Mammoth Properties celebrates fifty years in business
Longtime broker Dave Buckman reflects on his time in Mammoth.
Mammoth Properties, which includes Mammoth Mountain Reservations, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
This week, we spoke to semi-retired Broker Dave Buckman, who took over the company in the late 1970s.
Buckman said Mammoth Properties was the first real estate company in Mammoth Lakes. “The Knolls, Slopes, Vistas … Mammoth Properties sold those lots before there were any homes on them,” he said.
Buckman grew up in Newport Beach and he and his buddy John Thill did sort of a Hope and Crosby routine in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, traveling all over California selling real estate.
Buckman and Labradoodle Kobe, former Mammoth Properties greeter, at Buckman’s residence in Fort Mohave, Ariz. Photos courtesy: Sheet staff.
Thill was a skier, and once he visited Mammoth on a ski trip, told Buckman about it. “I’d never heard of it,” said Buckman, “but he knew I was an outdoors guy.” Thill bought Mammoth Properties and convinced Buckman to join him in Mammoth.
Buckman served as the broker and ultimately bought the business when Thill decided to move on.
As Buckman said, doing business in Mammoth means experiencing the highest highs and the lowest lows.
He survived the fuel crisis of the late ‘70s when people were convinced that no one would drive up from L.A. He reminisced about selling Mountainback units when interest rates were 17 percent. He survived the 1980 earthquake.
The key to his survival. 1.) “We’re conservative people,” he said, describing he and his wife of 55 years, Gerrie, whom he met in high school. 2.) You’ve got to broaden the business. This is why he branched into the reservations business in 1983. He also got into property management.
“During big snow years, we’d employ 17 or 18 housekeepers,” he said. He estimated he had as many as 40 or 50 employees at one time.
When asked about the current hot-button topic of single family rentals, Buckman said, “It’s not a new issue …
the Town’s lost millions of dollars in revenue by not having an organized [rental] program. It would be a good thing—but you have to regulate it.”
“People have always been renting homes [since I moved here],” said Buckman.
During his tenure in Mammoth (he still owns property here and visits frequently), Buckman served on the Mammoth Unified School District Board, was a little league coach, was President of the MHS Boosters Club and raised both of his children here.
Outside the shop on Main St., from left: Toberman, Tracy, Walker, Knadler and Daniels.
In regard to Mammoth politics, Buckman said he was concerned throughout the years about Town Council.
“When Intrawest came to town … we didn’t have Councilmen who had the experience to deal with these high-powered folks. They [Council] wanted to do the right thing, but maybe they weren’t quite prepared … they didn’t know what they were up against.”
These days, Sara Knadler is the Owner/Broker of Mammoth Properties. Realtors include Knadler, Lauren Tracy, Kit Muhs, Charlie Daniels, Erica Walker and Todd Toberman. Jeff DeSalvo handles the reservations side of the business.
Erica Walker said she came over to Mammoth Properties in December, 2014 . She has twenty years experience in the real estate business and has lived in Mammoth since 1976. “I came over because of my connection to Sara,” she said, noting that Knadler also has twenty-plus years in the biz.
Come meet the team on July 4 during their “BBQ shindig” outside their office on Main Street between Napa and the Post Office on the Frontage road.
