How Oak Mountain, NY, is Finding Solutions for the Ski Industry's Employee Housing Crisis

Employee Housing Cabins arrive at Oak Mountain on Tuesday. Photo Credit: Oak Mountain Instagram Page.

We all love to ski or ride and for some, the opportunity to work and play at the same place is the ideal scenario. It is a dream job for some people to be able to go to work on the mountain and on their time off can hit the slopes. Most resorts offer incentives such as free lift tickets and discounts at the mountain for their employees. However, there is one big challenge that ski resorts and their employees face every season.

Finding affordable housing for employees is a serious problem that every ski resort in the industry is trying to find a solution to. The cost of living near a ski resort is expensive and it is very difficult for employees to find housing they can afford. Some employees are faced with driving 30 minutes or more in search of a place to stay to be able to work at a ski resort. Some resorts throughout the country are building employee housing facilities on the mountain for their employees to live in at discounted rates. Oak Mountain in Upstate New York is one of the ski resorts that is trying to do its best to find a solution to the housing crisis the industry is facing.

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Matt and Laura O’Brien have owned Oak Mountain since 2012 and are hands-on owners and do everything on the mountain to ensure that the mountain is operating smoothly. On Tuesday, May 28, Oak Mountain received its first two employee housing cabins which were built by Lancaster Log Cabins. It is a step in the right direction of trying to retain and recruit quality employees in the competitive ski industry where finding affordable housing has become increasingly more difficult, according to Matt O’Brien, the co-owner of Oak Mountain.

Lancaster Log Cabins’ started in 1990 when they first started working with log cabin kits in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Over the years they realized the need for a portable log cabin option made of real logs that maintained a rustic aesthetic. Lancaster Log Cabins’ goal is to build log cabins on wheels that were made with real logs and maintain 100% of the rustic aesthetic.

Oak Mountain faces the same challenges as other resorts throughout the country in trying to find affordable housing for its employees as well. The ski resort has employees who are locally sourced and also students from South America who come up each season and work on the mountain. Finding a good place for them to stay is usually a struggle. The J-1 students are enrolled in the Exchange Visitor (J) non-immigrant visa category which is for individuals approved to participate in work-study-based exchange visitor programs.

Rancher Specs. Photo Credit: Lancaster Log Cabins

Finding housing for employees is difficult enough for a ski resort to find, but a lot of rental properties in the area have been taken away according to O’Brien. “You cannot even rent a house up here, everything is Airbnb and we lost all our rental properties in the area because they are taking their seasonal rentals out of the pull and can charge $200-$300 a night when they might only get $900-$1500 a month on rent per season,” O’Brien said.

Oak Mountain is a small-independently owned ski resort and it might be one of the first ones in the country to provide housing for its employees in this manner. “I’ve gotten text messages and phone calls from smaller mountains asking me ‘what are you doing, how are you doing it, and let’s talk’,” O’Brien said. Oak Mountain is starting with two log cabins and will eventually have five log cabins with the option to add more if this program goes as planned.

These portable log cabins will be placed on the resort which will be an easy walk for the employees to the mountain and a quick drive into town. Oak Mountain has purchased two Rancher log cabins from Lancaster Log Cabins which have two bedrooms with electric and plumbing. Employees will be able to rent the two-bedroom-log cabin for $800 a month. O’Brien is doing most of the work himself of running the electric and plumbing to the log cabins with the help of local contractors. The Rancher log cabins sell for a wholesale price of $56,900 and a retail price of $61,900.

Oak Mountain first opened in 1947 and is one of the oldest ski resorts in the Adirondacks with over 77 years of history and counting. Oak Mountain is not the biggest ski resort in the Adirondacks, but it has character and a great vibe to it. O’Brien is no stranger to the struggles in the ski industry and has worked his whole life at resorts like Deer Valley, Sugarbush, Stowe, and Sunday River. Since his family took over the mountain they have made other investments and improvements around the resort. They have doubled the snowmaking capabilities, added new snow guns, added trails, added two new carpet lifts, and upgraded its lodge. Plans include expanding snow-making capabilities on the mountain and replacing the last T-bar with a new chairlift.

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The feeling of being a family-oriented ski resort is something that goes hand in hand with being located in the Adirondacks Mountains. Generations of families have grown up there and have learned to ski at Oak Mountain. It is not abnormal to see four generations of families skiing at the resort on a given day. Oak Mountain is a place where kids grow up learning to ski and eventually move on to try bigger mountains and the O’Briens understand that.

With the housing crisis the ski industry is currently facing, it is great to see the O’Briens and other ski resorts throughout the country providing housing for their employees. The vibe of being a family-oriented-ski resort is strong at Oak Mountain and the feeling of family is important to them. They are committed to ensuring their employees have affordable housing and their actions are proving it.