Two grand mountain lodges opened a year apart on the same Utah slope, both quoting the great American West hotels of a century ago. One spreads across Empire Pass at scale; the other answers a hillside too steep to build on with a funicular. The site, more than the style, sets them apart.
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These are the two names that anchor luxury in Deer Valley, and on paper they rhyme. Both opened at the turn of the 2010s, the St. Regis in 2009 and Montage in December 2010. Both speak the same architectural dialect, the grand lodge of the American West rendered in stone, heavy timber and pitched roofs, a deliberate homage to the railroad-era mountain hotels. Both sit on a ski-only mountain that bars snowboarders. Where they diverge is not vocabulary but site, scale and the structural ideas each building uses to meet its piece of the hill.
Montage Deer Valley, designed by the architecture firm HKS, is the broad, horizontal one. It commands the top of Empire Pass on a wide bench of land, and it uses that room: 154 guestrooms plus more than sixty suites and residences, over 150 works of commissioned art, and a 35,000-square-foot spa, all arranged as a single self-contained resort you need never leave. When it opened it became Utah's first LEED-certified resort. It is the more complete machine for a mountain holiday.
The St. Regis took a harder site and made the constraint its signature. Perched on the steep Deer Crest slope, it could not lay out a Montage-style footprint, so it splits into a lower arrival building and an upper main resort joined by a private funicular, cars built by Gangloff of Berne, that climbs five hundred vertical feet through the aspens in under ninety seconds. At 177 rooms it is the smaller, tauter property, wrapped around butler service and a view. The funicular is the whole thesis: architecture solving topography in plain sight.
| Montage Deer Valley | St. Regis Deer Valley | |
|---|---|---|
| Opened | December 2010 | 2009 |
| Architect / idea | HKS; broad horizontal grand lodge | Two buildings linked by a private funicular |
| Site | Atop Empire Pass, wide bench, ski-in/ski-out | Steep Deer Crest slope; arrive low, ride up |
| Size | 154 rooms + 66-plus suites & residences | 177 rooms and suites |
| Spa | Spa Montage, ~35,000 sq ft, 29 treatment rooms | Remede Spa, smaller and quieter |
| Service model | Montage residential-resort service | St. Regis butler service, the brand hallmark |
| Best for | Scale, the spa, families and groups | The arrival, the view, couples |
The case: Montage is the hotel to pick when you want a single building to be the whole holiday. HKS designed it as a broad, symmetrical grand lodge in the early-20th-century mountain-hotel tradition, and the top-of-Empire-Pass site let them build at a scale the St. Regis could not: 154 guestrooms plus more than 66 suites and residences, ballrooms, restaurants, an art programme of over 150 commissioned works, and a 35,000-square-foot Spa Montage with 29 treatment rooms and a full thermal circuit, among the largest hotel spas in the Rockies. It opened in December 2010 as Utah's first LEED-certified resort, and it remains the most complete address on the mountain.
The site does real work. From Empire Pass, the highest base in Deer Valley, the skiing is genuinely ski-in, ski-out, lifts and groomers at the door, on a mountain that still admits skiers only. Multi-bedroom residences and the Paintbox children's programme make it the natural choice for families and groups who want to spread out without leaving the resort. For sheer completeness, room to roam and a serious spa day, Montage is the stronger hand.
Honest trade-off: Scale cuts both ways. Montage is big, and at full season it can feel like a grand convention of luxury rather than an intimate retreat, the public rooms busy, the building's symmetry reading as corporate-grand to some eyes. It is also new money architecturally, an expertly executed homage rather than a hotel with real history, and the climb up to Empire Pass is a commitment in deep winter. Travellers who want quiet, intimacy or genuine patina will find it handsome but impersonal.
Weighted: Service 25%, Design 20%, Romance / Value / Food 15% each, Location 10%. Scores are HotelsForKings editorial judgments of each hotel's building and stay, not guest review averages.
The case: The St. Regis is the more dramatic building, because its site forced a more dramatic idea. Deer Crest drops too steeply for a sprawling lodge, so the architects split the hotel in two and connected the lower arrival level to the upper resort with a private funicular, its cars built by the Swiss specialists Gangloff of Berne, rising about 500 vertical feet in under ninety seconds through stands of aspen. Stepping out at the top into the main building, with the valley dropping away, is the single best arrival sequence of any hotel in Utah. The interiors carry the grand-lodge language in stone, steel and timber, and the rooms come with gas fireplaces, deep tubs and the St. Regis butler service that defines the brand.
At 177 rooms it is the tighter, more contained property, and that intimacy is the point. The terraces and the Deer Crest perch give it the better sweep of view, and the smaller scale makes the service feel closer to the guest. For couples, for anyone who values a sense of theatre and a hotel they can read in a day, the St. Regis offers something Montage's completeness cannot, a building with a genuine flourish at its heart.
Honest trade-off: The funicular that makes the hotel also complicates it. Everything important is up the hill, so arrivals, departures and any trip to the lower level run on the cable car, which is charming until you are doing it with ski gear and small children in a queue. The spa and the family facilities are more modest than Montage's, the two-building split can feel disjointed, and the ski-in, ski-out access, while real, is less seamless than Empire Pass. Those who want a big, do-everything resort will find the St. Regis the more demanding stay.
Weighted: Service 25%, Design 20%, Romance / Value / Food 15% each, Location 10%. Scores are HotelsForKings editorial judgments of each hotel's building and stay, not guest review averages.
Both are top-tier, and the choice is rarely about quality. It is about the kind of building you want to wake up in and who is travelling with you. The rulings below are deliberately decisive.
| Trip | The ruling | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A complete, do-everything resort | Montage | 154 rooms plus suites, a 35,000 sq ft spa and a full set of restaurants and pools on one site. |
| The most dramatic arrival | St. Regis | The private Gangloff funicular up 500 vertical feet through the aspens to the upper resort. |
| A serious spa day | Montage | Spa Montage runs to about 35,000 sq ft and 29 treatment rooms, far larger than the Remede. |
| Couples and a sense of theatre | St. Regis | Smaller at 177 rooms, view-driven on Deer Crest, with butler service and a tighter feel. |
| Families and groups | Montage | Multi-bedroom residences, larger pools and the Paintbox children's programme. |
| Easiest ski-in, ski-out | Montage | True door-to-lift access from Empire Pass, the highest base on the mountain. |
Rule for Montage Deer Valley if you want one building to hold the whole holiday. HKS designed it as a complete grand lodge, and the Empire Pass site let it be vast: 154 rooms and dozens of residences, a 35,000-square-foot spa and true ski-in, ski-out on the highest base. Accept the scale, the new-build polish and the occasional convention-grand bustle as the price of that completeness.
Rule for the St. Regis Deer Valley if architecture and arrival move you more than square footage. Its funicular up Deer Crest is the most theatrical entrance in Utah skiing, the views are the better ones, and butler service in 177 rooms makes it the more intimate stay. Trade Montage's do-everything scale for a tighter, more dramatic hotel that turned a hard hillside into its signature.
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They solve different problems. Montage Deer Valley, designed by HKS and opened in December 2010 atop Empire Pass, is the larger, more complete resort: 154 rooms plus 66-odd suites and residences, a 35,000-square-foot spa, and ski-in, ski-out access on one broad horizontal site. The St. Regis Deer Valley, opened in 2009 on Deer Crest, is smaller at 177 rooms and built around a private funicular that climbs 500 vertical feet between its lower and upper buildings, with the brand's signature butler service. Choose Montage for scale and the spa, the St. Regis for the arrival and the view.
It is the hotel's defining piece of architecture. Because the St. Regis sits on the steep Deer Crest slope, guests arrive at a lower building and ride a private funicular up to the main upper resort, a climb of about 537 linear and 500 vertical feet that takes under 90 seconds through the aspens. The cars were built by Gangloff of Berne, the Swiss cable-car specialists. The funicular is not a gimmick but the structural answer to a hillside too steep for a conventional grand-lodge footprint.
Montage is the larger property on both counts. It runs to 154 guestrooms plus more than 66 suites and residences, and its Spa Montage covers about 35,000 square feet with 29 treatment rooms, indoor and outdoor pools and an extensive thermal circuit, one of the biggest hotel spas in the Rockies. The St. Regis is more intimate at 177 rooms and suites, with the Remede Spa a smaller, quieter operation. If a serious spa day is part of the trip, Montage wins it comfortably.
Both sit on the Deer Valley mountain with direct snow access, but in different ways. Montage is true ski-in, ski-out from Empire Pass, the highest base, with lifts and groomed runs at the door. The St. Regis reaches the slopes from its upper building on Deer Crest. Deer Valley remains one of the few resorts that restricts the mountain to skiers, no snowboarders, which both hotels trade on. For door-to-lift simplicity Montage has the edge; both put you on excellent snow.
Yes. Both Montage Deer Valley and the St. Regis Deer Valley operate through winter and summer rather than closing in the off-season, with summer bringing hiking, mountain biking and the Park City arts calendar. Rates swing hard by season: the ski months from December through March are the peak and the most expensive, while late spring and autumn shoulder periods are quieter and cheaper. Confirm current dates and any short maintenance closures on each hotel's booking engine before planning.
Montage leans family and group: its scale, the larger pools, the Paintbox children's program and multi-bedroom residences suit households travelling together. The St. Regis, smaller and built around butler service and that theatrical funicular arrival, tilts toward couples and travellers who want a more contained, view-driven stay. Both are genuinely luxurious; the deciding factor is usually party size and whether you want a sprawling resort or a tighter, more vertical one.