Foltz Leave a comment

Investors give 60s era motel European inspired face-lift

Story appeared in the Tahoe Daily Tribune. http://bit.ly/2j9ZwqO

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE — The parking lot outside may still have some semblance of a construction site — a shipping container or two and a few carpenters milling about — but take a step into the lobby of the newly renovated, state-of-the-art Coachman Hotel and it is easy to see a piece of managing partner Justin Watzka, his father Peter and their investment group’s vision.
Inspired in part by the communal nature of the traditional European ski lodge with a uniquely modernized interior design, the place is at once welcoming and stylish.
Part lodge, part Starbucks, part microbrew tasting lounge, with a hint of nostalgia for the 1960s motel experience, the concept has the potential to become a model for redevelopment of the region’s aging motel infrastructure.
“It’s something I’ve been looking toward doing for a number of years,” the tall, thin, long-haired 34-yearold Watzka said sipping a Stumptown coffee in his hotel’s new communal space — which will also be open to non-guests. Watzka looks every bit the part of what you would picture from a young professional Bay Area business type, with a passion for the outdoors. Continue reading Tahoe’s Coachman Motel raising the bar for renovation →

News, Outdoors

Mountain towns seizing on summer tourism

October 31, 2017 Sebastian Foltz Leave a comment

Lake Tahoe sets example for summer tourism trend

This story on mountain town summer tourism trends ran in the Tahoe Tribune, Reno Gazette Journal and was picked up by the Associated Press.

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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) – For years mountain towns in places like Colorado and Utah essentially closed down when the chairlifts stopped spinning in the springtime. Locals might have embraced summer opportunities, but ski area marketing departments were less apt to aggressively pursue summer traffic.

That’s all changed, said Tom Foley, director of operations for DestiMetrics – a Denver, Colorado-based organization that tracks mountain lodging bookings at 19 western mountain destinations in California, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Oregon and Wyoming.

“All mountain destinations are learning that a single winter season does not a business make,” Foley said in an interview with the Tahoe Daily Tribune. “Summer is a season of opportunity,” especially with increasingly unreliable winters.

DestiMetrics recently reported record summer lodging occupancy and revenue numbers for the third consecutive summer across the West, with individual markets up anywhere from 2 to 14 percent.

“It’s not a fluke. It’s the result of good marketing,” Foley said.

But for Lake Tahoe it’s nothing new, and in some respects the region is leading by example….

Read full story here

Business, Gear

Explore Summit: Unity Snowboards feature

October 31, 2017 Sebastian Foltz Leave a comment

Unity Snowboards, a Summit County original

This feature on Silverthorne, Colorado, based Unity Snowboards and company founder Pete Wurster was first published in the winter 2014 edition of Explore Summit magazine. It also appeared in a weekend edition of The Denver Post, as well as in the Summit Daily News and Explore Summit Weekender. Excerpt below. A link to the text for the full story can be found here. Photos and story by Sebastian Foltz.

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In a world where snowboards and skis come off assembly lines in massive numbers, it’s hard to be the little guy. Almost every year new independent ski and snowboard companies enter the market, and almost every year others fall out of it.

But for nearly 20 years, one small company has held its own in the highly competitive world of snowboard production, and its building process from start to finish happens right here in Summit County.

Founded in 1995, Unity Snowboards is the brainchild of Pete Wurster and former partner and childhood friend Paul Krikava; the entire company runs out of a small section of a two-story warehouse in Silverthorne.

Wurster — now sole owner of the company since buying Krikava out in 2001 — recently took a break from base-grinding some new splitboards in his shop to chat about what it takes to stay relevant year after year.

“For me it’s just a labor-of-love thing,” he said. “I love working with my hands.”

But it’s also a meticulous process that didn’t come overnight. Wurster, now 42, said it took him and his five employees about six years to get truly dialed in to a point where they’re now at their most efficient, and cost effective. Continue reading Explore Summit: Unity Snowboards feature →