Ketchum has been changing since 1936, when Union Pacific Railroad developed the Sun Valley Lodge on the former Brass Ranch, installed a few ski lifts on a nearby hill and opened for business.
Ketchum was a town in decline. The region’s lead and silver mines had been shut down along with the local smelter. In 1900, Ketchum was a wide spot in a dirt road with 301 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
By 1950, the population had more than doubled, reaching 757 residents in incorporated “Ketchum Village.”
Did the village lose its “character” because of the influx? No, it was just starting to evolve from a mining town with a side of sheep ranching to a bustling ski town.
Of course, some residents must have bemoaned the loss of the good old days when the smelter was belching lead-laden smoke and horses provided the main means of transportation. The rest were likely happy about the new jobs the new destination ski resort brought to town.
Steam forward to the late 1960s and 1970s, when Baby Boomers were ejected from their educational cocoons into a global oil crisis and recession and decided it would be nice to live somewhere they could work and ski.
They poured into Ketchum, a town without many paved streets, with cheaply built housing, four gas stations, a handful of stores, a shaky water system, a fire department that mostly saved foundations and a City Hall that was an old garage.
Fast forward to 2025. It’s changed—a lot. Of 25 single-family homes on the market, the cheapest is $2.1 million. That’s the price of entry into a single-family-home neighborhood. The most expensive home is $20 million.
Single-family homes were portrayed as sacred cows in the first public hearing on Ketchum’s new comprehensive plan draft. The plan calls for multifamily units to be allowed in single-family neighborhoods, part of a move designed to stimulate development of lower-cost housing.
Yet, the sacred-cow protectors also claimed to want more workforce housing in Ketchum—just not in their neighborhoods. They also claimed to want to help young people establish lives here.
Many members of the sacred-cow clan are Boomers who came to Ketchum, worked, retired, watched as their home values skyrocketed and apparently attributed that to some kind of genius that younger generations don’t possess.
A line delivered by Val Kilmer, who played Doc Holliday in the movie “Tombstone,” applies here. When the infamous gambler and gunfighter was dying and receiving last rites, he said, “It appears my hypocrisy knows no bounds.”
Today, just 9% of Ketchum’s workforce lives in Ketchum. It is popular to say that Ketchum isn’t Aspen. It’s not, it’s worse. Aspen, Colorado, is home to 20% of its workforce, a far larger percentage than Ketchum’s. The workers’ occupations range from doormen to doctors.
Ketchum already allows single-family homes up to 35 feet tall in the sacred-cow neighborhoods, and many sprawling homes have already been built to that height. Many are second homes, empty for much of the year. It’s doubtful that multiple living units in the same square footage would destroy the neighborhoods. They might, in fact, become more lively and attractive.
Ketchum residents should be careful what they wish for. Basic goods and services are gradually disappearing from the city, pushed south as far away as Twin Falls. Even goods ordered online won’t arrive in less than a week.
If Ketchum doesn’t want the services of doctors, dentists, nurses, teachers, police, firefighters, chefs, bartenders, accountants, architects, lawyers, snowplow drivers, mountain workers, mechanics, bankers or homecare workers, it will freeze single-family residential densities and stop working to develop affordable housing. Young successors to ski-town jobs and culture will be locked out.
The drawbridge will be up.
“Our View” represents the opinion of the newspaper editorial board, which is made up of members of its board of directors. Remarks may be directed to editorialboard@mtexpress.com.
Post a comment as anonymous
Report
Watch this discussion.
(16) comments
My favorite part of this, is the dig at Boomer logic. “Some kind of genius”. Thank you.
But the olds control this valley. And even though their cognition is declining, modern science is keeping them alive longer so unless a more serious plague comes through, I think we’re stuck. We’re stuck hearing every single one of them talk about the 70s as if any of us care.
The genius was holding a job down for half a century and making that mortgage payment every freaking month for thirty years. You should try it, get a job, sign the bottom line, or do you feel your entitled to a place to live...like, OMG, somebody buy it for me.
Ooh, so sensitive.
Jokes on you, I own my house. Lol omg okay like omg
...so compassionate, Saint Anne.
@saint anne ita juanita who owns her own house,
Have you become the wicked monster you love to rail against?
Sound like you paid cash and didn't work a lick in the valley.
And the fact that you think people younger than you who own property can’t advocate for those who struggle just really further reiterates the point why older generations just need to move on. I realize empathy wasn’t a thing in the 1960s, but it is today.
You`re a real saint.
All people want is the same opportunity.
People deserve to have the same opportunity. This is supposed to be the land of opportunity. But it isn`t. It`s now the land of Jared Kershner and Steve Miller. A land of bankers, relators and money-grubbing landlords. It`s time to battle for that opportunity. Many of the New Guard may feel like they have been screwed by the boomers, but my own belief is that most boomers feel a sense of duty to support the change that has to happen to bring equity to OUR society. Run for office, vote AOC, send $10 to Mayor Pete, do the hard work of making change happen and remember, there is at least one old boomer in Hailey that has your back.
Your use of the word "Equity" and other yardsign phrases just reinforces what was written in FUSION on March 25, 2025 in a piece called "The Poverty Of Progressive Abundance": "Liberalism’s mutation into an elaborate status game for affluent, bien-pensant climbers whose putative beliefs are almost entirely a matter of blaring fashionable catchphrases which signal their moral superiority while leaving unchanged the material conditions of those supposedly in need." Further, of what you speak is the "Tyranny of good intentions" so eloquently expressed by C. S. Lewis who wrote “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. .................."
The editorial arguing single family homes are the catalyst behind the north valley housing problem is very misguided and lacks basic knowledge of the Ketchum real estate market and 2025 economics.
A 3 bedroom/3 bath townhouse in a 32-unit Warm Springs complex will close soon at about $1.3 million. With an 80/20 loan, that is a $250,000 down payment for the buyers, followed by monthly payment of interest and principal of about $7000 month, plus HOA dues, property taxes and insurance. So this household would need to earn between $250K-$300K per year to afford a 3 bedroom Ketchum townhouse.
That is a far cry from the editorialist's argument that single family homes are the reason RN's, EMT's, teachers, dentists, chef's, mechanics, bartenders and snowplow drivers et al can't live in Ketchum. No wage earner in Blaine County can ever outbid someone looking for a second home or a place to retire. Granted, Ketchum has a big housing problem. But single family ownership is not the one to blame.
Good editorial.
People complain about anything new to the town yet never complain that their property values skyrocketed.
They want it “as it was when we moved here” which, of course, means that someone built a home for them that didn’t exist before.
Did you want Ketchum to stay as it was before the lodges were built? Or before the sun valley lodge was renovated? Or revert back to before Elkhorn was created?
It was nostalgic to remember when you would ride you horse from Brass Ranch to Pio. But 90% of owners would not be here today and they believe the Brass Ranch is fine shopping experience
People become journalists because they would rather argue with words than do analysis. The big lie of upzoning is that more condos at the Baldy bases will reduce housing costs for workers. When will we ever learn? We have 50 years of experience that this is not true. Tourists and second home owners will always outbid local workers for housing. Upzoning will make the problem it says it will solve even worse before it will increase the need for more low wage jobs to service the tourism growth it will create. That the IME is buying this lie is indicative of a lack of analysis.
Perry, i think what we're experiencing is newbies in local government as well as journalist. they import their values from places other than here. It's not about being old fashion, it's about new ways of exploitation, sort of like grifters, and the problem is they lack imagination.
If local workers have been unable to compete with tourist and second home money for 50 years, then why how did so many local workers afford to live here historically? As Dave noted, the vibes in town are very different because of this and the median age raising 10 years in Ketchum in a few short years speak to this not having been such a problem in the past.
Pretty much everyone I know agrees that the housing market for the past decade plus has been worse than it has been historically (which mimics most tourism economies; demographics and interests did change). I mean, I know multiple older service workers who “skied” year round and ended up with Ketchum properties. Some of them own multiple. Meanwhile, their younger coworkers are struggling to stay in the county long term.
If tourists buy second homes near Baldy base, dope. Then there will be less demand in more residential neighborhoods.
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In