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LAKE PLACID — The owners of Lake Placid luxury resort The Whiteface Lodge announced Wednesday they are returning the property to the company’s lenders.

President of T-Rex Capital LLC Clifford Preminger cited the disappointing second-home sales of a slow housing market as the reason for the transfer.

“Because of a rapidly deteriorating economic outlook in the region over the last nine or 10 months, we decided to return the property to the lender,” Preminger said Wednesday from his office in Boca Raton, Fla.

“‘Not doing very well’ is very optimistic,” Preminger said, in reference to the cooling housing market. “There is no market at this point in time. The pace of sales has not been with our expectations.’”

In February 2007 T-Rex bought the Whiteface Lodge for an unprecedented $62.2 million from Joseph Barile and his company, Resort Holdings LLC. It was sold as a series of five transfers, which represented one of the largest transactions in the history of Essex County and the Adirondack Park.

Preminger said his company has been in negotiations with the lenders, the lead of which is Lehman Brothers, for the last four-and-a-half months. He would not disclose the price or the terms but said that the staff would be retained.

“It is my understanding that everybody will be retained,” he said. “We worked very hard to make sure everybody there was taken care of.

He said he did not know what the lenders plan to do with The Whiteface Lodge but that it will continue to operate as a high-end resort. Preminger added that T-Rex was very proud of what it was able to achieve with The Whiteface Lodge and regrets the company cannot continue its efforts. Managing Director of The Whiteface Lodge Olivier Bottois said that the daily operations of the resort will not be impacted and reiterated that staff will be retained.

Essex County Clerk Joseph Provancha said that as of Wednesday a deed in lieu of foreclosure had not been filed with the Essex County Clerk’s Office.

The Whiteface Lodge has been closed for spring cleaning for the last few weeks and is scheduled to reopen Friday, according to staff.

 

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