Timberline Lodge pioneer Richard Kohnstamm dies at 80

By Published On: April 27th, 2006Comments Off on Timberline Lodge pioneer Richard Kohnstamm dies at 80

Timberline Lodge pioneer Richard Kohnstamm dies at 80{mosimage}PORTLAND, Ore. – U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame member Richard Kohnstamm, the visionary who pioneered summer racing camps on Mount Hood’s glacier and transformed Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood from a shuttered Depression Era hotel into the nation’s first ski area to be designated a National Historic Landmark, has died.

Kohnstamm, who was born and educated in New York City, managed the renowned lodge from 1955 until 1992 when his son Jeff took over. Kohnstamm died Friday night at age 80.

“I’ve known him when I was an athlete in the sixties and we had a couple of training camps at Timberline, was [U.S.] alpine director, now as president and CEO of the [U.S.] ski team and as a fellow Hall of Fame member. Richard not only was a greater supporter of the ski team, he was quite a visionary,” said USSA President and CEO Bill Marolt.

“He wanted to help us and he did everything he could to make sure we had good training … and we even stayed at the Timberline Lodge a couple of times, and that was great.”

To this day, Marolt said, U.S. Ski Team and U.S. Snowboarding athletes train at Mount Hood during the preseason, following what Kohnstamm helped pioneer five decades ago.

Kohnstamm won a bidding process to manage to reopen Timberline, a massive stone and timber structure, which was built in the 1930s as a Depression Era public project and had closed in the early fifties. The U.S. Forest Service, which owned the property, chose Kohnstamm and, without experience as an innkeeper, he set about revitalizing the hotel. In 1992, he was cited for making Timberline Lodge a unique destination and was elected to the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame in Ishpeming, Mich.

Speaking of his father, who graduated from Columbia University with a social worker’s degree, son Kevin told The Oregonian, Portland’s daily, “He had no hotel experience, he had no restaurant experience, he had no ski resort experience, and he had no business experience. But he loved places and he loved people and Timberline.”

Kohnstamm opened the first summer racing camp on Mount Hood in 1956. When skiing began to gain popularity in the late fifties, he was positioned to take advantage; he poured money into upgrading the hotel to a luxury property with superb dining and food service.

“R.L. was our, sort of, Walt Disney,” said lodge spokesman Jon Tullis, calling him “a visionary, a wonderful leader, a wonderful boss.”

He is survived by his widow and four sons. A memorial service is scheduled for Thursday at 2 p.m. at Temple Beth Israel in Portland with a private service at a later date.

– USSA

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