This is Sugar Loaf, once the region’s premier ski resort and Leelanau County’s largest employer. Three hundred once worked here. Located off M-22, the artery of the peninsula, Sugar Loaf pulsed with traffic and commerce during these cold, quiet winter months until it closed in 2000. This isn’t the story of those who ran Sugar Loaf into the ground. This is the story of her characters and personalities, how they reflect on the resort, and what they’re up to now.
It wasn’t quite a “road to Damascus” epiphany, but Rob Serbin did find the road to Little Traverse Inn last year. The Glen Arbor realtor finally sold the restaurant on M-22 for the second time in seven years, this time to Scotsman Graeme Leask, after it sat idle on the market for 18 months. The sale was emblematic of Serbin’s monster year, which saw his company’s net sales surge by 250 percent. Numerous realtors in the Glen Arbor area shared that good fortune.