MOUNTAIN LIFE - Blue Mountains | Spring 2018

84 ML BLUE SPRING 2018 While Nolan took pictures, George and I sat talking over coffee at the dining room table on the ground floor. The fieldstone wall dominates this room, too, decorated with copper pots and an inset cabinet with stained glass doors. Above the cabinet stand several oversized chess pieces made at Blue Mountain Pottery in the 1960s. It struck me that this house is a physical manifestation of Blue Mountain, from the fieldstone gathered from surrounding farms, to the lumber shared with Central Base Lodge, to the work of Jozo Weider's fellow expat artisans. The Resort has progressed a lot in the 50 years since the home was built, while the latter has changed very little. And perhaps this is how Jozo would've wanted it. LEFT TOP, MURAL OF JURAJ JÁNOŠÍK: Jozo admired Jánošík, the Slovak nationalist hero and bandit leader. “Jánošík lived in the 17th century and waged war again the Hungarian lords,” George explains. “The peasants had axes, and the Hungarians had swords. I think they were defeated—the Hungarians controlled Slovak lands until 1918. Jozo called Jánošík the Slovak Robin Hood and joked that he was carrying on that mission. Maybe he was thinking of the axes that he had used to cut trails.” LEFT MIDDLE Master bathroom designed by Katherine Huycke. LEFT BOTTOM We asked George about the little faux balcony that appears to be inaccessible.What’s the story there? “That’s a good question… there’s a lot of ornate detail in here that’s hard to get to for cleaning.The house generally has a lot of wasted space. It’s not a very functional design.” RIGHT This is a bookish home. Jozo read widely and wrote an unpublished novel about his youth in the Slovakian mountains. George earned a PhD in History from Berkeley and taught at York University before becoming Blue Mountain Resort President. “There’s a lot of ornate detail in here that’s hard to get to for cleaning.”