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Mike Lawrence

Call Mike Lawrence at 871-4203 or e-mail mlawrence@steamboatpilot.com.

The ads for homes have no homes in them.

Instead there are brightly painted cowgirl boots and a braying buck splashed in full color across pages of recent editions of the Steamboat Pilot & Today. Some ads show two people relaxing in a heated pool while the snow falls around them.

None of the three ads - for new developments One Steamboat Place, Alpine Mountain Ranch & Club and Wildhorse Meadows, respectively - contain a word about unit size, design or cost. The closest a reader gets to seeing what the ads are selling is a small portion of the Wildhorse ad, which shows an artist's rendering of Trailhead Lodge. The lodge is a five-story, 90-condo hotel that, if approved and built, would be a cornerstone of the 47-acre Wildhorse Meadows development that the Steamboat Springs City Council approved in July.

Trailhead Lodge publicly begins the city approval process Thursday at a meeting of the Steamboat Springs Planning Commission. The One Steamboat Place development at the base area is still working toward city approval. Initial construction at the county-approved Alpine Mountain Ranch & Club began this fall near Lake Catamount, but much of that development also is not built.

So it's no wonder the ads don't show any homes - as of now, the developers only have one thing to sell.

Image.

As Steamboat undergoes a flood of construction that will begin this spring and last for the next several years - Wildhorse alone is a phased process that could take a decade for completion - the city will be changed not only physically, but also conceptually, as developers and real estate agents try to create an image they can sell to buyers.

"Everyone has to find their signature brand, their Steamboat," said Samantha Johnston, regional advertising director for WorldWest LLC, the parent company of this newspaper. "And all the brands are different."

But many of the brands have similar themes, such as cowgirl boots and antlers. Rustic, quirky, cozy, country living - but with upscale amenities, such as Alpine Mountain Ranch's option of a charter membership in Catamount Ranch & Club, or the "fine dining, spa, room service and ski valets" offered by One Steamboat Place.

How the prevalence of such amenities coincides with preservation of "the lifestyle you come to Steamboat for" - as an ad for The Porches reads - will be interesting to watch in days ahead, as images of a Shangri-La Steamboat are sold to bidders.

Image is a highly-valued commodity for Steamboat residents. When residents attending City Council meetings question a development or decry a plan for growth, image - and what people believe their Steamboat is or isn't - often is the emotional sticking point.

I have to hide my smile when somebody at such a meeting inevitably says, "We're not Aspen. We're not Vail. We're Steamboat."

Is there a difference? Will there be in a few years?

The answer to those questions will be found as much in Steamboat's physical growth as in the advertising, imagery and resulting buyers that come with it.

A comparison can be found in a full-page residential ad that ran in the Steamboat Pilot & Today on Dec. 31. Displaying The Lake Village in Hayden, the ad listed home prices, square footage and rooms while showing pictures of various home styles and the subdivision's overall layout.

How practical.

How jejune.

- To reach Mike Lawrence, call 871-4203

or e-mail mlawrence@steamboatpilot.com