While some portions are designed for primary residential ownership — Tuhaye and 428-acre Deer Mountain as examples — the major thrust is toward deep-pocketed second-homers, anxious to sample Jordanelle's outdoor smorgasbord of snow-skiing, water-skiing, boating, fishing, hiking and hunting.

While those are dalliances the well-heeled can enjoy at dozens of pleasure preserves, one thing sets Jordanelle apart.

Access.

"Jackson Hole is out of the way from almost anywhere. Take the Lear (jet) into Sun Valley, you've still got a major drive ahead of you.

"Salt Lake International brings Jordanelle to your doorstep."

"Forty minutes without a stoplight," said Daryl English, owner of the Stillwater Lodge, a luxury condominium/hotel complex at the west portal to Jordanelle, just off U.S. 40's state-of-the-art Mayflower interchange, scheduled for completion before the 2002 Olympics.

"There's no place like this in the country with four-season recreation you get to this easily," said English, who lives in Chicago but keeps a Park City home.

The only other playpen for the rich and famous in the West with a comparable travel time is in fact Lake Tahoe.

You can hop a flight in New York City at 7 a.m. and be on the Hair Fire ski run outside your Deer Crest home by 1 p.m. that afternoon, Zibby Toser said.

"In fact," she added, "I took off from Manhattan one morning and gave a luncheon for 30 at Deer Crest at noon."

If second-home buyers bite on the access and four-season lure, it means Wasatch County reels in huge revenues, with minimum impacts, as planners foresee it.

"You get people paying millions of dollars into the Wasatch County School District who couldn't find a Heber Valley school with a road map. They won't be sending their kids there," Matthews said.

"You'll have people who won't flush their toilets 30 times a year pumping revenue into the economy," said Ann MacQuoid, a member of the Board of Park City Realtors.

Deer Crest alone will funnel approximately $10 million a year into the Wasatch County general fund at buildout, according to projections cited by county planner Al Mickelsen — more than the current $9 million county budget.

"It can mean tens of millions of dollars a year. That's why Heber Valley should be welcoming this with open arms,"Provost said.

Such sums come only if things proceed according to developers' schemes.

Even before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the sluggish economy was beginning to bug even the pep boys who peddle high-end real estate around Jordanelle.