Wasatch County • No one will mistake the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley for military barracks.
The hotel — the first of seven planned alongside Deer Valley Resort’s new East Village base, in addition to hundreds of townhomes and houses — has delicate bubble chandeliers, the greater Park City area’s first escalator, a coffee shop, a kids center and a teen game room, a bar, a restaurant, a lounge and a speakeasy. The doors to its lower-level conference center open wide enough to fit an Army tank. And the views of the Uinta Mountains and Jordanelle Reservoir captured through the two-story tall windows in the grand foyer are, as general manager Anthony Duggan described them, “Hawaii-esque… But we have it better.”
Indeed, the 33,000-square-foot Grand Hyatt, which comes with equally palatial room rates, bears little resemblance to the former eight-room Hillhaus Lodge at Snowbasin Resort. The only notable exception is its purpose.
The Grand Hyatt will replace the Hillhaus as Hill Air Force Base’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) facility. And even in that capacity, it stands alone. It is the first MWR resort to be built and managed as part of a public-private partnership.
“When I first heard mention of this project: a world class hotel chain, a world famous ski resort and a military-affiliated hotel,” Dan Cornelius, the commander of the 75th Air Base Wing at Utah’s Hill Air Force Base, told a packed ballroom during the hotel’s grand opening last week, “the idea of those words being mentioned in the same sentence on purpose and not as a punchline sounded impossible. But, here we are.”
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Dignitaries prepare to cut a ribbon during the opening of the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley near Heber, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025.
The collaboration was facilitated by Utah’s Military Installation Development Association (MIDA). Created in 2007 and overseen by the state legislature, MIDA is tasked with developing land that is owned by or that directly benefits the armed forces. After the spartan Hillhaus Lodge — which was little more than a couple of barracks — was removed in 1999 to make way for the Olympic downhill courses at Snowbasin, MIDA began looking for a replacement recreation site. In 2017, it partnered with the Extell Development Company of New York to build a hotel to take the old lodge’s place.
Stuart Adams, who serves as chair of the MIDA board of directors in addition to his role as the state senate president, noted the unveiling of the Grand Hyatt has been 20 years in the making.
“When Hill Air Force Base gave up their military recreational facility at Snowbasin, the commitment was made that it would be replaced,” Stuart said at the grand opening. “... And boy how did we ever replace it.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Grand Hyatt Deer Valley, the first hotel of seven to be built in the Deer Valley East Village expansion, is pictured on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024.
The public-private partnership between Extell and MIDA is unique. Unlike at other military hotels, the public can stay at the Grand Hyatt for a price: A night during peak ski season is expected to cost between $750 and $2,750, or as much as a trip to Hawaii. However, up to 100 of the hotel’s 387 rooms are eligible to be rented in advance at steep discounts by specified current and former members of the U.S. Armed Forces, their families and other government workers.
Specifically, the discounts are available to all active duty, reserve and National Guard personnel as well as actively serving Department of Defense employees, military members who served 20 years or more and disabled veterans in the second- or third-rank categories.
Deer Valley is also offering steep discounts on lift tickets to any military members staying at the hotel in addition to its standard military discounts.
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Air National Guard helicopters fly over the opening of the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley near Heber, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025.
Resort spokesperson Emily Summers said the discount for military members booked through the Grand Hyatt’s Salute to Service program amounts to about 75% off. That reduces a $329 peak day ticket to about $85. Deer Valley also offers a 25% discount on lift tickets to service members not staying at the Grand Hyatt. That discount, Summers said, applies to active, reserve, honorably discharged or retired U.S. military personnel as well as their spouse and dependents.
In addition to its unique public-private setup, the Grand Hyatt is the first military resort in the United States adjacent to a ski resort. However, MIDA is contributing to the construction of a lodge at the base of Sundance Mountain Resort that is set to open for the 2025-26 ski season. As with the Grand Hyatt, the Sundance Inn will mostly welcome ski area guests. However, space will be set aside in the lodge for a free residential program for wounded athletes. Some 60 of its rooms are expected to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
MIDA’s access to low-cost public financing facilitated both resort hotel projects.
In each case, it raised funds by selling public bonds and plans to apply a portion of the increased tax revenue the improvements should generate to pay off the debt. The cost of building the Sundance Inn, which Utah County will control, is estimated at $35 million. The Grand Hyatt was funded as part of a $390 million bond resolution MIDA passed in October.
The taxes from that fund, in addition to increased sales taxes levied within the project area — a power granted to the agency by the Utah legislature last year — will be used to repay the bonds. As part of its agreement with Wasatch County, MIDA will get 75% of the incremental taxes over the next 40 years, while the county will get the remainder.
“We have everyone from Hill Air Force Base to folks at the Pentagon looking at this model and hoping that it is a success,” MIDA spokesperson Kristin Kenney Williams said, “because, like any challenges with the cost to develop these days, everybody’s looking for creative ways to get things done like this.”
Recreation is a principal focus of the Military Welfare and Recreation program, and MIDA intends to make the Grand Hyatt a four-seasons facility, Kenney Williams said. Deer Valley already offers extensive hiking and mountain biking trails in the offseason. In addition, MIDA manages thousands of acres in Wasatch County, including an equestrian center and golf course. It is working with its partners at those facilities, Kenney Williams said, as well as its partners in the SkyRidge development east of U.S. Highway 40 to provide activities on the Jordanelle Reservoir and beyond.
The golf academy is separate from the Tiger Woods-designed championship golf course and nine-hole course also planned east of the Jordanelle and associated with Marcella, a gated community within the Deer Valley East Village footprint.
Dan Campbell Staff Sgts. Jensen and Micailey Martinez, who both work out of the Utah Air National Guard station, and their 7-month-old daughter Kaia were the first military members to stay at the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley in Park City on Nov. 21, 2024. The Grand Hyatt Deer Valley is the first military hotel built with a public-private partnership. Utah's Military Installation Development Association paired with luxury developer Extell Development on the Morale, Welfare and Recreation project.
In these early stages, though, the recreation at the newest military resort consists almost entirely of skiing at Deer Valley, a ski-only resort. Eventually, said Duggan, the hotel’s GM, the Grand Hyatt will also offer a shuttle to Park City Mountain.
That was good news to Staff Sgt. Jensen Martinez, a snowboarder. He and his wife, Staff Sgt. Micailey Martinez, are both Spanish Fork natives stationed out of the Utah Air National Guard base near the Salt Lake City International Airport. When they visited with their 7-month-old daughter, Kaia, in November, they became the first service members to stay at the pet-friendly resort.
Even with the final touches still being applied to the spa and pool and sparse patches of snow on the slopes, Jensen Martinez said they found plenty of ways to entertain themselves. They ate lemon chicken and a dry-aged burger at the high-end Remington Hall restaurant and checked out the lunch options at Double Blacks, the hotel’s coffee bar. The Grand Hyatt also features the North Star Lounge for when service members want to relax among their own kind.
Mostly, though, the Martinez family lounged on their balcony, absorbing the Hawaii-esque view of the Unitas.
“Beautiful room with a beautiful view of [the sunrise],” Jensen Martinez said. “It was awesome.”
