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Gaining Altitude : Mountain Homes Heading for the hills has never been more inviting. By: Nick KolakowskiMay/June 2008 , Page 63 (continued)Black Rock
Location: Coeur d’Alene, Idaho The golf-mad survivalist whose one reservation about this new run-for-the-hills lifestyle regards the availability of tee times will be more than satisfied with the accommodations made at Black Rock. Home sites provide panoramic views of the serene stillness of Lake Coeur d’Alene (French for “sharp-hearted,” a reference to the hard bargain the amazingly prescient local tribes drove with the original settlers) and an award-winning Jim Engh golf course that tumbles over hill and cliff like its own sort of mostly natural wonder. (Developer Marshall Chesrown has been flying in qualified people from high-end clubs all over the country on his private Lear 60 to play the course and see Black Rock, no strings attached. Close to half has put down deposits.)
But even that course may be more than matched by Black Rock’s second course designed by Tom Weiskopf, a naturalistic work of wide fairways that embraces the land’s rolling contours. For those who don’t have golf quite so much on the brain, there’s also the spectacular water-skiing and fishing on that 25-mile-long lake, a private clubhouse with a masseuse, his-and-hers steam rooms and a generously stocked wine cellar. Survival compounds come with custom fireplaces, floor-to-ceiling walk-in showers, whirlpools, covered outdoor decks and kitchens outfitted with the latest and greatest. Funny how this end-of-the-world stuff looks like our idea of heaven. 888-989-7625; blackrockidaho.com Talisker Club
Location: Park City, Utah
Even if you’re not a black-diamond slalomer, there’s plenty to do at this high-mountain hideaway. How about golf or horseback riding or biking or waterskiing . . . or catching the latest indie flick alongside Matt Damon, Harvey Weinstein and Charlize Theron? “Whether or not Park City becomes the next Aspen, it’s got a lot going on,” says Mark Thorne, president of Talisker Mountain Incorporated. Indeed, between the golf community at Tuhaye, on the edge of scenic Jordanelle Lake, and the ski-in/ski-out communities of Empire Pass and Red Cloud, Talisker Club offers hyperactive dealmakers the chance to wring their adrenal glands like dish towels. Still, most residents would probably tell you that the best part comes when the celebrities go home. It’s then that the tables at the three-star restaurants in town get easier to come by and this 10,000-acre resort reclaims much the same active, family-oriented vibe that drew Bobby to this corner of the Rockies in the first place. Whichever of the resort’s three distinct communities you happen to be recreating in, the views are straight out of Butch & Sundance and the Horse Whisperer: burbling trout streams, spring-fed lakes and wildflower-covered valleys stretching clear to snow-covered peaks. Everything about Talisker screams (actually, more like whispers) A-list. One of the two Mark O’Meara–designed courses was recently ranked among Golf Digest’s top 10 new private courses in America, and the Talisker Fitness and Spa in Tuhaye is considered to be on a par with Canyon Ranch. And to think you were never even nominated for an Oscar. 866-333-9210; taliskerclub.com The Idaho Club
Location: Sandpoint, Idaho
Escape artists looking to unleash their inner Hemingway — by which we mean the earlier, vital Hemingway who did some of his best hunting and writing in this state, not the later one who got a little too closely acquainted with a shotgun in Key West — might well find themselves gravitating toward the Idaho Club, located outside the small (population 6,835), remote (only 567 miles to Twin Falls!) and tidy burg of Sandpoint. Arrayed along the hilly shores of Lake Pend Oreille (the largest, deepest lake in Idaho) and within easy hiking distance of the nearby mountains, the resort features an 18-hole Jack Nicklaus golf course, in addition to a multitude of regularly scheduled and arranged hunting, rafting and fishing expeditions. The Schweitzer Mountain Resort — with its 85 trails on 2,900 skiable acres — is minutes away, and there’s a full-service spa on-site to work your aching muscles at the end of a long day retracing the Nick Adams stories. Even the architecture here is of a style that Papa would have appreciated, with rough-sawed wood exteriors and great rooms dominated by hand-scraped maple and giant fieldstone fireplaces (plus optional climate-controlled wine rooms and outdoor gourmet-pizza ovens — after all, he liked his grub and grog, too). And for those who suffer seizures when separated from today’s equivalent of the writing tablet and Royal typewriter (is that a BlackBerry tucked down your rafting shorts or are you just happy to see us?), a second-story loft can be converted easily to a high-tech headquarters-away-from-headquarters. 800-323-7020; theidahoclub.com
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