Seven Springs Resort to Revive Laurel Mountain Ski Resort

State officials and private investors have formed a partnership seeking to breathe new life into Pennsylvania’s troubled Laurel Mountain Ski Resort. Seven Springs Mountain Resort, a popular recreation area some 30 miles southeast of Laurel Mountain, will lease and operate the 50-year-old resort under the terms of an agreement involving state legislators, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and Somerset Trust Co., which owns Laurel Mountain. Specific terms of the agreement have not been disclosed and it remains unclear whether the resort will reopen in time for the 2008-2009 season.

The agreement follows an announcement from Gov. Ed Rendell’s office that the state will spend as much as $6.5 million to renovate and reopen the once-thriving resort. Seven Springs stepped in to manage Laurel Mountain once before under the terms of a tentative agreement reached in 2004. But with no long-term funding or permanent lease agreement in place, Laurel Mountain closed again after the 2004-2005 season and has since sat idle.

Laurel Mountain, which opened to the public on state-owned property in 1958, closed in 1989 after a series of mild winters and restricted water supplies for making snow drove it into financial ruin. Private investors armed with state grants and loans oversaw extensive renovations and managed to revive the resort for a single season in the late 1990s, but were beset by the same problems.