One Year Later, Sugar Loaf is Still Waiting
Click the "more" link for a photo of Sugar Loaf, a look back and discussion of the future of this Leelanau County institution.
Waiting, photo by andrew mcfarlane.
A little over a year ago, Leelanau.com breathlessly wrote:
Sugar Loaf Has a New Owner
Last Friday (Mar 25), Kate Wickstrom closed on the purchase of Sugar Loaf Resort. She is planning a public meeting/celebration that will also be used to to begin the formation of a council to plan the future of the Resort.
Followed the next week by...
More on the Sugar Loaf Purchase
The Traverse City Record-Eagle & the Leelanau Enterprise report that business owners and community members are hailing the purchase of the long-dormant Sugar Loaf resort by Kate Wickstrom. Wickstron plans renovations and hopes to have skiing open by winter 2007. Read Sugar Loaf has new owner in the Enterprise and Deal for defunct ski resort closed in the Record-Eagle.
A year later, the resort sits idle with little to show for a year of ownership other than nearly $100,000 of unpaid sewer bills. Well? What do you think county residents and/or government officials can do to move this whole process along? Post your comment below.
All I can think of is, would I ski at SL if or when it opened again. I look at other area venues and say no. SL is a gold
mine. I would like to see the county purchase it, do something with it and then sell it.
Comment by amex — April 7, 2006 @ 9:28 am
I have heard talk of selling the land to a developer and using it for houses. Although the views would be great, I think this would be a pretty sad route for sugar loaf and the community. I think it's time for an update from Kate Wickstrom.
Comment by Herballamb — April 8, 2006 @ 6:51 am
Check out this site to see what Kate Wickstrom was doing last year to expand her
existing rehab facility:
http://www.holysmoke.org/narconon/narconon-invading-petoskey.htm. Note that she
says that her company is always looking for properties to develop into rehab
centers. Sugar Loaf, hm-mm.
Comment by goski — April 19, 2006 @ 6:20 pm
In addition to Kate trying to expand in Petosky, she successfully expanded in Albion after purchasing a defunct hospital in Sept '05. Sugar Loaf has what she needs for her facilities (quiet location, many rooms). She said herself early on in the deal that she was unsure if it would ever work as a ski resort again. With what I've read about the Narconon program, it sounds as though it wouldn't be too hard to make a profit doing that rather than running a ski resort ($20,000+ per person that enters the program). I guess only Kate knows the answers to her true intentions, and unfortunately I don't think we'll ever get to hear them. Being in the UP, I've seen a few ski resorts near the brink of extinction that have been turned around by the right owners. Sad to say, I don't think this is the case with Sugar Loaf.
Comment by UP_Skier — April 20, 2006 @ 2:11 pm
I'm not sure if anybody is even checking these comments anymore, since this is an older blog, but I figured I would post again anyway. Out of curiousity I checked out the online business look-up on michigan.gov, just to see if Kate had incorporated the resort and if so who her partners may be. All of the old llc's and partnerships pertaining to Sugar Loaf come up, including the new llc's formed by Sculthorp for the golf course. A new llc, by the name of Sugar Loaf 160, LLC was organized on November 8, 2005 in the state of Florida (ID#B9135R). The manager of the llc, Ronald F LeGrand, is located in Jacksonville, FL. The question arrises, is this an llc associated with the management of the golf courses, OR is this a new entity taking over the ski hill/resort ownership or operations? Or, is it completely unrelated to anything in Cedar, MI and just happens to have Sugar Loaf in its name?
Comment by UP_Skier — April 21, 2006 @ 9:50 am
It appears there may be some validity to the rumor in comment #2. The business purpose of the Sugar Loaf 160 LLC is listed as Real Estate Investment and Developement. I thought the manager's name sounded familiar for some reason. He is a real estate "guru" that hocks his books and cd's on late night infomercials about buying property with "no money down," and "making $100,000/yr. working 20 hrs. a week." He is also the manager of another llc in Florida called the Financial Freedom Network (same agent, same address, same manager).
http://www.camerondirect.com/ffn/ffn.html
http://www.ronlegrand.com
It should be interesting to see what happens, but if I were a betting man, I'd bet he isn't interested in reviving a failed resort. However, like I said in my earlier post, this could be completely unrelated to anything regarding the ski hill.
Comment by UP_Skier — April 27, 2006 @ 4:25 pm
Good News! the Sugar Loaf Resort which was closed in 2000 will hopefully be revived. The resort which was in mess due to lack of interest of the present owner Kate Wickstrom, who bought the resort in 2005, will come back to life. We really hope that an agreement, which has been reached between Wickstrom and Brad Lutz, would be new owner of the resort, gets materialized.
Comment by Dean — November 22, 2007 @ 5:11 am
Nice to see it get back in action. I have fond memories of it from 15 years ago.
Comment by Sarasota — February 21, 2008 @ 12:05 pm