What today is the Vail Valley’s largest and most prolific real estate brokerage—with more than 100 brokers and 20 offices valley wide—actually began as a one-man operation in the corner of the lobby of the then-newly opened Lodge at Vail. That was in 1962, the year Vail opened, and the man was Rod Slifer, Vail’s first—and then only—Realtor. Rod, who would become a major force in Vail’s evolution from ski area to mega-resort, today is a principal of Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate.

However, back in December 1962, Rod could not have foreseen the fledgling ski area’s tremendous growth or that of its real estate industry. As for the latter, at the time there was no Multiple Listings Service (MLS), no Vail Board of Realtors, no marketing campaigns, and no websites. Just Rod.

“The nicest thing was that there was also no competition,” he laughs today, ensconced in the Vail Village office he has maintained for more than 30 years.

“To be truthful, there wasn’t much to sell in that first year,” Slifer recalls. As Vail Associates (now part of Vail Resorts, Inc.) was the owner and developer of the new ski area, they owned virtually all the available properties in Vail Village. Rod worked for Vail Associates, both as a ski instructor and as the sole sales person for what would become Vail Associates Real Estate (VARE).

By the 1963-64 ski season, Slifer had moved from his makeshift sales office in the Lodge to a real office in the new Plaza Lodge on Bridge Street, a thoroughfare that was yet to be paved. About the same time, he launched a separate property management company followed in 1968 by his own Bridge Street real estate brokerage, Slifer & Company. With now more properties becoming available, both Slifer & Company and Vail Associates Real Estate continued to expand.

Fast forward to 1986.

By now Vail was an acclaimed, world-class ski resort and its sister resort, 6-year-old Beaver Creek, was emerging as well.

Harry Frampton and Mark Smith had become, respectively, president and vice president of Vail Resorts in the early 1980s. Part of Mark’s responsibilities was overseeing real estate sales for VARE.

In 1985, Harry Bass, then-owner of Vail Associates, put the company on the market. Harry and Mark formed and headed a group that was interested in buying, but media and meat-packing giant George Gillett out-bid them and took over ownership — and Vail Associates’ presidency—in 1986.

Nevertheless, relations between Gillett and the former two former Vail Associates’ executives were good. In fact, Gillett encouraged Harry and Mark to begin developing residential and commercial real estate in Beaver Creek.

To do this, Frampton and Smith formed East West Partners, which went on to become a major force in the development of Beaver Creek. Among its developments are the Hyatt Regency Beaver Creek (now Park Hyatt), the Village Center project (including Market Square and the Vilar Center for the Arts), Highland Village and McCoy Peak Lodge. Still based in Beaver Creek, the company has since become a major resort real estate developer throughout the Colorado Rockies, South Carolina and Lake Tahoe, California. In the Vail Valley, they are currently developing properties in Bachelor Gulch and, along with Wright and Company, creating the self-contained, “new urbanism” community of Eagle Ranch.

Back in the late 1980s, however, the company’s focus was Beaver Creek. Mark, who had been associated with real estate brokerages since age 18, decided that a new brokerage would complement the East West Partners’ real estate projects. “I missed the brokerage business,” he says today. “Harry and I decided on forming a small ‘boutique’ brokerage staffed by eight of the Vail Valley’s most experienced brokers.

In 1988, Frampton and Smith Real Estate opened its doors in the newly opened Hyatt Regency Beaver Creek. And, like East West Partners, much of the new brokerage’s emphasis would be on the Beaver Creek market.

But within a few months Rod Slifer called, suggesting that his company and Frampton & Smith Real Estate join forces and merge. That way, the newly formed company would have strong presence in both Vail (at Slifer’s Bridge Street office) and in Beaver Creek (at the Frampton and Smith office).

So much for the short-lived concept of a boutique brokerage. The two companies merged as Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate (SSF), with Rod managing the Vail operations and former Frampton and Smith broker Tom Vucich managing the Beaver Creek operation. But there was more to come. In 1994, the Apollo Group took over ownership of Vail Associates (and, therefore, Vail Associates Real Estate). Not long after the sale, Apollo’s Leon Black called Harry Frampton and suggested that SSF and VARE join forces and merge into a single entity. By this time, each company had grown to the point that they were the dueling powers of the Vail Valley Real estate market.

The agreement would give SSF and VARE each half interest in the new brokerage, with SSF being the managing partner. The new company would be called Slifer Smith & Frampton/Vail Associates Real Estate.

However, that tongue twisting moniker proved torturous for, among others, the company’s phone receptionists. Pragmatism won out. The name soon reverted to Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate, which it remains today.

In 1994 Jim Flaum, who served as vice president/broker of Vail Associates Real Estate in the early 1980s, was named executive vice president/managing broker of the new company (he became president in 1997). Jim was and remains responsible for managing the dominant real estate company in the Vail Valley.

Under his leadership, company sales have gone from $300 million in 1993 (this represents the combined sales of the two previously separate companies) to more than $880 million for FY 2004, which nearly matched the record of more than $915,000,000 in 2000. Moreover, today Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate represents nearly 50 percent of the total sales volume in Eagle County annually.

Jim is quick to credit the success of SSF in part to the training and experience of its brokers, nearly half of whom have lived in the Vail Valley for over a quarter of a century and have seen the industry evolve from virtually nothing to the behemoth it is today.

He also credits the company’s extensive support staff, including the valley’s largest real estate marketing team and closing department.

Jim cites “information” as being the key to the future, and SSF through its employees and associates has created tremendous information resources during the past 10 years. For example, the statistical and historical information and database the company has built up is unprecedented in the area. SSF’s information processing and distribution is on the cutting edge as well, from its comprehensive website (including every listed Eagle County property) to its vast and efficient computer network.

“Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate is well positioned to take advantage of the future,” Jim confidently states.

And he believes that the future for SSF and Vail Valley real estate is bright. “Looking forward, I think our company is going to rise with the rising tide of second-home real estate buyers,” he explains. “This is the prime time for baby boomers buying resort real estate, and we believe the valley and our company will ride that tide for the next ten years.”

Jim adds the entire Vail Valley is well positioned to take advantage of the baby boom phenomenon, which has been so crucial throughout the years to other products in terms of the boomers’ buying patterns. Now, says Jim, it’s time for their influence to be felt in the second-home resort real estate market.

And when it is, Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate will be there to ease the way, just as Rod Slifer helped Vail’s first property purchasers at the birth of Vail more than 40 years ago.