Out of Hibernation

At a London party last year, Harvey Dow Gibson, president of Manhattan's Manufacturers Trust Co., fell to chatting with a U.S. Army officer about skiing. -"Ever been to North Conway, New Hampshire?" the officer asked. Gibson said he had. The officer had lyric memories: "Wonderful skiing there on Cranmore Mountain. Grand hotel they have, too--the Eastern Slope Inn. And have you ever heard the Swiss orchestra at the inn? Wonderful orchestra!"

"Yes," said Gibson, "I've heard it."

"Well, tell me," said the officer, "who's that old grey-haired bastard who gets up and plays with the band?"

Banker Gibson (who delights in telling the story) gave him a jaw-dropping answer.

Down the Mountain. Few skiers are aware that the sober, dignified head of the nation's sixth biggest bank is the owner of North Conway's sport facilities as well as its No. 1 caper-cutter. In seven years his capers have changed North Conway from a quiet little summer resort (which went into hibernation every October) into the nation's busiest ski center.

As a boy Gibson often whizzed down Cranmore Mountain on a wooden sled. But it wasn't until long after he'd made Who's Who, from a standing start as floor sweeper for an express company, that a chance remark by a relative aroused his interest in skiing. Cranmore Mountain had the snow in winter and the slopes. So he bought it.

Gibson installed a $125,000 "Skimobile" invented by an employe. In the Skimobile's 180 miniature red & blue cable cars, skiers ride up the 2,052-foot mountain. Then Gibson developed 50 miles of downhill trails, hired famed skimeister Hannes Schneider (after he got him out of a Nazi concentration camp), built four new cottages and a "Swiss chalet" annex, converted an old inn into the Eastern Slope hotel. He lost $50,000 on the hotel for three years, until he hired Hotelman Lester Sprague to pull it out of the red.

Altogether Gibson has poured around $300,000 into his hobby (including $50,000 for a log base-station, new this season), has taken out his dividends in fun. A so-so skier (he hurt his knee cap seven years ago), he nevertheless likes to wrap himself in a huge sheepskin coat, clap on a cocky green Alpine hat, ride up the mountain and ski down (see cut). Nights he joins the orchestra in the Currier & Ives Room at the inn, plays one of his four mandolins and seven violins, including a glass one. Between numbers, he regales his guests with tales of how he worked his way through Bowdoin College by fiddling in a burlesque house.

Up with Sales. Last week North Conway was in the middle of its best season. The 250-bed Inn, where rates range up to a stiff $30 a day, had a waiting list of 2,000 names.

On weekends when skiing conditions are good, the special snow trains of the Boston & Maine railroad pour as many as 3,000 skiers into North Conway. They sleep in the Skimobile house and even in the village jail. And they wilt spend about $2,500,000 this season in the village stores.

But many a North Conway Yankee doesn't like what's happening. In tight-lipped down-east fashion, they object to "all this foreign element" from New York. They don't relish losing their wintertime leisure, just to make more money than they had ever dreamed of. Grumbled one: "We're so busy we don't even have time to look at that mountain any more."

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