By Karen D. Lorentz
Vermont State Forester Perry Merrill was the first person to see the potential of developing a ski area on Killington Mountain and what it could mean for recreation and the state’s economy.
Pres Smith was the second.
Smith’s uncle, Preston Leete, who had become an avid skier while at Dartmouth College in the 1930s, had also been intrigued by Mount Snow, and they talked about developing a ski area together.
Smith, often accompanied by his fiancée Suzanne Hahn or uncle, took trips to Vermont and New Hampshire during the winter of 1954–1955, sometimes staying with his parents, who had moved to Rockingham, Vermont, in 1952. With his future bride supporting his desire to get into the ski business, they explored both states, looking for a potential area.
At the behest of Merrill, Smith checked out Killington. He compared snowfalls at Stowe and Mount Snow with snow at Killington and got into “all the practical considerations of lodging, elevation, weather, and transportation,” finally realizing that “of all the places around Vermont and New Hampshire, this place really had the potential,” he told me in interviews for the Killington book in 1988.
He returned to see Perry Merrill and said, “Killington is fantastic, but how can I work out a deal with the State?”
Merrill had replied, “We’ll lease it to you.”
“You will? But how are we going to get in there?” an incredulous Smith had responded.
Merrill had some ideas on that too. “Don’t worry about that; we’ll go to the Legislature and sell them on the idea of recreation for Vermont. It’s going to be like Europe,” Smith remembered the enthusiastic Merrill saying.
Pursuing a dream
“Looking back, it seems naive to think that you could start with no financial resources, no experience in the ski business, and tackle something like that. But we had the dreams of youth. We didn’t see the obstacles, just a step-by-step process. We thought about Killington in a matter-of-fact way as something we could do, not something overwhelming that we couldn’t cope with,” (the late) Sue Smith told me in 1988.
For his part, Pres Smith had begun to think about operating “a better ski area” when he encountered long lift waits at Stowe. He envisioned having more uphill transportation and more skiing.
“It wasn’t until I got into a methodical review of potentialities of various locations that I began to understand the value
of Killington with Rutland and Woodstock already built up on either side and roads coming into Sherburne from several directions. Perry Merrill telling me that the mountain and location were good was the start. I went through the steps, catching up.
“When I put the details on paper and analyzed them, I realized this was huge potential, and it all began to seem a little ambitious to me. Skiing would be 600 feet higher than the lift on Mansfield! Before I started, I realized Killington would be bigger than Stowe if I made it. It was all beginning to seem a bit awesome, but I had nothing to lose and everything to gain,” he recounted.
Because there were many people who came into the picture who realized that, it made Smith “short on credibility and long on enthusiasm.” But undaunted, he knocked on doors in Boston and New York, looking for investors. He was turned away. Money was a problem, and his uncle dropped out of the venture, leaving Smith to go it alone. Finally, in August 1955, a friend in Hartford gathered a group of businessmen for Smith to see.
The Sargent connection
The Hartford meeting didn’t work out at first. After Smith’s enthusiastic presentation, the insurance executives turned to a young Joseph D. Sargent and asked his opinion. Due to his considerable ski experience, Sargent had been invited to the meeting in place of his boss. But he had bluntly told them, “If you’re trying to start a business, it’s not the way to go about it.”
Sargent, who, at 26, was a year older than Smith, had also grown up in West Hartford, but the two had not met before. Sargent had just married in June and didn’t have much money to invest in such a venture.
While he was very much interested in the project, he thought that the plans that Smith had developed “for a million-dollar ski area with three mountains with lifts and a cabin car were grandiose,” and he told him so.
“After the meeting with the big wigs, the movers and shakers of the Hartford financial community with whom I was thrilled to be in the same room, I talked with Pres alone. Pres asked if I was interested, and I said “No,” Sargent recalled in 1988.
“Why not?” Smith had prodded.
“Because it is a colossal enterprise. It’s a $100,000 deal and way beyond my means. If you want to do it on a shoestring, come back and we’ll talk. Pres just said, ‘Well, no; thank you anyway.’ To him, $100,000 was the shoestring!”
After his time in the service, Joe Sargent had gone to work in Hartford for Conning and Company as an investor/analyst and soon became a general partner (and eventually CEO and Chairman of the Board). It was at Conning and Company, an investment research firm and member of the New York Stock Exchange specializing in advising insurance companies on investments, that Sargent honed his analytical and financial skills.
Because his parents were active sportsmen, Sargent had become an avid skier and outdoorsman. He skied for school teams and competed in both Nordic and Alpine events while at Yale. He also participated in the Dartmouth Winter Carnival and had skied Tuckerman’s Ravine. Summers were often spent hiking in the northern woods of Wisconsin or mountain climbing in New England and out West. His was a lifestyle that attested to an affinity for the outdoors and the mountains from an early age.
While still in college in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Sargent worked as a ski patrolman at Stowe and also patrolled at Mohawk, where he met Walt Schoenknecht. Avid skier that he was, Sargent had used his life savings of $2,000 to purchase two shares of stock in Schoenknecht’s Mount Snow venture.
Asked in 1988 what influence the legendary Schoenknecht might have had on him and his decision to become a partner in Killington, Sargent called Schoenknecht “an interest generator.” But from Sargent’s point of view, “There was a missing piece at Mount Snow — the all-important financial means and strategy.” As a stockholder, Sargent could see from the financial reports that the area wasn’t earning sufficient returns to finance expansion.
It was that concern that Sargent brought to bear on the Hartford meeting. He recognized the value of the vision that Smith had presented, but more significantly, he was also convinced of the importance of having “all the pieces of the pie fit together in order for the project to succeed.”
Sargent knew he didn’t have the money to back a big, three-mountain complex, complete with a European cabin lift. However, he was interested and thought the project would be feasible if a company with stockholders were formed and the plans were scaled down for the first year.
In October 1955, Smith returned to see Sargent. In talking with Smith, Sargent sensed a kindred spirit and a similar desire to have the ski area run as a profitable operation. Sargent agreed to talk to friends in Hartford, and he also gave Smith the names of potential investors.
The “Beast of the East” was born from the right stuff: great mountain potential, state encouragement via Perry Merrill’s vision, and founders who loved skiing but could see —and agree on — the importance of operating a business, not a hobby.
Next week, we’ll meet more key players who would make Killington’s debut possible in 1958 despite the challenges along the way.
