AA-2026-592EDD
On the image
Sometime in the 1950s, an American resort operator looked at a steep forested mountain slope and concluded that the correct use for it was a ski-style chairlift running visitors straight up through the trees, apparently for the view and the bragging rights and not much else. The yellow lift machinery dominates the left of the scene with the cheerful confidence of a capital investment that has not yet been stress-tested by liability lawyers.
Down at the base, the poolside terrace offers the full postwar leisure vocabulary: aluminum-framed lawn chairs in yellow and white, a fringed patio umbrella, and guests in the unhurried posture of people who have been told this is relaxation and are doing their best to comply. A man in pale slacks stands with a camera, documenting the vacation the way vacationers of the era documented everything — as evidence it happened.
The mountain resort with a chairlift and a swimming pool in the same frame is a very specific 1950s proposition: the idea that nature and comfort could be offered simultaneously, and that no one would notice the contradiction. The Appalachian setting — that particular green density of deciduous forest on a hard-cut slope — narrows it to the Blue Ridge or Smokies corridor, the kind of family destination that filled a station wagon for a week every August.
Visually related — by likeness
Chairlift and Pool Terrace, Appalachian Mountain Resort, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-592EDD. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/chairlift-and-pool-terrace-appalachian-mountain-resort-1950s.
@misc{aaAA2026592EDD,
title = {Chairlift and Pool Terrace, Appalachian Mountain Resort, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-592EDD},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/chairlift-and-pool-terrace-appalachian-mountain-resort-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Chairlift and Pool Terrace, Appalachian Mountain Resort, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-592EDD UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/chairlift-and-pool-terrace-appalachian-mountain-resort-1950s ER -
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