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AOL founder to buy Williams Lake
By staff , Jun 14 2007. Viewed 4037 times.

By Melissa Lajara
Ulster County Press

Officials said a luxury resort developer will soon purchase the Williams Lake Hotel property to turn it into a high-end resort and gated community.

As first reported in the Ulster County Press two months ago, the 78-year-old hotel and its bucolic surrounding land is being sold to the Massachusetts-based company Canopy Development.

Canopy's majority stakeholder is America Online chief Steve Case, who also created the resort-development company Revolution and a healthy-living Web site, www.revolutionhealth.com.
He also is the primary stakeholder in Exclusive Resorts, a company that builds “luxury vacation residences” – with an average value of $3 million apiece and five-star hotel amenities – in “dozens of the world's most desirable destinations.”

Rachel Neumann, spokesperson for Exclusive Resorts, said the company is not looking to add Williams Lake to that list. Officials at Canopy said they still haven't determined who will operate the new development.

But Rosendale Town Supervisor Bob Gallagher said he's relieved that the owners of Williams Lake chose the developer over two other interested parties, who were both nonprofits and exempt from paying taxes.

“I'm looking at it strictly as a fiscal acquisition,” he said. “If this project does go through, I think it will be a huge tax benefit to the town.”

The investment in the property reportedly may exceed $100 million. Williams Lake paid more than $110,000 in local taxes last year on its reported assessed value of about $5 million.

The deal is still being negotiated, but the Williams Lake property is expected to switch hands within a week's time. It has already been closed to the public.
Anita Williams Peck, the current owner of Williams Lake and the granddaughter of hotel founder Gustave Williams, has remained mum on the deal and refuses to comment to the press.

However, on the hotel's Web site, www.willylake.com, she confirmed a deal was pending.

“It is the end of an era and the time has come to turn over to some folks who think as we have in the past,” Peck said in her statement. “My dad believed there is no reason for business people (sic) and environmentalists to be in conflict. The new business will preserve and cultivate the beauty of the area, this gem of a lake, and provide folks with a fabulous destination vacation.”

Gallagher, who said he has kept an “arm's distance” from the project, said the plans he's aware of include an “upscale gated community” and rehabilitated hotel, which he said would have a “three-to-one employee to guest ratio,” bringing a crop of service-based jobs to the community.

“I can't wait until they actually come out and say what their intentions are,” he said.

Rosendale Councilwoman Manna Jo Greene said she hasn't seen the plans, but said any project will run the typical gauntlet of zoning and environmental approvals.

Greene, who is also the environmental action director for the environmental organization Clearwater, said her biggest concern is that the community will be excluded from the property and the plans.

“Once there is that much investment, the community is in a position to be more reactive,” she said. “People have, for years and years, been using the cross-country skiing trails at Williams Lake. The public... has access to these really beautiful areas. If you take that and make it private, it is, as far as I'm concerned, a loss to the community.”

Canopy Development was founded in 2004 and has not, to date, completed a project. “We've worked on several other projects, but they're still in negotiation,” said company spokesperson Meg Broughton.

Canopy, according to Case's Revolution Web site, was created “with the goal of transforming the resort development industry through a cleaner, healthier and more sustainable approach.” It typically seeks out exceptional lands of 2,000 acres or more.

“Canopy is a new kind of land development company... that employs forward-thinking conservation strategies and drive community development,” Broughton said. “These places of natural and architectural beauty cultivate learning and exploration, foster a healthy lifestyle and leave a lasting legacy for all of us.”

Broughton said the company “appeals to the interests of landowners, environmentalists and the local communities in which we work.”

Greene said she hopes that's true. “Once they buy the land, the dynamics change,” she said.

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