A Peak Experience
Our Publisher reflects on 25 years of Mountain Living
When I started at Mountain Living, I never could have predicted all the changes we would experience as a brand and as an industry. You see, celebrating 25 years as a home design magazine is no easy feat, and I’m always reminding myself of that fact.
We’ve come out the other side of a recession, transitioned through several acquisitions, completely redesigned the magazine, overhauled our website, produced dozens of events, and done everything in-between (waddling through the construction of the Mountain Living Dream Home during my pregnancy comes to mind).
“This was the first issue I worked on when I started in 2001. I remember my first week at Mountain Living I went to Vail for some meetings wearing a black suit and everyone asked if I was a tax collector! I immediately got the picture and wore my jeans to meetings after that.”
While some other national magazines have sadly departed this space, ML has prevailed. I’m always asked “why?”—and quite frankly, it’s our niche. Simply put, we are giving mountain dreamers, enthusiasts, buyers and dwellers a sense of place. Mountain Living provides an insider’s view into high country living—in the most luxurious way, I must add. After almost 18 years at the helm, my goal has always been to connect our readers with the best design professionals and products. “How do I create a space where our readers and partners come together to build those dreams?” That question continues to wake me up each morning with pure excitement over the creative challenge of making that happen.
“The dream home series was such an incredible experience with partners who became family. We were doing something very groundbreaking in showing our readers how you could build sustainable (LEED-certified) luxurious homes.”
I’m grateful for all the experiences ML has afforded me; even the most challenging years brought me joy because we never gave up. Mostly, I’m grateful for every person who continues to invest in our success: our loyal subscribers, our followers, our advertisers who stuck around during the gnarly climbs, and of course, my team of absolute hammer heads (mountain lingo). Their dedication, professionalism, creativity and tenacity amaze me.
“We lovingly referred to this one as the ‘glass-house cover’. At the time we were redesigning the magazine, but we were also highlighting mountain modern architecture for the first time. It’s always a risk to run something on the cover that is such a departure from your norm, but it ended up being a wild success.”
I’ve learned to enjoy not just the summit but also the trek along the way. Keep reading, and thank you for making the past 25 years such a peak experience.
