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Burke Mountain’s Fight for Survival Under Distant Control

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BURKE – Burke Mountain has a magnetic quality. It attracts swarms of outdoor adventure enthusiasts, skiers, bikers, hikers, campers and hang gliders with its steep slopes and panoramic views. It’s what geologists call a monadnock, one of two in Vermont. At roughly 3,200 feet in elevation, the mountain rises proud and tall because it contains very hard rock that over thousands of years proved to be more resistant to forces of erosion than the land around it. The term “monadnock” is believed to have come from indigenous Abenaki language, meaning “the mountain that stands alone.”

Burke Mountain Trail Map courtesy skiburke.com

While many admire Burke for its trails and beauty, others are lured to the mountain for conquest and profit. Some are prospectors in pursuit of distressed property, enticed by the challenge of owning and trying to civilize a wounded freak of nature that doesn’t want to be tamed. More than a few have tried and failed. For them, Burke is a mountain of shattered dreams.

In recent decades, Burke’s skiing and biking resort has whipsawed through a half-dozen ownership changes and three bankruptcies. Its last owner was a crook who was forcibly removed in 2016, leaving behind a crime scene on life support. As Burke enters 2025, the mountain truly does stand alone. Its survival is being tested like never before by a prominent lawyer 1,500 miles away in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Michael I. Goldberg, who controls Burke’s fate.

Nearly nine years ago, a Florida judge appointed him as a receiver to take charge of the Jay Peak and Burke resorts after they were seized by federal officials who accused the owner of both mountains, Ariel Quiros, of defrauding his foreign investors of more than $200 million. The case was filed in Florida because Quiros was based in Miami. It was characterized as the largest fraud in Vermont history. Goldberg’s job was to unravel the fraud, recover stolen money and preserve the value of whatever assets he could find so they could be sold to pay debts and compensate investors who lost money. The two largest assets in the receivership were the ski resorts. Jay Peak was sold at auction two years ago and is undergoing a revival. Burke is languishing after eight years in receivership, while offers to buy it have been snubbed by Goldberg. People in the community wonder why.

Since he was appointed to run the receivership, Goldberg has extracted $12 million in professional fees and expenses for himself, other lawyers and accountants representing the government in the case. That’s an average of $1.5 million per year. Fees are paid from the receivership’s assets, reducing the amount of money available to keep Burke operating and reimburse investors. Goldberg’s $12 million in total fees has reached or exceeded what many people estimate Burke Mountain Resort is worth. And Goldberg is not done yet. His last fee application was submitted six months ago. His normal legal fee is over $1,000 an hour, but he told the judge he reduced it to $395 for receivership work, a level he termed “reasonable for professionals practicing in the Southern District of Florida.”

Goldberg has a website where receivership court documents can be examined and downloaded, among them periodic status reports he writes for the judge who appointed him. His first disclosure of an offer to buy Burke was in a report submitted May 30, 2023, predicting the resort’s sale by year-end. It didn’t happen, and he didn’t explain why.

Then, in a status report on June 26, 2024, he again informed the judge he had an offer. “The receiver, through his efforts, has identified a party interested in serving as a stalking horse bidder for the Burke Mountain ski resort,” he wrote. He did not say whether it was the same bidder he mentioned more than a year earlier, but he did say he was negotiating “with the goal of completing such a sale later this year.” Once again, that didn’t happen.

The term stalking horse refers to an offer that sets a minimum price and is intended to attract bidders to an auction of an asset. It worked for Jay Peak, which was sold at auction in 2022 to Pacific Group Resorts of Park City, Utah. Pacific made an initial stalking horse offer of $58 million that drew other bidders, forcing the company to go higher to acquire the resort for $76 million. Pacific Group Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Christian Knapp calls the purchase “an absolute home run for us.” He says his company continually invests in its properties, “which was especially important at Jay Peak since there were minimal capital expenditures during the receivership.”

Matt Krajeski, a professional assessor for the town of Jay, said Pacific has made improvements while generating a feeling of stability in the community. Based on Pacific Group’s performance at Jay Peak, some Burke skiers and local business people say they would welcome a bid from the company for Burke Mountain Resort.

As to whether Pacific might be interested in buying Burke, Knapp said, “We hope the right buyer comes along to help it reach its potential.”

Maybe one has. Mark Greenberg, a New York and Connecticut real estate developer, says he’s ready, willing and able to buy Burke right now for $10 million. “We lost one ski season already,” he says. “We don’t want to lose another. We need to get to work. Every time we lose a season, the resort is devalued.”

Greenberg has a partner whose family owns ski resorts and has experience with turnarounds and expertise in quality snowmaking. They submitted their first bid to buy Burke in 2023 for $12 million and then reduced it in 2024 to $10 million.

Greenberg has four daughters and one son, all ski racers. “This is a thing of love for me,” he said. “I’m not chasing money. I’m chasing love. I’m a ski dad and I want to turn [Burke] into something to be proud of.”

He says his kids constantly ask when he’s going to buy the mountain. In Burke, the question that is haunting the community is why the resort hasn’t been sold. The only person who could answer is the receiver, Goldberg, who didn’t respond to a request for an interview.

Goldberg’s receivership seems to have an intimidating quality. Nearly all bidders willing to talk don’t want their names used, fearing Goldberg’s reaction. Russell Barr, a Stowe lawyer who represented investors who were ripped off, refuses to even come to the phone. Vermont Economic Development Commissioner Joan Goldstein declines to comment about the receiver.

Prospective buyers say the longer Burke Mountain lingers in receivership, the lower its value sinks due to aging buildings, equipment breakdowns, deferred maintenance, understaffing, unfunded needs and operating losses of $1 million to $2 million per year. Those losses are about the same level as Goldberg’s average annual fees.

Among those looking to buy the resort are some who want to turn Burke into a private ski club for the wealthy. Vermont has two, Spruce Peak at Stowe and the Hermitage Club on Haystack Mountain in Wilmington, which went into receivership in 2018 and was sold at a 2020 bankruptcy auction to its members.

The groups who appear most likely to buy Burke are connected in various ways to Burke Mountain Academy (BMA). They don’t understand the receiver’s resistance to selling the resort. Most want him to hold an auction. Goldberg is highly regarded nationally as an expert at dismantling fraud, but potential buyers suggest he may have an unrealistic expectation of what Burke Mountain Resort is worth.

Joining the chorus calling for a sale is Willie Booker, the head of school at BMA, the internationally acclaimed ski school located on the mountain where world champion racer Mikaela Shiffrin honed her skills.

On January 3, Booker responded to a Burke Mountain condominium owner who raised questions about Goldberg and complained about BMA’s race and training schedule, which limited recreational skiing during the New Year holiday vacation week. “I completely understand the frustration,” Booker replied. “The ultimate solution . . . is the sale of the mountain to a sufficiently capitalized and competent owner who can make appropriate investments in infrastructure to service this mountain and all of the skiers who want to enjoy it. Let’s hope we get there sooner rather than later!”

Receivers, like Goldberg, are expected to preserve the value of assets under their control before selling them, but Burke’s market value appears to have deteriorated during its eight years in receivership while the costs of rescuing it have increased. Potential bidders estimate a $20 million investment is needed after purchasing the resort to make it sustainable.

On January 2, the mountain’s management informed Burke skiers of the latest costly example of aging equipment in an email. “Happy New Year everyone,” the message began. “Work this preseason on the J-Bar to correct some issues resulted in unearthing greater problems on the lift than anticipated… it has become clear that we will be unable to service the lift and get it running this winter.” The J-Bar operates on the lower mountain area for beginner skiers and riders.

Meanwhile, exasperation over Goldberg’s handling of the resort is increasing. “If the receivership doesn’t sell it soon, there won’t be anything left to sell,” says Mike Mathers, a long-time Burke businessman who knows the mountain better than most. “It’s just a mess.”

Burke has complicating factors that distinguish it from other ski areas. One is its relationship with BMA. Another is the Burke Mountain Owners Association, which has 225 members with condos and homes on the mountain, according to association president Thomas Bledsoe. Nine of those members represent BMA because it owns buildings on the mountain.

Bledsoe says the association has agreements for participation in decision-making with the resort’s management. In recent decades, those agreements have been ignored and challenged, but association members persevered and have conducted meetings with mountain managers and BMA representatives during the receivership.

The owners association held its annual meeting January 19. One-hundred-thirty-two members participated, either in person or remotely. Bledsoe stresses they have a huge stake in the resort’s future, owning an estimated $150 million in property on the mountain. He is in his tenth year as president and for most of that time, he says, the association has “flown under the radar.”

At the annual meeting, he says members expressed a desire to become more active because potential buyers seem primarily interested in short-term gains by converting the hotel to condominiums and selling them. “For some bidders,” Bledsoe says, “it’s about the hotel, rather than the long-term health of the resort.”

As a result, he says, the association plans to encourage public officials to let the receiver know how the community feels. “We would love a long-term owner who is committed to investing in this mountain,” he says, pointing to snowmaking as one critical need.

As for the possibility the resort could become a private club, Bledsoe called that an “anathema” to the entire Burke community and pledged, “We would fight that tooth and nail.”

Regarding BMA, he says he understands the frustration of recreational skiers limited by BMA’s activities, but declares, “This mountain would not exist without BMA.”

BMA and Burke Mountain operations have been intertwined since the academy was formed in 1970 as the nation’s first elite ski school, governed by an easement that was amended under Goldberg’s direction. The easement, more than 50 pages long, limits the number of trails available for recreational skiers by increasing the size of an exclusive BMA area that gets priority for training, racing, and snowmaking. The amended easement also grants BMA a “non-exclusive” priority over the entire skiing area.

“Importantly,” Goldberg declared in a report to the judge, “this expansion allows BMA to increase the usage on its already existing easement, but will not interfere with other parts of Burke Mountain used by the general public.” Many season pass holders would disagree.

The amended easement specifies guidelines for BMA snowmaking, declaring, “The resort will endeavor to prioritize early season snowmaking on the [BMA] Training Area with an objective, but not a requirement, to provide and maintain a three foot base on the Training Area throughout the Ski Year as weather permits.”

BMA has several contractual arrangements with the mountain, according to Kevin Mack, the resort’s general manager. “BMA’s success is our success,” he says, “and ours is theirs.”

Goldberg’s reports claim BMA’s high-profile racing events will boost business for the mountain’s 116-room hotel that was under construction when the resort was forced into receivership.

Some view the hotel as a $50 million amenity that should not have been built. Others suggest expanding Burke’s snowmaking, creating more recreational trails and turning some suites into condominiums would make the hotel more sensible.

Mack calls the hotel “a benefit to the resort,” despite an occupancy rate barely above 40 percent. “We wanted to be closer to 50 percent,” he says, “but we’re in a zone where we want to be.” Average U.S. hotel occupancy rates are in the 60 to 70 percent range.

Ski resort experience is lacking in Burke’s management during the receivership. In 2016, shortly after Goldberg was appointed receiver, he hired a management company, Leisure Hotels to oversee the Jay Peak and Burke resorts. Leisure Hotels hired Mack as Burke’s general manager. Mack says neither he nor Leisure had managed a ski area before.

Snowmaking is crucial for ski area operations. At Burke, it’s been a weakness for decades due to limited water supply.

Mack was questioned about snowmaking in a 2019 podcast interview by Stuart Winchester of The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast. At the time, Mack was excited that Goldberg was pursuing a much-needed proposal to build a 30-million-gallon water-storage pond. “We will have a first rate snowmaking system on par with the other resorts in the state,” he predicted. “That’s going to do wonders for our winter operations and will put us in a position to be seen by potential investors as the kind of place that’s worth taking a real deep look into.”

But Goldberg’s storage pond plan (10 times the size of Burke’s existing pond) was one of many ambitious improvement projects that failed to materialize at the mountain in recent decades. The pond’s estimated cost in 2019 was $3 million to $5 million, according to Mack, who now calls it a “top of the list item” for a new owner.

He says he has met with “dozens” of potential Burke buyers. He won’t identify them but suggests some would likely participate in an auction.

Whenever Burke Mountain Resort encounters financial trouble, one of the first names mentioned is Donald Graham, a longtime BMA benefactor involved with the school for 50 years. He’s a Pennsylvania businessman who bought Burke Mountain out of bankruptcy in 2001, has helped with other improvements and has a ski trail named for him, “Graham Slam.” He’s the founder of The Graham Group, an alliance of industrial businesses and investment management firms that trace their roots to a design engineering company he started in 1960 with one employee in the basement of a farmhouse. All five of his children and four grandchildren attended BMA, where he established the Graham Family Endowment.

During the receivership, he and his son Ken have been mentioned as potential buyers of the resort. So far, it appears they are content to stay on the sidelines, waiting for the receiver to act. The Grahams could not be reached for comment.

One lesson to be learned from Goldberg’s receivership is that town assessments used to set tax bills for ski resorts don’t necessarily reflect their market values. In 2020, Burke Mountain was assessed at $18.7 million and Jay Peak at $121 million. Goldberg challenged those assessments as too high and lost.

Two years later, Jay Peak sold at auction for $76 million, $45 million lower than the 2020 assessed value. The revived Jay Peak is now assessed at $80.3 million, $4 million higher than its purchase price by Pacific Group.

In contesting the Burke Mountain assessment in 2020, a lawyer representing Goldberg said the resort was losing a lot of money, more than $1 million a year for several years, and predicted the annual loss would get worse. He argued the resort’s valuation should be reduced from $18.7 million to $11.2 million, which represented its “fair market value.”

Goldberg’s requested assessment of $11.2 million is very close to the amount of the stalking horse bid submitted in 2023 to buy Burke. The most recent town assessment for the resort is almost double that at $21.3 million, $2.6 million higher than it was in 2020.

Those numbers leave the Burke community with a mountain that is an enigma, as well as one that stands alone.

The town’s tax assessments paint an unlikely picture. They show the resort’s value increased while struggling to survive eight years of Goldberg’s receivership. On the other side, potential buyers insist there’s no doubt Burke’s market value plunged significantly during that time. An auction might determine who’s right. If it’s not too late.

Lyn Bixby is a contributing editor for the North Star Monthly, Danville, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, is due to have his first novel published in early 2026.

Lyn Bixby

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