The Park City Chamber/Bureau held its annual luncheon at The Chateaux Deer Valley on Wednesday, a chance to celebrate the business community’s successes during the past year and to celebrate two of its most cherished members.
Swiss hospitality in Park City
The Chamber/Bureau’s Myles Rademan Spirit of Hospitality Award this year was given to Adolph Imboden, the restaurateur and skier who served the Park City community for more than four decades before closing his restaurant, Adolph’s, in April.
“I think you all know he has spent a lifetime welcoming guests to his iconic restaurant in the most authentic way imaginable,” said Rademan, the award’s namesake and its first recipient. “His career is an admirable model for hospitality for all of us to share and to honor.”
Leslie Thatcher, news director at KPCW, shared her very personal connection to Imboden. She worked at the restaurant for many years, beginning in 1982 when it was located at the Park City municipal golf course. She talked about his passion for Swiss cuisine, ski racing and for the community he called home.
“I am certainly grateful for all the fun and memories,” she said. “Adolph, congratulations on bringing your Swiss hospitality to our Utah mountains.”
Jim Gaddis, a close friend of Imboden’s who himself was recently named the Park City Rotary Club’s Volunteer Citizen of the Year, fondly remembered their many years of skiing together and the trip back to Switzerland their families took to visit Imboden’s hometown. What has always struck him, dating back to when they first met in the 1970s, Gaddis said, was Imboden’s work ethic.
“At his restaurant he was the chef, the janitor, the buyer, the maître d, the waiter and when necessary he did the dishes,” Gaddis said. “And if he ran out of food on a busy night he’d even run over to the grocery. His was a one-of-a-kind restaurant.”
Imboden joked about his arrival in Park City, when he was first offered a job at the new Deer Valley Resort.
“They called me and said they needed a food and beverage manager in Park City,” Imboden said. “And the first thing I said was, ‘Where is Park City?'”
Imboden thanked the many people who worked with him at his restaurant over the years and for the memories they and the community helped him create.
“I can’t tell you how many great times I had,” he said. “Park City is just an incredible town.”
Park City’s ‘cool uncle’
The Chamber/Bureau created a new award this year, the Community Impact Award, and its inaugural recipient was Charlie Sturgis, whose leadership at the Mountain Trails Foundation helped turn the Park City area into a mountain biking mecca. Sturgis stepped down as executive director of the nonprofit in June after 11 years in the position.
Lora Smith, who took over as executive director, said “Charlie’s ability to captivate an audience and bring people together under the umbrella of his good ideas” deserves much of the credit for the growth of the trail system in the area.
“Charlie spent 40 years in the outdoor industry, and as far as I can tell he is spending his retired life making this world a better place to play,” she said. “Some people call him a founding father of Park City’s trail system, but it occurs to me a more appropriate title would be the cool uncle of Park City’s outdoor lifestyle.”
Jennifer Wesselhoff, president and CEO of the Park City Chamber/Bureau, said the trail system was one of the reasons she decided to leave her previous job in Sedona, Arizona, for Park City. And when she first arrived and began to meet with stakeholders around the community, many of them suggested the next person she should talk to was Charlie Sturgis.
“Charlie has introduced thousands of people to climbing and mountain biking,” she said. “He is an adventurer, a teacher, a mentor, and advocate and really just a positive orb for Park City.”
Wesselhoff and Smith both pointed to Sturgis’ famous “10 seconds of kindness” mantra as just one of the many ways he has positively impacted the community.
“When Charlie leaves a room,” Smith said, “he leaves people better than he found them.”
Sturgis said he is grateful for the recognition and the support the community has shown Mountain Trails Foundation over the years.
“I marvel when I think about the Mountain Trails journey,” he said. “When you look back at the ’80s, there were 14 miles of trails. Today we’re talking 200 miles that MTF manages, 400 miles in the county and even outside of the county there are probably 1,000 miles of trails accessible to a visitor.
“There is no direction you can look without seeing a trail on some hillside.”
Sturgis joked about the not-exactly-epic origin of the Mountain Trails Foundation, which amounted to two guys sitting around in 1990.
“One guy said he had money, the other guy said he had shovels, and out of that we had Mountain Trails,” he said. “So that was pretty cool.”
The nonprofit, he said, has come a long way from “a few hippies in the woods.”
“I couldn’t be more proud to say I was part of this and I am so thankful to the community, to my wife and daughter and I’m really thankful to the (Mountain Trails) team,” he said. “Thank you for the privilege to be able to do this.”