We Tried the Catskills Ski Resort with a $200K Membership Fee
Windham Mountain is in the process of becoming a semi-private, all-seasons resort, much to the ire of locals.
It’s a Saturday afternoon in early March, and Chip Seamans is making the rounds at the Windham Mountain Club in the Catskills, where he’s served as president and general manager for over a decade. The members-only ski lodge is bustling in ways you would expect: families dining together at rustic tables, women sipping wine at the bar as fireplaces roar nearby, and teenagers lounging on deep leather couches while sharing funny TikTok videos with each other. Every ten steps another member of the club is ready to exchange charming pleasantries. “Hitting the slopes today, Chip?” It’s very much business as usual—at least through the close of Windham’s winter season.
This winter wonderland located just two-and-a-half hours outside New York City, previously open to the public, is in the process of becoming a semi-private, four-season resort with horseback riding, fly-fishing, and golf—and a $175,000 price tag to buy in. That’s the early bird special though: At the end of March, that price increases to $200,000. Meanwhile, membership dues will run $9,000 a year, with increases on the horizon as more amenities join Windham’s list of offerings.
Even for existing club members, the updated buy-in is pretty hefty. Those who joined early shelled out as little as $25,000. To avoid their memberships being terminated, they’ll have to fork over at least another $150,000.
The move seems built to lure the well-heeled from New York City, like an all-season alternative to the Hamptons for the upper echelon. Though the resort has gone through many changes in its more than 70-year existence, this one might be the most ambitious.
That’s in part thanks to recent changes in upper management. In April 2023, an ownership group led by Sandy Beall (founder of Ruby Tuesday) and Webb Wilson (grandson of Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson) became majority owners of Windham Mountain with an initial investment of over $70 million.
Like most ski resorts, Windham is at a crossroads. It has to reckon with the reality of shorter ski seasons amid climate change. (Warming temperatures cost the American ski industry $1.7 billion in lost revenue in the last decade.) Resorts, especially in the northeast, face adapting or shuttering amid the rising threat. That was compounded by pandemic-era restrictions that meant limiting its capacity to 25 percent.
In recent years, Windham has pumped millions into improving mountain operations including new high-speed lifts and expanded snow-making capabilities. But snow-making can only do so much. Resorts need to get creative to bring in more revenue, which is especially true for smaller resorts like Windham, whose upcoming changes include a swath of new activities, upgraded dining, and a revamped golf course.
The golf course will get renovated and become members-only in coming months. Over the summer, the resort is set to break ground on a new spa and fitness center in the base lodge with more capacity for massages as well as steam rooms and saunas.
The most noticeable change so far has been the food, which was previously handled by Sodexo, the institutional food service behemoth known for dining programs at schools, senior centers, and prisons. Typically, ski resort food isn’t known for being flavorful or for holding much nutritional value, but it is, however, known for being painfully expensive.
The Plain Jane cafeteria at the lodge’s base is now Foodhall, serving breakfast and lunch with a more contemporary design and the basic American ski lodge menu: burgers, sandwiches, tenders, and fries. It’s better (ceramic plates have replaced paper plates and cafeteria trays; the burger comes with remoulade-style special sauce; and the fragrant and refreshing squash salad almost seems too fancy for the menu), but not exactly groundbreaking.
The resort's high-end mountain-top Italian restaurant, Cin Cin!, has a menu of Italian classics like Handmade Pappardelle with Short Rib Bolognese and a pan-seared branzino served with olives and capers (each of these dishes is $36). Accessible only by ski lift, the restaurant offers stunning vistas of the Hudson Valley, but preliminary reviews complained about poor service during the restaurant’s first couple months.
Windham also now has slope-side sushi from Okami by Mr. Lee at the Umbrella Bar, which sits in front of the base lodge and overlooks the mountain. The petite menu includes the sushi essentials plus a handful of sakes and Japanese whiskies. Those dining spots join the already established restaurant Seasons, which features Mediterranean staples like shawarma and kebabs, as well as the members-only Windham Grill.
While the club is adding lots of amenities, it’s also taking away others—and none of it is sitting well with the surrounding community. The popular Windham Mountain Bike Park, a popular trail-biking destination that has hosted the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup several times over the last two decades, permanently closed in October as part of the restructuring.
Moves like this have driven locals like Dennis Malles away. Malles, a Hudson Valley native uses the mountains in the summer months for mountain biking. Under the new rebranding, Windham won’t be an option for him.
“It’s heartbreaking because there is a lot of history in the mountain bike community. I feel like we are getting pushed out and it’s very upsetting,” Malles tells Thrillist.
Others aren’t thrilled by the changes either and they’re letting the resort know in the most brutal court of public opinion—social media. On Reddit and Instagram, users skewered the resort for the recent rebranding.
“Yeah there’s a ton of money in NYC and those people want to go on nice vacations…but the skiing just isn’t good enough to justify an experience like that,” one Reddit user said.
On an October Instagram post announcing major changes and service tiers, users sounded off calling it “the downgrade NO ONE asked for.” Another said that a “semi private open to the public makes total sense if you’re a f******g moron.”
It’s not the only change that the general public clearly loathed. In January, the resort tested out two-day passes rather than day passes. The rollout, to Seamans’s own admission, was confusing. Windham quickly backtracked on the decision.
“It’s kind of odd to me. Windham is a nice mountain but it feels like they’re trying to compare themselves to Vail, Aspen, or Killington. It blows my mind they’re going this route,” Malles says.
After all, the ski season on the East Coast is usually on its last legs by March, while ski seasons can run into the late spring out west. In Utah, resorts like Snowbird had powder days in late April last year. Skiers hit the slopes on July 4th weekend four years ago in Squaw Valley.
Once a state staple for the regional skier and New York's day-trip audience, Windham was once a top choice. It was small, charming, and reasonably priced—day passes for the general public are at $95—the cheapest in the region, but it also boasts the fewest trails during peak season at 52. If you're willing to open your wallet to become a Windham member, why not fly out west every weekend?
Windham Mountain Club is banking on the belief that the expanded year-round activities, which you don’t get at conventional clubs, is worth the price tag. In fact, Seamans doesn’t see the crowds fading in the coming months.
He expects that the resort will have 200 families as members by the end of the month. Most of them pre-existing members bought in at the new price point, he says (but refused to disclose the specific figures). He does stress that the membership fee is 80 percent refundable if you choose to leave the club.
For the local or casual day-tripper, the charm of small regional mountains as a pillar of the community is all but gone. Other regional mountains including Hunter and Belleayre are left to pick up the slack as the hubs for outdoor activities.
Even with the swath of new activities, upgraded dining, and shorter lines the new owners have planned as part of its new strategy, it’s still questionable whether New York’s elite will be willing to pay the price.
As one Reddit user put it: “You’re Windham, not Vail, get over yourself.”