Planning for Capon’s Future

Dear Capon Friends,

Capon has entered its 93rd season, and the Capon spirit that started with the vision, grit, and entrepreneurial inclinations of Lou & Virginia Austin has continued to thrive thanks to our dedicated guests, tireless co-workers, and lasting contributions of the Austin family past and present. 

In days gone by, there stood many privately owned summer springs resorts.  Many of those resorts encountered insurmountable challenges leading to their closure or buyout by large corporations, leaving Capon as one of the only surviving independent resorts.  Five years ago, the Austin family, Managers, and Guest Council collaborated to develop our Mission, Vision, and Values. We chose the word sustainability because of its dual meanings. Sustainability starts with fostering the Capon spirit, tending the relationships that make Capon what it is, and maintaining our historic facility. Sustainability also includes a responsibility to steward our land, water, and other natural resources.

For the last 15 years, the Third and Fourth Generation members of the Austin Family have investigated an untapped resource that can sustain Capon for generations to come while simultaneously preserving the natural environment: the wind energy potential of North Mountain and Spring Mountain. We engaged experts to educate us about the resource; understand the impact of a project on the land, spring, wildlife, and community; and explore potential partnerships. It was not until 2021 that Capon met a partner–Competitive Power Ventures or CPV–who satisfied the high standards we had set for a potential project.

We are excited to share with you some details about the project and the positive impacts we believe are in store for Capon if it proceeds.

• The project will provide a capital infusion that we can use to restore and maintain our aging infrastructure. We have no ambitions of transforming the quaint look and feel of Capon, but we do want to modernize many underlying systems and refresh our facilities to make your stay even more enjoyable.
• You undoubtedly know one of the most important elements of the Capon experience is our amazing Co-workers. The project will have a positive and significant long-term impact on our local and regional community and economy, while also ensuring continued employment for our co-workers for many years to come.
• The power generated by the project will deliver enough energy to the grid to power the equivalent of ~37,000 homes and an equivalent reduction in CO2 of removing 33,000 vehicles from the road.
• The project will also generate ~$20 million in tax revenue to Hampshire County with ~$13 million injected directly into the public school system.

We firmly believe this project both aligns with our core values and allows us to live out those values in a way that can have a massive positive impact on our community and world. In the words of Lou Austin, “a better sermon can be preached by your life than by your lips.” 

We also understand others may not share our confidence yet. Along with our outreach to each of you, both we and CPV are engaging our co-workers, friends, and neighbors in the community, both those in favor of the project and those who are not. We hope through those engagements to show the overwhelming positive potential of this effort and how it will help guarantee the continuation of the spirit of Capon for our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

We look forward to sharing more information as it becomes available and welcome you to ask questions as we seek transparency through this process.  

~The Capon Family

p.s. A brief list of FAQs about the project can be found here.  For a fuller list of positive impact and milestones that must be achieved before it will move forward, please see the project website our partners at CPV have created.