Longtime owners sell Lost Lake Resort near Mount Hood

by Victoria Edwards, The Oregonian
Published August 23, 2012
http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2012/08/longtime_owners_sell_lost_lake.html

After nearly 30 years of running the Lost Lake Resort and Campground nestled in the Mount Hood National Forest, Roy and Barbara Hillmick have sold the place that's been their summer home and office for decades.

Barbara Hillmick said on August 2, coincidentally the Hillmick's 34th wedding anniversary, the pair handed the resort on the shores of Lost Lake over to Derek DeBorde and Jason Taylor of Hood River.

Open from May to October, the resort on the north side of Mount Hood features a lodge, campsites, rustic cabins and easy access to boating and fishing in a setting Barbara Hillmick likens to "paradise."

It took about eight months to strike a deal on the resort, which sold for $1.2 million, said Brian Resendez of the Portland-based real estate investment firm Sperry Van Ness-Bluestone & Hockley. Resendez, who brokered the deal, said the sale of the 10-acre property had to go through an extensive permitting process since it's on land controlled by the U.S. Forest Service.

Barbara Hillmick said the pair decided to sell the resort a year ago because it needed more attention than the 66-year-olds could give it. When they put it on the market, Hillmick said she couldn't believe the response, with offers coming in far from Oregon. But some of those prospective buyers wanted to implement drastic changes, she said, and the couple was looking for someone with an interest in the resort's family ties and surrounding community and area.

Hillmick said she and her husband found that in DeBorde and Taylor.

The Hillmicks found Lost Lake in the early 1980s and immediately fell in love with the resort. "It was such a pleasant experience we asked the owner if he would ever sell it," she said. The owner said he would, but only to the right people. Two years later, the Hillmicks bought the resort. "We spent 29 summers of our life up there," Hillmick said. "There's not a better place to be or work."