Million-dollar views

Take away Utah's Wasatch Mountains and you eliminate "the greatest snow on Earth" — worth an annual $750 million to the state's ski industry.

But you also lose out on thousands of jobs, millions of dollars in tax revenues and hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate values.

It's those million-dollar views that translate into million-dollar transactions.

"We had one house sell for $9.9 million last year," said Suzanne Harris, principal broker for Deer Crest, a 600-acre ski-in, ski-out community at the Wasatch-Summit county border and adjacent to Deer Valley. "We have about 40 multimillion-dollar homes in Deer Crest."

And Deer Crest — with its 30 ski bridges and tunnels, 11 ski runs, 10 miles of private roads and high-speed gondola — is typical of lavish new communities making the mountains their home.

Harris, who moved to Utah in 1985 from Sun Valley, Idaho, said Park City's proximity to Salt Lake City was a major draw.

"My husband and I had looked at many resort communities, everything from Sedona to Jackson Hole to Steamboat. We picked Park City because of the sense of community, how fabulous Main Street is, the accessibility to Salt Lake, the airport, the weather. The mountains here are incredible. I actually own a beach house in San Diego. If I had to have one or the other, I would be here."

Monster homes in Park City, the most expensive real estate in Utah, typically sway the entire state's averages.

In the second quarter of 2003, Utah's average sales price for homes was $170,551. Take out homes sold in Park City and the average drops 6 percent to $160,858, according to the Utah Association of Realtors.

Yet people are attracted to the Wasatch Range not only for its famous snow, but also for its mountain golf communities.

In Glenwild, a private 900-acre site in Summit County, golf-in and golf-out homes border an 18-hole Tom Fazio course.

"I think we are becoming known as a credible golf destination," said John O'Connell, project director for Glenwild. "We thought our market would be Southern California, but we have had people inquire from every single state."

Nearly two-thirds of Glenwild's 195 lots already have been sold for between $200,000 and $2 million. About half of all residences are second homes.

And second homes translate into big tax revenues for local governments.

The residential valuation of second homes in Summit County totaled $2.9 billion in 2002, according to Douglas Macdonald, chief economist for the Utah State Tax Commission. That meant roughly $29.5 million in tax revenues for Summit County.