May 01, 2009 Progress Report



The latest photographic product of Bear Dance, this time taken professionally by Longviews Studios

Technically speaking, Bear Dance is not a corporation. But to steal a phrase from the corporate world, last month we went public. No, we’re not being traded on the DOW or NASDAQ, and we don’t have shareholders holding us to account. Rather, our public launch was in a slightly different form, at the mid-month point of May. We opened our doors to the local community for the first time in 54 months of construction.

 
Sure, there have been tours, and quite a few people around the valley (and even the United States) have gotten a peek at the progress over that time period; but those tours had simply created morsels of limited information from which a gossip-hungry little community could glean. And just like the reaction when a privately-held company makes its long-anticipated public transition, we found out just how much pent-up curiosity and interest we had in Bear Dance.


Once called Yellowstone, now called Looking Glass. The new name is based on this scene through the full window wall toward Bigfork Bay.

We had been coordinating for the last couple months with the Bigfork Chamber of Commerce to let Bear Dance be the location of their monthly Sundowner event. Typically, it’s a gathering of Chamber members and a smattering of local citizens, once a month, to facilitate interaction between Bigfork’s business owners. Most people in the community don’t even know about it; much less shuffle their schedule to ensure they can make it. But once the Chamber website posted the location of their May Sundowner and the word got out, the flood of interest began. It wasn’t confined to Bigfork, either. One worker said he was at a son’s soccer game in Whitefish a few days prior, and people were talking about going (FYI: Those likely aren’t Bigfork Chamber members or Bigfork residents)!


The shower in Red Rock’s (previously
Boulder’s) upstairs suite was ready for the
Sundowner.

And that was exactly what we wanted. We’ve been seeing some exciting strides with our new marketing firm, Intercommunications, and as they would readily acknowledge, the strength of our community’s word of mouth and social networking (who says gossip can’t be a good thing?) is one of our greatest assets. So we wanted to capitalize on all that pent-up curiosity and give them a “WOW” that would keep them talking all summer. And fall.

So we worked like crazy to get Boulder and Yellowstone – er, Red Rock and Looking Glass…sorry, new names from those fantastic marketing folks – anyway, we wanted to make sure our waterfront residences were ready to shine. Granted, we were still six weeks away from the official real estate kickoff, and there was still much to do yet, but we were definitely far enough along to show off a little.


The dining area of Looking Glass was cleaned up
and ready for an evening of guests.
So the two weeks prior looked like a constant scene from that Extreme Home Makeover show: cleaning ladies crawling over plumbers, tile guys, trim carpenters, masons, painters, granite installers, electricians, cabinet installers and even iron workers. Everyone knew about the event, and everyone worked superbly in unison to get us ready for our goal.

The only thing we couldn’t control was the one thing that seemed to be determined to work against us: The Weather. For ten days prior to the event, we saw either heavy rain or light rain, and very little sunshine.


Is it really mid-May? Notice the muddy ground, rain
jackets and umbrellas. But more than a few people braved
the inclement weather to satisfy their curiosity.
Not ideal conditions for an open house on an active construction site. But we built our plan, made a makeshift sidewalk to the waterfront buildings, roped off the muddy areas, then braced ourselves. The Chamber folks had estimated we’d see around 140 people – far more than they had ever seen at a Chamber event – and we knew we weren’t equipped to handle more than about 200. What we were afraid of was seeing 400 or more.


This was before it really got crowded, and
already we were filling up Red Rock

As it turned out, perhaps the weather helped us in managing that end number. We estimate there were roughly 210- 220 guests, more than doubling the largest crowd ever seen at a Sundowner, and those endured a heavy downpour right in the middle of it. In spite of that, their enthusiasm was undeterred. Those of us who have been involved in the project from the beginning tried our best to be flies on the wall and listen to the comments. Most of them were quite simple: Wow. Sometimes people would find their words in a bit more creative way: It’s like looking at a Rembrandt. These are a work of art. Either way they put it, the comments confirmed the success of the event.


Moving right along with our landscaping, these waterfront patios will be a critical selling feature of Bear Dance, seen here in front of Red Rock. We’ll soon be finished with all our waterfront landscaping.

A phrase that is nearly cliché anymore – hit the ground running – is what we’re hoping we’ve achieved by hosting this Sundowner. The sales season is getting underway (our agent, John Pearson, is already showing the property ahead of schedule), and in spite of what the pundits say about our national economy, there still seems to be a buzz in this area. Contractors are slowly beginning to build again. Real estate is slowly beginning to move again. Perhaps we won’t hit the frenzied pace that peaked out last summer, and nearly all the locals would agree that’s a good thing. But there is optimism that our area could be among the first nationally to rebound. You sure can’t argue with Bigfork and Flathead Lake in the summertime (actually, in our humble opinions, you can’t argue with Bigfork and Flathead Lake anytime), and we know from experience that once we get people to see Bear Dance, they’ll be hooked.