The Count of Sun Valley

The man never told Obenchain what he stories of railroads that ran special ski trains, transporting pas- had in mind, but he found out later that the sengers from the English Channel to Austria’s ski towns. Harri- THE LAST 75 THE tree marked the location of the foundations man was intrigued enough to have Union Pacifi c commission a of Sun Valley Lodge. The man was Count report on the viability of such an industry in the United States. Felix Schaffgotsch. Tales of his fi rst visit to Through an analysis of the increased sales in ski merchandise ne winter morning in 1936, Ketchum vary wildly, depending on the age from department stores, the report determined that there was Marvin Obenchain strapped and perspective of the teller, but one thing a clear appetite for skiing among Americans. However, people o on a pair of large wooden is certain: the count arrived in Ketchum on weren’t skiing in America. In the 1934-35 winter the report skis and made his way from his home January 16, 1936, and changed the sleepy found 8,600 Americans had traveled to Europe to ski, in part on the corner of Sixth and Main in little town forever. because “snow conditions, weather conditions, terrain, and Ketchum, Idaho to the town’s post Born in Enns, Austria, on February 16, hotel accommodations are generally unsatisfactory at practi- OF SUN VALLEY offi ce. There the 21-year-old helped 1904, Schaffgotsch was descended from cally all existing American resorts.” It went on to conclude that the mail carrier load his heavy parcels the 17th-century Bohemian Count John “it is practically impossible to fi nd fi rst class skiing conditions and drive them to the depot to wait Ernest Schaffgotsche. He was part of the last at any existing winter resort in the U.S.” for the train. Winter was a quiet time generation of the Bohemian Schaffgotsche Harriman was sold. His fi rst big venture as chairman of in Ketchum, employment was scarce family, one of the oldest noble Silesian America’s largest rail company was to be building the country and Obenchain hoped the train, arriv- families, Silesia was a historical region of a world-class ski resort. But fi rst he had to determine where to ing after an eight day hiatus, would Central Europe, located mainly in Poland. put it. Logically, he turned to the man who had told him of the bring with it some opportunity. As the Schaffgotsch’s parents, Franz de Paula and wonders of the ski industry in Austria. engine pulled into town, disrupting Aglae Witt gt von Dorring, were part of the By all accounts, Schaffgotsch was a dashing, handsome and the silent white landscape, Obenchain Lower Austrian line of the family, the sec- charming man. Fashion photographer Toni Frissell wrote in watched a tall young man step down ond wealthiest in the region before World her memoirs of a chance encounter with the count while ski- into the deep snow. While he didn’t War I. After World War II, ing in the Alps. “‘Good know it then, opportunity had indeed most members of the ethnic morning,’m the young arrived—both for him and the small German Schaffgotsch fam- AustrianA said from his mining town he called home. ily were expelled from their pronep position on top of “He asked the depot agent if he homes in Austria. me,”m she wrote. “‘I was could call a taxi,” recalled Obenchain Schaffgotsch grew up in sos fascinated watching in a three-page memoir he wrote before Altmünster, a small market youry skiing gyrations his death in 2005. “The agent said town in Upper Austria. It thatt I forgot to get out there’s no such thing but the mail was here, probably in the ofo your way. You could carrier would probably give him a 1920s, he fi rst encountered haveh killed us both. My ride to town.” Obenchain loaded the Averell Harriman. The mil- namen is Count Felix man’s luggage, which he noted included lionaire playboy from Amer- Schaffgotsch.’”S some very unusual-looking skis. “As ica rented a hunting cottage U.S. Forest Service we drove toward town he was really from the Schaffgotschs to RecreationalR Supervisor looking at the surroundings,” he said. shoot chamois—a goat- AlfA Engen, who toured Leaving the stranger and his bags antelope species native to SchaffgotschS through at the town’s only hotel, the Bald mountains in Europe. thet Wasatch Mountains Mountain Inn & Hot Springs, Oben- By 1930, the Schaff- ini Utah, recalled him as chain went home wondering why he DEPARTMENT REGIONAL HISTORY THE COMMUNITY LIBRARY, PHOTOS COURTESY gotschs were either in need “very“ personable. Arro- had come here. The next day the of some distraction for their exuberantb sec- Felix Schaffgotsch and gant, or very, I would ld say, brilliant, b illi yes. And he was a count. ... man asked if anyone could go with Averell Harriman stand ond son or he had determined to strike out in front of Sun Valley He wore his title well.” him on skis to tour the area. Oben- on his own. Either way, they called upon Lodge in 1936. That he was an impressive man is clear, but his talents as a skier chain obliged. “The fi rst morning we their wealthy American acquaintance to were less so. Contemporary newspaper reports described him as climbed the back side of what became fi nd the 26-year-old count some gainful a “famed international sportsman,” “an expert skier” and “one Dollar Mountain,” he wrote. “He employment. On December 3, Schaffgotsch of the greatest known ski riders among his people.” None of that looked the area over, and we skied sailed into New York on the S.S. Majestic was true. Harriman spelled it out in an oral history recorded by down across Elk Horn and up the from Southampton, England. The passenger The Community Library in Ketchum in 1983. “I employed Count mountain toward East Fork. ... The list from that voyage lists his occupation as Felix Schaffgotsch, who was an Austrian, not so expert in skiing, next morning we hiked on the hot “nil,” but he quickly became ensconced as but he’d had a lot to do with development of resorts in Austria.” water line to Guyer Hot Springs and a clerk at the private banking fi rm of Brown Friedl Pfeifer, who took over the ski school at Sun Valley in skied the area below Dollar Lake. Brothers Harriman in Manhattan. 1938, posited in his autobiography Nice Goin’, that Harriman “Then it was back to the top of Dol- It’s easy to picture Harriman in the gen- got Felix confused with his younger brother, Count Friedrich, an lar Mountain before sun up [to] watch The cross-continental friendship between an tlemanly confi nes of a private bank relaxing experienced ski instructor at St. Anton (the famous Austrian ski where the fi rst rays hit the valley or with a brandy and cigar in hand, listening school where Pfeifer trained). “Somehow the wires got crossed,” Austrian Nazi nobleman and a millionaire fi eld below. After a few mornings of to the enthusiastic count tell tales of the he wrote. “Instead of the very qualifi ed Count Friedrich, Har- New Yorker brought Sun Valley to life, but a mere doing that we skied down and as we fantastic sport of skiing that was sweeping riman acquired the very sociable Count Felix.” However, Har- six years later their alliance crumbled crossed Trail Creek he asked me to the Alps. Harriman, who never set foot on riman knew Felix from his time at Brown Brothers Harriman, on the muddy battlefields of World War II. fi nd a good sized piece of tree, which I skis until he built Sun Valley, was fi rst and and it is probable he got the brother he wanted. Harriman’s carried out into the fi eld. It was placed foremost a businessman. Newly installed oft-repeated reasoning behind the idea for Sun Valley was that Jennifer Tuohy reveals the untold story of Count Felix where he thought was where the fi rst as chairman of Union Pacifi c Railroad, his “I found my banker-friends went off skiing in the wintertime to Schaffgotsch, the man who discovered Sun Valley. rays of sun hit each morning.” interest was piqued by the dashing count’s places like St. Moritz, and in Austria in the mountains.” Felix www.sunvalleyguide.com 13 Schaffgotsch was certainly one of those San Bernardino Mountains in Southern California, spending “Place perfect,” he ran into Miss Brass once again. banker-friends. Christmas in Los Angeles. Next it was north to Lake Tahoe on Sitting on a corral fence between her family’s ranch However it came about, the now 31-year- the California-Nevada border, where he determined the non- and the town of Ketchum, she watched the count old count—who had returned to Austria stop blizzards would keep skiers indoors. Then over to Reno, ski up to her on his fancy, skinny skis. “I found FRIEDMAN following his spell in private banking—left Nevada, across the desert to Utah’s Zion National Park and up just the place to put the Lodge,” he said. “This is his home in Altmünster for Harriman once to Cedar City (not enough snow). From southern Utah, he jour- the most beautiful valley I’ve been in and I’ve been MEMORIAL again, arriving in New York on November neyed to central Colorado where he explored Rocky Mountain to Canada, I’ve been to Colorado.

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