Land Development at Fairmont

Land Development at Fairmont

After looking after Fairmont for twenty years, I downsized my operations. Lloyd Wilder wanted

me to manage the place and help develop his property along Columbia Lake. But there was a

problem. It was difficult to get to, and we did not have a road into it. You could ride horses into

this great big, pristine four-hundred-acre piece of land. He thought that Fairmont properties

could expand here. He was going to buy a bridge that was being dismantled down at Fort Steele

near Cranbrook and put it in the river to get around this rock bluff that came right down to the

edge of the Columbia River.

But I told Lloyd to forget about the bridge. That was too big a project for him to take on. Instead,

I suggested that we just fill in and push the river over a little bit, just enough to get a road around

the cliff for about two hundred feet or so. He decided to proceed without the niceties of official

permission. Today, a person might get thrown in jail if they did what we did there. Lloyd took

my advice. He filled it in and pushed the river over twenty or thirty feet and got a road around

the cliff.

Lloyd threatened to start subdividing that property but ran into government opposition. The

government’s Fish and Wildlife Branch decided that it was important to retain that area for

wildlife. So, the government bought him out, which was fine. He willingly sold because he had

other land to develop.

That parcel of land is now a wilderness preserve, even though there is road access into it. I do not

think that people are allowed to go there because it is a big horn sheep grazing area, with lots of

elk and deer. People could, I guess, walk into the area or go by boat across the lake. But anyway,

that is a little bit of planning that I guess you could say went the right way in the end.

Developers are controlled by an ambition to develop something and make some money on it. But

a lot of developers do not make any money. I had some pretty good arguments over the years

with people that think developers are always making money and charging too much. But

developers have got to make a living, or they won't do it. I know others that went broke

developing property because they did not have the right ideas.

These two logger fellows—Lloyd and Earl Wilder—initially had little money. They started to

make a profit, but I understand that Fairmont Hot Springs is now in financial trouble. At the

time, everybody wanted the development, people authorized it, and they planned for it.

The Fairmont project was important for me. It is not often that you start with a raw piece of land,

particularly one previously owned by English nobility for half a century. In the early days, the

Wilders had allowed friends and family to use the facility. They were not even in the business of

renting out accommodation. There were a few cabins on the site, but nothing was happening. So,

you start with a large piece of land—two or three thousand acres. You look at it and you say this

has got potential.

The Wilders were great people, but they were not experienced in land development. They were

hardworking, cutting down trees and sawing them up, and they ran a sawing and milling

business. They had enough money that they could afford to buy the property. When they brought

me in and asked for my opinion, I was just waving my hands around saying this has all kinds of

potential— resort, swimming pool, golf course, subdivision, and ski hill. I could see the potential

the first time I stood there.

You had to think carefully. You had to make sure that the property had not only a place for a

sewage field but for future development if that one ever choked up or didn't function too well.

But anyway, the thing was just, God, now that I think about it, I get almost excited about how we

dreamt about doing all the right things and realizing that it all worked out so well.

We did the subdivision, we did a larger subdivision, and then came the golf course. Fairmont had

few cottage sites, so we made some were pretty fancy ones. Then we created a golf course and

lots within the golf course

At one of the events at the Fairmont, they had hang-gliding. You could go up on the top of the

ski hill and go tandem on a hang-glider with a fellow who knew what he was doing. You could

come down and land in the golf course. It was popular. My wife and I decided that she would be

the last one to go. We let everybody else go first. Sure enough, it turned out that it got dark, and

the fellow would not fly my wife. She was annoyed with me about backing off in terms of

priority.

With the Fairmont project well launched, I was getting tired of being away from home for such

long periods of time. I decided not to travel up to the East Kootenays so regularly. The project

was in considerable turmoil because of issues in the Wilder family. I decided that it was not my

cup of tea anymore. During the years I worked there, I found out a lot about myself. I really liked

dealing with people and appeasing them or guiding them. I am very proud of the work I did on

Fairmont and enjoyed the fact I was there at the beginning.

Work changes as soon as you get corporations or companies running the operations. They have

too many people with too much to say. They do not listen to the consultants all the time. They

have their own ideas. So, I left.

But let me end with a discussion of a fascinating side piece of the Fairmont story. Like most

communities, the folks involved before the Fairmont resort project was created had developed a

cemetery. But they did not document it properly. I had an aptitude for documenting things and

then finding a place to file the papers. An elderly brother and sister owned property in the

Fairmont area. They had been sent out to Canada with a small pension because their older

brother and family got ownership of the family’s big property in England. Their mother had died,

and they had her buried on the property, not in a proper burial place. They were quite concerned

that their mother should be buried at Fairmont in a proper cemetery. I was asked to create a

cemetery for them.

They donated the nice piece of property, probably a ten-acre block of land, which is quite large

for a cemetery. I had to go formally document the site to get it accepted by the government. You

could not create a cemetery in an awkward place or too close to development. Luckily, it turned

out to be a very good site, and I created the cemetery. The couple I know were buried there, as

was Mr. Wilder. He could have chosen a larger cemetery like the Windermere one or the

Invermere one, but he preferred to be buried in his own cemetery at Fairmont.