Two New York partners say they can turn the Peaks Resort in a new direction, give it a $45 million renovation, transform it into a world-class ski hotel, and make money in the bargain.

Their names are Adam Hochfelder and Keith Schwebel, and they are the latest investors to sign contracts to buy Telluride’s largest hotel. Since the Peaks went on the market nine months ago, two other sets of buyers have gone under contract only to walk away from the hotel.

But where other buyers balked, Hochfelder and Schwebel say they can close the deal.
“We will close in May,” Hochfelder said in an e-mail.

Hochfelder said the Greenwich Group is arranging financing and debt for the deal. The Peaks’ owner, the Blackstone Group, is asking a reported $45 million.

If the partners do close on the hotel, they’ll become the latest in a string of owners and managers with grand plans for the grand, but problematic, hotel.

Since the Peaks opened in 1992, others have struggled to turn a profit running a large, full-service hotel in a tiny ski town where annual hotel occupancy rates hover around 50 percent. The hotel needs millions of dollars’ worth of work. And some investors and developers say the Peaks must be converted to a luxury time-share or hotel/condo to stay afloat financially.

But Hochfelder and Schwebel said they have no plans to sell off the hotel’s 170 rooms, and they say they “haven’t really studied” whether they could develop the empty lots that would come with buying the Peaks.

They said the hotel’s value lay not in its pieces, but its totality and location. The partners want to invest, they said, for the long haul.

“We are only focused on creating a spectacular hotel and experience at the Peaks,” Hochfelder wrote.

They wouldn’t say which hotel chain might sign on to manage or brand the Mountain Village hotel, which is the largest in the region and a major force in Telluride’s economy.

“We can’t make any announcements yet but we are bringing in a leading five-star hotel brand, a sensational interior designer and a renowned restaurateur with multiple restaurant brands,” Schwebel said. “We will also have one of the world’s leading spa brands coming to The Peaks.”

But years of revolving owners and different management companies scuffed the shine from the Peaks Resort, and today, the hotel yearns for a full-scale renovation and new brand to restore its reputation, the partners said.

“After multiple owners and management companies, the hotel has dropped out of the top 10 ski resorts in the U.S.,” Hochfelder wrote. “We have plans to create the best retail, lobby and guest experience in North America. That, coupled with the incredible renovation and five-star brand that we are bringing in, along with world-famous restaurants, will help us move back towards the Number 1 ranking.”

That could prove a tall order, no matter who buys the Peaks.

Last spring, the Blackstone Group, an equity firm that owns the hotel, closed down the Peaks for an extensive, multi-million-dollar remodel. Work crews had already carted out the furniture, yanked out electric fixtures and plumbing, when Blackstone announced that it was selling the hotel. Work stopped, almost in mid-hammer blow, and buyers from investment firms and hotel chains began touring the hotel.

Fairmont Hotels and a New York investment firm were the first buyers to land a contract, for a reported $46 million. But the deal fell through in December, and two Telluride investors bit at the property. After that contract failed to close, in stepped Hochfelder and Schwebel.

It’s not known how much they’re paying for the hotel, nor whether they have any private or corporate investors backing them. But they offered this one promise:

“It will be one of the most stunning hotels in North America,” Schwebel said.

[Editor’s Note: A story on the Peaks that further examines the hotel’s newest bidders appears in the Business section of today’s New York Times]