STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

Carol Holding always contended that Sun Valley’s Christmas Eve Torchlight Parade was one of her favorite things.

That made it all the more poignant for her friends and admirers when she passed away on Sunday—just three days shy of Sun Valley Resort’s traditional Christmas Eve Ice Show, Torchlight Parade and Fireworks. Acquaintances could only console themselves that, perhaps, she was watching one of the best parades in 25 years from a different vantage point--the heavens above.

Holding was 95 when she died on Sunday, Dec. 22, surrounded by family. Friends of the family said she had been losing weight for the past couple of weeks as her frail body began to flag.

She was gracious and enthusiastic to the end, even taking part in the 2024 Wagon Days Parade over Labor Day, smiling and waving at the crowd that lined Sun Valley Road.

Carol Orme Holding and her husband Earl—a self-made engineer who passed away in 2013--began a lifelong career in the lodging and oil industry in 1952 when they moved as newlyweds to Sweetwater County, Wyo., taking over the Little America truck stop.

Within two years, they transformed the failing station into the top service station in the country. They added Cheyenne Little America to their portfolio, then purchased a refinery from Mobil Oil Corporation before buying Sinclair Oil Company in 1976.

They promptly made the Sinclair refinery the largest oil refinery in the Mountain West.

Not content to rest on their laurels, they added Little America in Flagstaff, Ariz., the high-rise Little America and Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City and the Westgate Hotel in San Diego to their Holdings.

Neither Earl nor Carol knew how to ski when Earl wrote a check for $12 million to purchase Sun Valley in 1977 after Earl read a newspaper article about how Disney was interested in acquiring it from Bill Janss. And their son wasn’t nuts about the idea, as he hadn’t had very good experiences at other resorts.

“I was so glad they bought it instead of Disney,” said Julia Webb, a Sun Valley ski instructor for 60 years. “I did not want to be wearing Mickey Mouse on my ski jacket.

The couple attacked their Sun Valley acquisition with their trademark work ethic, planting thousands of trees around the Sun Valley Village and golf course as part of a beautification program. And Earl went to work investing millions of dollars in state-of-the-art snowmaking systems, lift services and grooming equipment.

He applied his engineering know-how to build the stunning River Run Lodge with its looming windows that others said couldn’t be engineered. And he replicated his success in the Warm Springs and Seattle Ridge lodges, all while taking care not to overbuild, destroying the character and beauty of the Sun Valley area.

The lodges, considered among the best in the skiing world, still leave first-time visitors in awe, whipping out their cell phones to take pictures.

Webb, who led the resort’s Torchlight Parade on Christmas Eve, said she doubted Carol’s Dollar Mountain Lodge, would have been built if it not for Carol.

“I’d been after Earl for years to build a new lodge—the original one was a wooden shack. One day I spotted Earl and Carol dining on the patio and asked him again. And Carol turned to him and said, ‘Earl, you’ve been saying you’re going to do that for years. If you don’t build a new lodge, I’m going to divorce you.’ That’s what she said!” Webb recounted.

Carol’s Dollar Mountain Lodge opened in 2004, offering and transforming Dollar Mountain into a polished winter playground featuring great beginner terrain, terrain parks, skier cross runs and, for a while, even a halfpipe with 22-foot walls.

Even as their Sun Valley Resort grew, the Holdings remained very hands on, scrubbing countertops and making beds alongside their three children and resort employees. And even into her 90s Carol Holding could be seen sitting in a wheelchair directing the hanging of Christmas lights on the trees around Sun Valley Village or inspecting construction projects.

When Sun Valley opened its new six-passenger Challenger chairlift in December 2023, Carol was the first to ride it ahead of the general public.

“Earl has a saying, ‘Anything worth doing is worth overdoing,’ ” she once said. “We live by that.”

Carol and Earl attended Sun Valley Music Festival concerts in the Symphony Pavilion they built using travertine marble they picked out from the same quarry that supplied the marble for the Roman Coliseum. When other resorts sidelined improvement projects during poor economic times, they forged ahead with a $12 million gondola servicing their newly remodeled Roundhouse Restaurant.

And they turned Snowbasin Resort from a podunk ski hill into a world-class venue boasting what’s said to be one of the best men’s downhill courses in the world for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. In March 2025 Sun Valley Resort will become the first U.S. resort since 2016 to host the World Cup Finals.

Snowbasin Resort was named No. 1 Ski Resort in North America this year by SKI Magazine’s readers, after Sun Valley Resort owned the title for three years in a row.

The couple was honored by the Idaho Tourism Department with a Lifetime Achievement Award for their work transforming Sun Valley Resort.

Carol told guests at the awards ceremony that Idaho was a special state and added that everyone in the room who loved Idaho also deserved an award.

Gov. Brad Little called Carol Holding a true Idaho pioneer whose investments paved the way for the state’s flourishing tourism sector.

“Idaho is a better place thanks to Carol and Earl’s love for our state,” he posted.

Carol Holding leaves behind three children—Anne, Kathleen and Stephen, along with a dozen grandchildren.