It's an Idaho mystery. Where is Jean-Pierre Boespflug?
The man who developed Tamarack Resort has not been seen or heard of since he failed to appear in Idaho court, five years ago.
Tamarack was going to be the next big thing in the ski industry. But after a fast start, a slow economy forced the man known as J.P. to simply disappear, leaving the resort to fend for itself.
Original homeowner Rod Walz lost over a million dollars on his investment, and he remembers a particular moment with J.P. that quite frankly, caught him a little off-guard.
Walz said, "He got the 250 million dollar loan from Credit Suisse, he bragged to me a little bit about how it was amazing they gave it to me with no strings attached, he was giddy like a kid in a candy store. Giddy, that concerned me."
Another original homeowner Bill Ciraco feels the same. Ciraco wished things would have worked out saying, "there's something special about that place, besides the disaster that happened when J.P. tried to develop it".
Former C.I.A. operative Robert Koellisch, who now runs a private investigative firm has his theories what J.P. may have done. He said this. "What you would do typically want to do is go somewhere where no one would think you would be. So go to the opposite place, go to another country instead, if they think he's in France, then he should want to be there."
But like a prize fighter on the ropes, Tamarack bounced back. Current General Manager Brad Larsen used a Hollywood analogy when he asked, "Have you ever seen Rocky? We're Rocky, we've been on the ropes, but we're going to win".
Over the last eighteen months, an ownership group got back to seven-day operations and invested in snowmaking and brought lodging under their control.
It's something Jean-Pierre Boespflug can no longer say.
