A SUNDANCE STORYBOOK PLACE & TIME
As we continue our week at the Sundance Film Festival, we took some time to explore the place and time here beyond the films. Utah is a place of exceptional beauty.
There is no better place to celebrate and enjoy than the Sundance Resort. It is a beautiful place with a beautiful story.
Photo: Courtesy of 100 Toplist. Sundance Resort.
“Centuries ago, the Ute Indians retreated to this canyon to escape the summer heat and hunt the abundant game. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Stewarts, a family of Scottish immigrants, had settled the canyon.
Photo: Courtesy of Eric Ward. Mount Timpanogos.
While the first generations were mostly surveyors and sheepherders, the next generation saw excitement and opportunity in the snow-laden slopes beneath Mount Timpanogos.
Photo: Courtesy of The Independent. Skiing in Utah.
In the fifties, the Stewarts opened Timphaven, a local ski resort which boasted a chair lift, a rope tow, and a burger joint named Ki-Te-Kai, Maori for "Come and get it!" (One of the Stewarts had served as a Mormon missionary to the New Zealand islands.)
Photo: Courtesy of Live for Films. Robert Redford.
In 1969, Robert Redford bought Timphaven and much of the surrounding land from the Stewart family, and Sundance was born. Rejecting advice from New York investors to fill the canyon with an explosion of lucrative hotels and condominiums, Redford saw his newly acquired land as an ideal locale for environmental conservation and artistic experimentation.
Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Resort. The resort grounds from above.
This place in the mountains, amid nature's casualness toward death and birth, is the perfect host for the inspiration of ideas: harsh at times, life threatening in its winters of destruction, but tender in attention to the details of every petal of every wildflower resurrected in the spring. Nature and creativity obey the same laws, to the same end: life.
- Robert Redford
Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Resort. Pine Lodges at Sundance Resort.
The lodging units are beautifully designed, with rough-hewn wood and Native American accents. The amenities are formulated with certified organic extracts of rooibos, cardamom seed, yarrow and ginseng.
Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Resort. Tree Room.
We love to dine at the Tree Room, built around a giant tree that forms a pillar in the center of the space. Award-winning Chef Dan Sweisford serves exquisite seasonal mountain cuisine. The Foundry Grill looks out onto the majestic 12,000-foot Mount Timpanogos. The restored 1890s Owl Bar, was once a favorite hang-out for Butch Cassidy's Hole-in-the-Wall gang.
Photo: Courtesy of Cellophane Land. Sundance Resort Spa.
The Spa at Sundance was inspired by the Sioux Indian concept of Hocoka, healing body, mind and spirit. Treatments are a blend Native American traditions.
“Our goal at the Spa at Sundance is to unify nature with the body and soul, as defined by the Native American concept of the Four Winds. The four directions of the earth bond with the four seasons, the cycles of life, and our physical being, which brings clarity to our connection with the universe.”
This is truly a place with a fairytale air, a storybook setting and a beautiful story we hope will never end.
Read more about Beautiful Stories, as they relate to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact in our posts throughout this week, including 10 Beautiful Sundance Films, 10 Beautiful Nature Stories, 10 Beautiful Nature Stories, 10 Beautiful Food Stories, and 10 Incredible Sundance Art Works.
Enter this week’s BN Competition. Our theme this week is Beautiful Stories. Send in your images and ideas. Deadline is 01.26.14.
