There are many stories appended to Cardrona Valley entrepreneur John Lee's can-do narrative. So many, in fact, that they demanded a book be written. Shane Gilchrist reports.
"Most people see what is, few see what can be.''
It's a quote particularly liked by John Lee, who took a childhood ambition to farm in Cardrona Valley and ran a long way with it.
Honoured this year with a CNZM (Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit) for his services to business and tourism, Lee might be described as a humble, quiet man, yet he is also an entrepreneur whose schemes and dreams have played out on the mountains above his beloved Cardrona Valley.
Initially motivated by a concern to arrest the decline of the area, Lee has played a key hand in turning it into a thriving tourist destination, a playground for skiers and petrol-heads alike.
Among the enterprises established by Lee, Cardrona Alpine Resort (as it is now known), the Snow Farm cross-country skifield and the Southern Hemisphere Proving Grounds inject about $6 million in wages into the regional economy, as well as an estimated "local spend'' of about $7 million.
There are many stories appended to Lee's can-do narrative, so many, in fact, that they demanded a book be written. Enter Otago Daily Times agribusiness reporter Sally Rae and long-standing illustrations editor Stephen Jaquiery.
The result is The Snow Farmer: John Lee of the Cardrona Valley. It's a tale of the extraordinary energy of not only Lee, but also his wife Mary.
"This is as much Mary's story as it is John's, even if she is keen to keep the focus on him,'' says Rae, who adds the biggest challenge in writing the book was having to deal with such a "vast reservoir'' of stories and information.
"John had presented his memoirs to Penguin Random House, who could see the bones of a good story. They contacted us early last year and, although I was flattered by the approach, I initially dismissed the idea, thinking I didn't have enough time to do it.
"However, I thought meeting John couldn't hurt. And spending an hour so with John at his house in Wanaka in March last year, I couldn't help but be captivated by him and his story,'' Rae says.
"John is not the sort of person to blow his own trumpet. All he wanted to do was make the Cardrona Valley economically sustainable, to keep families there.''
Three decades after Lee ended his hands-on involvement with Cardrona Alpine Resort, his grassroots approach can still be felt, according to the skifield's general manager, Bridget Legnavsky.
Legnavsky has been at Cardrona since 1993, when she arrived as a ski instructor fresh out of university. By then the business had been to sold to the Melbourne-based Veall family (in 1988); although she didn't work directly under Lee, she still felt his influence within the culture of the organisation.
"A lot of people who had worked with John were still there,'' Legnavsky reflects.
"And John was very pioneering, brave and innovative. He just got things done. That's something he passed on to his staff and it carried on. He was also very family orientated and treated his workers as part of his family.
"His leadership style and spirit has continued through the decades at Cardrona. I think both John and Mary have been really driven to keep the Cardrona Valley alive.''
Jaquiery says Lee's mantra of build it first, answer questions later, "that real No 8 wire stuff'', would probably leave some horrified. Yet it was effective.
"He and a friend built the Cardrona skifield road without engineers, all the while he continued to farm. Also, John would go out and grade the Crown Range Road - without permission - in order to keep the ski field going.''
Wanaka-based economist Nick Brown says the district is "hugely'' in John Lee's debt.
The 195,000 skier days that Cardrona and Snow Farm provide annually to non-local domestic and foreign skiers translates into local spending of about $47 million, according to Brown.
In terms of visitor numbers to the district, of the 960,000 total visitor nights during July to September each year, about 625,000 are international. More than one-third of these are linked to the three enterprises Lee initiated in Cardrona Valley, particularly Cardrona Alpine Resort.
Lee has also had other less obvious impacts.
For example, when businesswoman Desiree Whitaker raised the idea of building a whisky distillery on a block of land opposite the Cardrona Alpine Resort entrance, she was advised by the Queenstown Lakes District Council to "go find John Lee, he'll help you''.
Yet Lee did not do well academically. Held back for a second year in standard two at Oamaru South School, and in a constant struggle with several other boys for the 33rd place of the 33 pupils in form 4C at Waitaki Boys' High School, he was pulled out of school midway through the year, his father deciding it was doing "absolutely no good''.
Mustering in the high country, mainly in Cardrona Valley, was John's working life for the next 11 years, albeit with breaks for compulsory military training, studies at Lincoln College and a few seasons spent shearing.
A flirtation with academia "and another stint away from the land'' came at the insistence of an old family friend.
In 1960, Lee headed to Knox College (with his sheepdog, which he kept sharp by herding ducks at nearby Dunedin Botanic Garden). He may have broadened his cultural horizons at the University of Otago, but he failed all his examinations. Regardless of the results, he went back for a second year and managed to gain a pass in economics.
However, it was clear academic life held no future for Lee. He returned to Cardrona where, in the late 1960s, at the age of 28, he bought the family farm, Waiorau, from his parents, Bob and Daisy.
By the time Lee married Mary Atley in 1969, the population of Cardrona Valley had dwindled to 21 residents, the number of farms in the valley had halved from 14 to seven, rural mail delivery was down to two days a week, the corrugated gravel valley road was being further downgraded and the school bus had been terminated.
With an eye to the long-term sustainability of Cardrona Valley, knowing farming alone was not going to boost numbers in the area, the Lees purchased Mt Cardrona Station in 1970.
A tussock-covered hill run across the valley from Waiorau, bleak and seemingly unappealing, the property had been put on the market by an owner who considered it too cold and uneconomic to continue farming.
Lee was not the first to ponder the idea. The Mount Cook Company had spied the potential for a ski field on Mt Cardrona some years before.
There were certainly advantages. The mountain had a large north-facing basin above 1600m. And though the property was a pastoral lease it, significantly, had the bonus of a freehold clause.
At the time, there were questions about the need for another skifield in the Queenstown Lakes area, given Coronet Peak was well-established near Queenstown and Treble Cone, enthusiastically supported by Wanaka residents, was under way west of Wanaka.
Undeterred, Lee identified what he saw as a niche in the market, a field targeting beginner skiers.
Unlike Lee's later mammoth battle to gain consent for a Nordic cross-country ski area across the valley at Waiorau, on the Pisa Range, getting consent to establish Cardrona was straightforward: four months after applying to the Lake County Council for a change of zoning the project was approved.
In 1980 the Cardrona Ski Area was officially opened. From its humble beginnings, a small club-type operation offering skiers a 1200m rope tow and two small huts, it grew significantly in 1985 when a public float brought an injection of capital and chairlifts.
But Lee was getting itchy feet. Secretly, he had always regarded Cardrona as a stepping stone to developing a cross-country skiing venture. So he gradually sold a 20% holding in Cardrona over several years for "a couple of million''.
It took Lee nearly 20 years to gain the necessary consent for the pioneering Snow Farm development.
Eventually, in return for relinquishing 4000ha to the New Zealand public, under management of the Department of Conservation, he was able to freehold 2700ha of his better farming country and develop the cross-country skiing facility and the vehicle and tyre-testing facility on the Pisa Range now known as Southern Hemisphere Proving Grounds.
The proving grounds allow motor companies to test machines, tyres and related systems in snow, ice and winter driving conditions.
To make themselves more available to testing teams, the Lees moved up to the mountain in 1997, once the youngest of their three children, Sam, had left school. Initially, they returned to the Waiorau farmhouse for the summer, but eventually swapped the spacious homestead for a small apartment in the Snow Farm building. The view at 1500m above sea level was good enough to keep the couple there for more than a decade.
In 2005, the proving-ground business was sold to a group of Christchurch-based businessmen for $24 million in a deal that did not include any land and provided a good return on investment for the friends and partners who had financially and personally supported the Lees.
It also provided the funds for son Sam to design and build Snow Park, the world's first dedicated terrain park.
A separate company (Sam was managing director; John a director), the facility catered for a burgeoning international snowboarding population, including various Winter Olympic medallists who demanded big jumps and obstacles to test their skills. Having opened in 2003, the park was sold to SHPG in 2013 and is now used for functions and driver training.
For John Lee (80), life is a lot quieter these days.
"Age is catching up; he has slowed down a lot, and his passion for pursuing projects has dimmed,'' Rae writes, adding John and Mary now live in a house overlooking Lake Wanaka.
"But there's still a sparkle in his eye whenever he talks about the Cardrona Valley.''
Though her husband is no longer working on any projects, Mary is working on trying to get a cycleway from Cardrona to Wanaka. In her late 60s, she remains a "mountain goat; famous for her endless energy'', Rae notes.
"Come the first sniff of snow of the season her excitement is like that of a child. She still skis as much as she can, with no plans to give up.''
Always the conversationalist, Lee still enjoys a chat at a couple of bars in the area.
These include, of course, the Cardrona Hotel, the pub he helped save.
Oh, but that's another story.
The book
The Snow Farmer: John Lee of the Cardrona Valley by Sally Rae (photographs by Stephen Jaquiery) will be published on July 1 (Penguin Random House, $50).
The book launch is at Cardrona Alpine Resort on Thursday.
