If there’s wintertime magic being made anywhere around the mountains and villages of Vail and Beaver Creek, chances are a professional concierge is busy behind the scenes quietly doing the work of a private shopper, personal assistant, party planner, and project manager to curate and create some of the valley’s most luxurious and highly coveted resort experiences. For the valley’s wealthiest residents and visitors, nothing is out of reach: Whatever the wish—whether it’s cruising the slopes with an Olympian or dining on sushi prepared tableside by Nobu Matsuhisa himself, it. will. happen. 

Sometimes concierges have extensive experience in hospitality. Take Mathieu L’Esperance, general manager for InvitedHome’s more than 30 Vail and Beaver Creek luxury properties. A Vail native with a Rolodex of connections, L’Esperance has spent 15 years in the business, including a decade as guest services supervisor at The Four Seasons. Others, like Erik Brofos, found themselves in the hospitality business almost by accident. Forty-three years ago, Brofos was a ski instructor on Vail Mountain who, after skiing with the same high-profile client for many seasons, was offered the role of property manager. What both L’Esperance and Brofos (and many other professional caretakers, concierges, and property managers) do so well is use their local knowledge and connections to curate special experiences that appear seamless from the outside. “It’s about anticipating the guests’ needs to the point where you’re providing it before they have a chance to need it,” says L’Esperance. 

With rare exception, L’Esperance or one of his team members personally greets each guest upon arrival and walks them through the house. “The guest is meeting the same individual who has been in touch with them since the beginning,” he says. “This helps make it a more personalized experience.” Of course, there’s also daily housekeeping, turndown service, and chef-made meals or prearranged dinner reservations. If those seem like gimmes, well, it’s the details that matter. Those meals might be dreamed up by a private chef who worked as chef de cuisine at Vail Village’s Mountain Standard before she struck out on her own. And daily housekeeping isn’t just a quick sweep, but a full polish where the dishes are always taken care of and the beds are always made.

In and around the ski villages of Vail and Beaver Creek, providing high-end service certainly isn’t unique, but where L’Esperance and Brofos stand out is in their approach. It’s personal, not automated. “It’s about being attentive,” says Brofos. “You’re almost mind-reading.” 

That dedication might take the form of a Cadillac Escalade or Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van (stocked with favorite snacks, of course) to and from the airport, Red Rocks, or Empower Field. Or it might be a curated ski day, complete with rentals, an instructor, and a catered on-mountain lunch followed by a private sunset-and-hot-chocolate snowmobile excursion around the winter wonderlands of Camp Hale and Vail Pass. Or perhaps a luxe après-ski session with Champagne and caviar around the hot tub, or a curated private shopping party.

Though L’Esperance has proved he has the chops to pull together a last-minute heli-skiing trip from Vail to Telluride (complete with private jet transfer to and from Eagle County Regional Airport), one of his favorite curated experiences was one of the simplest: “A family wanted to go sledding and because Vail doesn’t do tubing at the top of the mountain anymore, I coordinated a decked-out Sprinter van with sleds in the back and took them to all the local spots. Growing up here, I know all the places I used to go, and it was a great way to show them the area.”

Luxury property rental and concierge services

In addition to InvitedHome, a multitude of luxury property management companies, including Cuvée and East West Hospitality Luxury Homes, maintain a list of exclusive ski-in/ski-out rentals that go above and way beyond public listings on Airbnb. 

Cuvée’s large collection includes the Avanti Chalet, which sleeps 16 and is the only private home at the base of Vail’s Gondola One, and the Cabin, a seven-bedroom log home with a heated outdoor pool off the Intertwine run offering ski-in/ski-out access to Beaver Creek and Bachelor Gulch. East West manages several places in Vail and Beaver Creek, including a particularly swoonworthy seven-bedroom, seven-bath cabin-turned-lodge offering ski-in/ski-out access to Beaver Creek’s Strawberry Park lift. All these properties come with the option of high-end concierge services. Think a pantry and fridge provisioned with bounty from local purveyors, on-site oxygen machines, private mixology nights, and wellness retreats that include yoga and sound baths. InvitedHome even put together a llama happy hour in a backyard last summer, says Emily Wojtczak, marketing, brand, and communications manager for the company. 

For fewer frills, consider Vail Management Company, which for three decades has curated an exclusive list of vacation home rentals at both resorts, including Treetops 5C, a three-bedroom condo adjacent to the Eagle Bahn gondola in Lionshead Village.

A handful of concierge-specific companies in the valley also cater to custom experiences that aren’t tied to a rental. Vail Concierge Service arranges everything from booking dinner reservations and a sitter to tailoring a ski trip with lift tickets and rentals or even booking cat skiing, dogsledding, or snowmobiling adventures.

Mere mortals who may lack the wherewithal to hire a team of professional concierges can still leverage the insider tips and local knowledge assembled here to sample and savor the finer side of winter life in our ski valley.

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