Saddleback ski area sold to former UM professor

PORTLAND – Saddleback ski area has been sold to a former college professor who plans to open this fall with expanded snowmaking, new groomers and lower ticket prices, officials said Tuesday.

Archie “Bill” Berry of Farmington, who has skied at Saddleback since the 1980s and owns several condominiums on the mountain, purchased 8,000 acres including the state’s second-largest ski mountain for an undisclosed sum.

He plans to operate the ski area in Rangeley as a family business with his son, who has run Titcomb mountain and has worked at Sugarloaf USA.

“They’ve got a running start. They know the property and they’ve loved it for years. They have a wonderful reputation,” said Katherine “Kitty” Breen, a member of the Massachusetts family that sold the resort.

Saddleback, which went up for sale in 2001, originally went on the market for $12 million with Sotheby’s International Realty. But the price had been reduced to $7.5 million by the time it sold.

The property includes Saddleback Lake, a mountain bowl cradled by high peaks, and 41 downhill trails on 4,120-foot Saddleback Mountain.

Berry, a former geology professor at the University of Maine, took out an option last month and the deal closed on Tuesday.

Breen’s father, Donald Breen, who turns 74 next month, is a Massachusetts pharmaceutical manufacturer who bought Saddleback 25 years ago and has been trying to retire from the ski industry for several years.

The ski area has had several tough years, and Katherine Breen said she hoped that the Berry family can build it back up.

Breen said some skiers stopped coming over the past five years as the family put its energy into reaching a settlement with the federal government over the Appalachian Trail and then on selling the property.

The Breen family reached a financial settlement with the Interior Department in 2000 that created a buffer zone to protect the Appalachian Trail while leaving the owners free to expand skiing in the future. The property went on the market a year later.

Berry did not immediately return a phone call, but he said in a statement that he wants to rebuild Saddleback as a family resort. He said adult lift tickets will be reduced to $35 on weekends and holidays for the coming season.