Crystal Mountain Is For Sale - But Only To The Right Buyer

One of the region’s largest private employers and a longtime beacon of northern Michigan recreation is for sale.

Crystal Mountain occupies about 1,500 acres in Benzie County’s Thompsonville and employs up to 700 people in peak season. In addition to skiing, the resort offers golf, swimming, tennis, mountain biking and much more.

Chairman Jim MacInnes tells The Ticker that his family (the resort is owned by Jim, his wife and resort President Chris MacInnes, and her five siblings) is ready to sell. But there’s no rush, and they won’t do so until the right buyer comes along.

“Our top goal is finding a values match,” he says. “It’s much more important than the money.”

MacInnes wouldn’t say what price range they have in mind, but did say the family aims for a buyer that can further improve (not just purchase) the resort. 

“We want to see if we can find someone with compatible values and the financial capacity to take Crystal to the next level,” he says. “We could continue on as we've been doing and incrementally as we've been doing, but we want to see Crystal become even better and be able to stand the test of time by being stronger and better capitalized.”

It’s not a foregone conclusion that the eventual buyer will be from a large resort conglomerate, MacInnes says. 

“I think it could go different ways. There are some larger entities that are in the hotel development and operations business, and we’ve talked to some that look pretty interesting, but there’s also family offices…or partnerships,” he says. “I think it's a wide field of potential buyers, but it's got to make sense for everybody.”

The resort traces its roots to 1956, when a community group cleared trees for three slopes on state land and opened what was then known as Buck Hills. A few years later, a group of 96 investors acquired the land from the state to establish and expand a resort there. 

When the resort went into foreclosure in 1966, local residents George and Althea Petritz (Chris MacInnes’ parents) bought it along with two other partners. They became sole owners in 1981 after buying out the remaining partners. 

Chris and Jim MacInnes joined Crystal Mountain in 1985 and have been there ever since, and they’ve been behind its substantial growth from a winter ski hill to a true, four-season resort.

“We're kind of long-term thinkers, really, and we decided that having diversity added resilience for us,” Jim says. “As we started to develop the resort, we tried to fill in those periods when we were closed. And so we built assets. We built an indoor pool and fitness center, we built a conference center, we built a spa, all these things that you could do year round so we could keep our people employed and keep the place going.”

That diversity means that even as climate change looms large over skiing and other winter businesses, Crystal Mountain is still an action-packed opportunity for a potential buyer, MacInnes says. He also believes the untapped potential at Crystal is a big selling point. 

“We have a tremendous opportunity for future development at Crystal,” he says. “We could add a third more ski slopes. We could add a third golf course. We could add more lodging. We've got hundreds of acres out on the west side of the property.”

But MacInnes reiterates that they're looking for a buyer that will respect the environment, people, culture and other positive attributes of Crystal Mountain.

"We don't expect them to be exactly like us, but they need to have the same general set of values," he says.

For now, the resort will maintain "business as usual" for as long as it takes until the right buyer comes along and good conversations to materialize, MacInnes says. 

“I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time,” he says.