From ranch land to resort in (more than) a few easy steps

ByEllenMiller-Goins

IN 1954, WHEN BROTHERS ROY AND G.F. LEBUS OF WICHITA FALLS, TEXAS, BOUGHT THE 10,000-ACRE MONTE VERDE RANCH AND, TWO YEARS LATER, THE 15,000 CIENEGUILLA RANCH, THEY ENVISIONED A SUMMER RETREAT, ALONG WITH THE ADDED BONUS OF RANCHING INCOME.

“They had cattle, they were logging, and they also had a pole-treating plant for telephone poles and fence posts,” Roy’s daughter, Sally Lebus, recalls. “There were several years we raised quarter horses. We had a famous stud.”

“Mom and dad moved up there year-round in ’62,” Sally says, adding she was, by then, raising two children in Wichita Falls. “I wish you could have talked to my brothers. They were there from the start!”

The LeBus extended family frequently went to Taos Ski Valley and Red River to ski, but Vail, Colo., changed the course of history for the southern end of the Moreno Valley

In a narrative provided by Angel Fire Resort to coloradoskihistory.com, one night during Sunday dinner, Sally’s brotherGeorge said they should put a tow rope on their ranch so they wouldn’t have to drive so far to ski. His father replied he was thinking on a slightly larger scale, left the table, and came back with detailed plans for a fullscale resort.

Despairing of the economic sustainability of ranching and envisioning his own Vail, the elder LeBus had already paid for blueprints. “George thought, ‘Oh my God, what has our dad done!’” Sally says with a laugh. “’Cause he just wanted a rope tow.”

Once their dad unveiled his vision, though, George, his siblings and their children were all involved in the creation of Angel Fire, which, in the early days included a ski mountain, a small country club with a nine-hole golf course (now the back nine, which Roy designed), the 40-acre Monte Verde Lake, and a dirt airstrip.

At George’s suggestion, they called the new development “Angel Fire.”

In 1965, George and Sandia Tramway creator Jim Woods of Albuquerque walked the mountain and laid out trails. “Jim helped with the engineering of three ski lifts, including one on Exhibition and a second in the back basin. “Dad wanted a gondola (where the Chile Express is now) but that never transpired,” Sally says. The family reportedly sought advice from Don Carmichael of Red River Ski Area and Ernie Blake of Taos Ski Valley, who, it is rumored, suggested they prop the mountain up about 1,000 feet! The family was undaunted however and developed the ski mountain, which opened for skiing in winter 1966.

Bill Burgess, who was their first ski school and marketing director, once recalled, “We didn’t even open for the Christmas holidays as planned that season. But we had skiers, so we put benches in the back of a Thiokol Sprite and hauled them up. We had fewer than 1,000 skiers that first year. I think lift fees were $6 for adults.”

Worse, Blake’s suggestion turned out to be good advice, as sporadic snow conspired against the family’s dream. “It was such a struggle,” Sally noted in an earlier interview. “My folks would say they ‘poor boy’d it.’ The winter they opened, it didn’t snow, and it didn’t snow much the following year either. And that was long before snowmaking equipment. It was just such a gamble. You never knew whether you were going to have good snow or not.”

Jeannine Neal, a former base lodge operator who did “everything from A to Z” recalled that, while working with Burgess, “we never had enough money to buy stamps, which were $8 for 100 then, so we would sell patches and when we got enough money, we’d run to the post office to buy stamps. We never dated our letters ’cause we never knew when we were going to mail it.”

In summer, Burgess helped with cowhand chores like castrating bull calves and, according to longtime friend and current Ski School Director Robin May,

“Bill had a card made up that, I think, said, ‘Director of Marketing, Chief Bingo Caller, Assistant Plumber.’ Bill created the first logos [for Angel Fire], helped erect the first lifts and laid out some of our iconic runs. When the LeBus family got him to set up the first satellite Post Office, he took Drawer A – the Resort got Drawer B!” Angel Fire Resort was primarily funded by the family’s cattle ranching business, but, perhaps because of their rocky beginnings, the family soon realized the project needed capital. They sold to investors, “the Glenn Miller et al group” Sally notes. Then, because Miller’s group still owned the LeBuses, they all sold the development in 1972 to Arizona-Colorado Land and Cattle Company, parent company to the Baca Grande Angel Fire Corporation. That group was followed by several owners from 1983 to 1995, when a group headed by Texans Tim and Greg Allen bought the resort out of bankruptcy.

In 2018, the New Mexico Ski Hall of Fame inducted Roy LeBus and his wife LaVena.

“Sadly, I wasn’t able to attend that, but there were two tables of LeBuses there,” Sally says. “From what I saw of the induction video, it was quite a tribute to mom and dad. It was wonderful to have all the grandkids there. They were just elated and so was I. They were all a part of helping mom and dad build Angel Fire.”

Note: Roy, LaVena, George, George’s brothers Tommy and Roy, Jr and son Andy LeBus, Bill Burgess, Jeannine Neal, Jim Woods, Ernie Blake, Don Carmichael, Glenn Miller and Tim Allen have all since passed away.