James Sununu has a knack for understatement. Asked how he ended up running the show at Waterville Valley Resort, he shrugs it off: “I sort of stumbled into this role.” But spend an hour listening to him talk — about Tom Corcoran’s original vision, the economics of incremental skier visits, or the precise reason a gondola terminal is harder to permit than a condominium — and it becomes clear this is someone who has thought very deeply about what this valley is, and what it could become.
In a wide-ranging conversation with hosts Charlie and Ken on Waterville Unwrapped, Sununu traces his connection to the valley all the way back to the 1980s, when his father, then-Governor John H. Sununu, became close friends with resort founders Tom and Daphne Corcoran. The families collaborated on the Christa McAuliffe ski race — an annual event started after the Challenger accident to fund teacher sabbaticals — and James grew up skiing here, getting to know the place and the people behind it.
From the Restaurant Floor to the Boardroom
Before dedicating himself to Waterville Valley, Sununu lived what he cheerfully calls “an unconventional work life.” After studying economics, he managed a seafood restaurant called Pearl’s Oyster Bar in Palo Alto for four or five years — where, he notes with amusement, one of his cooks was the same friend who now has a ski place in Big Sky, Montana. From there he moved into desktop publishing, typesetting math textbooks for Addison-Wesley in the early days of the desktop revolution. (“We think we were the first people ever to typeset a calculus book in desktop publishing software,” he says.) That evolved into running his own IT services business, which eventually gave way to consulting work back in New Hampshire with his brother Michael. Large companies, he explains, never quite suited him. “It’s always new and interesting problems to solve” — which, it turns out, describes the resort business perfectly.
The Sununu family’s formal involvement with Waterville Valley began in 2010, when his brother Chris and their father assembled a group to purchase the resort from Booth Creek, previous owners Sununu describes diplomatically as not doing “a stellar job.” James joined the board of directors from the start but ramped up his hands-on role significantly over the years — and then COVID hit. “The first conversation we had with the team was: how long can we last with the money we have in the bank?” That crisis deepened his commitment, and today the resort and its associated development projects constitute, as he puts it, his “primary work life.”
Finishing What Corcoran Started
At the center of everything Sununu is working toward is a vision he traces directly to Tom Corcoran: a European-style village where guests park their car and don’t need it again — where the mountain and the village are connected, and activity flows between them all year round. “No one’s ever gotten it over the finish line,” Sununu says of the aerial gondola lift that has appeared on Waterville Valley planning documents for decades. “We’re trying to get it over the finish line. I hope we can. I’m not guaranteeing we can.”
Getting there means navigating an Environmental Impact Statement process with the U.S. Forest Service that is, as of this recording, more than seven years in the making. The Forest Service’s current timeline calls for a final Record of Decision in fall 2027 — and Sununu is candid that this is only the starting line. After that come final engineering, manufacturer bids, Army Corps of Engineers wetlands permitting, state approvals, and a town vote to allow the gondola to cross two town roads. “We’re on lap two of a 20-lap track race,” he says. A realistic opening? Mid-2030s, in a best-case scenario. “Which I think speaks to our commitment to being in this for the long haul.”
Building the Other End of the Barbell
While the gondola process grinds forward, Sununu’s team has been working on what he calls “this end” of the barbell: the Town Square side. The Adventure Center — currently under construction adjacent to the pond — will feature mini-golf, an aerial course, and a maze, designed specifically for the multigenerational family demographic that is Waterville’s target market today. He paints a picture of grandparents playing mini golf with grandkids while parents have a glass of wine on the patio; teenagers on the big aerial course while younger kids do the Tykes version. “We need to give them a reason to come into town,” he says, noting that the après-ski culture that once kept day skiers lingering until eleven at night is simply gone — culturally and industry-wide.
Sununu is matter-of-fact about the pushback. He respects it, understands it — the people who love the valley as it is and don’t want things to change — but he returns consistently to economic reality. “The two are so inextricably intertwined at this point, you know, they can’t be separated.” Skier visits that drop by 10,000 don’t hurt the resort’s bottom line by a proportional amount; those are the most profitable visitors, and losing them cascades through every business in Town Square. Sitting still, he says, is not an option for a capital-intensive business. And the alternative to thoughtful development — building 50 or 60 more vacation triplexes on the commercial land — is, in his view, a “terrible result” that fills units occupied 15 or 20 days a year and does nothing for the restaurants and shops in town.
He also addresses the parking debates, the disc golf course adjustments, and even the birthday cake policy at The Loft (it’s a liquor commission issue, he notes, not a resort choice). Throughout, the tone is engaged and genuinely patient — this is someone who has explained these things a lot, one-on-one, and is glad for the chance to do it more publicly.
As Charlie observes near the end of the conversation, there’s something a little ironic about people who got to experience Waterville Valley in its 1980s heyday now preferring to keep it quiet. Sununu’s response is characteristically measured: he hopes people will see the additions for what they are — not something being taken away, but something being built for the next generation of families who haven’t had their Waterville Valley experience yet.
To hear the full conversation — including Sununu’s candid thoughts on the Forest Service timeline, the planning board process, and why he still can’t swing a golf club — listen to the complete episode of Waterville Unwrapped.