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Tupper Lake: An Under-the-Radar Ski Destination

Outdoorsy types make for Tupper Lake, the less-famous (and less crowded) version of Lake Placid. Here, low-key luxury lodges are equipped for year-round fun.

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Avid skiers Toni Miles and her husband, Robert Clark, have owned homes in the Adirondacks, both in Upper Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, N.Y. But after five years in Lake Placid—host of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympic Games—they grew weary of the crowds and tourists. “We felt we were living in a fishbowl and wanted more privacy,” says Ms. Miles, a 59-year-old retired stockbroker and investor. Then the couple discovered Tupper Lake, a lesser-known ski area 20 miles away, named after a surveyor who drowned there in the late 1800s while fishing. They purchased a lakefront home in 2013, where they say they immediately found the solitude they had been seeking. Their $3.5 million, five-bedroom property, located near the entrance to the Big Tupper ski mountain, features a three-slip boathouse and a private beach. Ms. Miles and Mr. Clark, a 66-year-old retired manufacturing executive, spend seven months a year in the home, which has an outdoor deck overlooking the lake. In the winter, Tupper Lake attracts skiers and snowboarders to Big Tupper, which has 32 trails and three lifts. Mother Nature provides the snow—there are no snow-making machines—and the operation is staffed largely by volunteers. Elite skiers won’t find Big Tupper as challenging as nearby Whiteface Mountain. As a result, the venue largely attracts locals and families looking for laid-back fun, says Margie Philo, a broker who owns a real-estate office in Lake Placid.

Skiers aren’t just drawn to the snow. With 28 miles of shoreline and a village of about 3,500 people, Tupper Lake attracts water-skiers, along with kayakers, paddle boarders, boaters and anglers in the summer. Listing agents say the most desirable properties for second-home buyers are great Adirondack camps, built in the traditional ski-lodge style, with vaulted ceilings, walls and staircases made of exposed wood, and large fireplaces. Overall, median sale prices in Tupper Lake have increased by 26% over the past five years, according to listings website Realtor.com. The average asking price of a Tupper Lake luxury home, defined by Realtor as the top 10% of listings by price, is $1.45 million. In all, 7% of homes listed are priced at over $1 million, according to Realtor.com data. (News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal, also owns Realtor.com, the listing website of the National Association of Realtors.) Louis Houff purchased a vacation home on Tupper Lake in 2004. While his primary home is in Memphis, Mr. Houff, a 53-year-old executive in the orthopedic medical-devices industry, comes to upstate New York to kayak, swim and hike, as well as ski in the winter. His house, purchased for $425,000, is an Adirondack-style home on a 9-acre island in the middle of Tupper Lake with one bedroom and one bathroom. For him, the main selling point is the peace and calm he finds at Tupper Lake. But that may not be the case for much longer. Plans for a 650-home luxury development called the Adirondack Club and Resort received final approval in December—after a decade in the works and numerous obstacles. A lawsuit filed jointly by Protect the Adirondacks and the Sierra Club ended up with the state Court of Appeals, which ultimately allowed the project to go forward. Construction will begin in the summer, says developer Tom Lawson, with an estimated construction timetable of 10 to 15 years. The $500 million development will include townhouses and private residences, including 350 ski-in, ski-out properties, which allow access to the slopes directly from the homes. It will also feature, among other amenities, alpine and cross-country skiing areas, an 18-hole golf course designed by famed golfer Greg Norman, and a 40-slip marina. As part of the project, Tupper Lake’s downtown area has already begun a “metamorphosis,” and will bring in more than 40 new restaurants and shops, Mr. Lawson says. “The idea is there’s kind of a need for a renaissance within the Adirondack region,” says Chris Dillavou, chief operating officer of Great White Shark Enterprises, a West Palm Beach, Fla.-based company owned by Mr. Norman. Environmentalists oppose the project’s plan to construct homes on the eastern portion of the development, saying it would disrupt the forest and wildlife. “We feared this would open the floodgates and we would see more backcountry subdivisions potentially coming into the Adirondacks,” says Peter Bauer, executive director of Protect the Adirondacks, a local conservation organization. Developers say the plans will leave 90% of the development protected as open space. They also say major buildings in new development will follow LEED environmental guidelines, and that new snow-making equipment will use 20% to 30% of the water and energy used by the current systems. Already, local-listing agents say they have seen an increased interest in luxury listings since the Adirondack Club and Resort received final approval. They also say the project will stir national interest in Tupper Lake, which now consists of mostly buyers from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Fred Sherman, a 58-year-old retired wholesale jewelry importer, built his lakefront home in Tupper Lake in 2001. Though Mr. Sherman says he values the privacy of his home, where he spends five months of the year, he very much supports the project that could reshape the village into a year-round destination. “I think we’ll start to see more people coming out, being active, both in the summer and winter,” says Mr. Sherman, whose primary home is in St. Petersburg, Fla. This article originally appeared on The Wall Street Journal.

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