A ski class practicing kick turns at Peckett’s-on-Sugar Hill, 1930s, where, for the first time, Americans could take lessons with skilled Austrian instructors.
A ski class practicing kick turns at Peckett’s-on-Sugar Hill, 1930s, where, for the first time, Americans could take lessons with skilled Austrian instructors. Credit: Courtesy of the New England Ski Museum

With the rise of interest in downhill skiing in the United States, Kate Peckett, of the inn Peckett’s-on-Sugar Hill, convinced her family to stay open for the winter season of 1930 and hired two Austrian ski instructors to lure guests to try the new sport.

They were soon joined by fellow Austrian, Sig Buchmayr, who was a proponent of the Alberg skiing technique, a method of instruction that involved learning progressively more challenging forms of turning.

A superb skier with a charismatic personality, Buchmayr helped popularize skiing in the 1930s.

Peckett’s became a focal point of the fast evolving sport of skiing, which combined glamour, physical fitness, enjoyment of nature, and a hint of danger. In its heyday the inn hosted an array of international celebrities, including U.S. presidents, chief justices, movie celebrities and industrialists.

N.H. Historical Society