The Wintergreen touch.

ne crisp spring day in the early 1970s, a few friends and I escaped the college grind by hiking a portion of the Appalachian Trail near Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. The leafless stillness of the big deciduous forest was perfect for trailless exploring, so we veered from the AT in a search for vistas. We thought a clearing up ahead would be that viewpoint, but as we got closer, my party of post-'60s nature lovers stared in disbelief. The "destruction" was unbelievable.

We'd stumbled upon the beginnings of Wintergreen Resort. A painfully raw fairway for a new golf course had been carved into the nearly 4,000-foot crest of Devil's Knob. The "desecration" seemed mindboggling to our group of tree huggers, long on both hair and environmental awareness. We took only pictures, left only footprints, and didn't need golf carts or ski slopes to enjoy this mountaintop. Things seemed simpler back then.

Nearly 20 years later, Wintergreen is one of the country's most environmentally sensitive resort communities. From the start, it has been planned and executed with remarkable concern for the natural setting.

That point would surely have been lost on our group in the early 70s. But today, more and more of America's growing demand for outdoor recreation is focusing on the private sector. As people search for "their piece of paradise," once-pristine private land becomes attractive to dedevelopers. Unfortunately, sound stewardship isn't always a hallmark of second-home resorts.

That's not the case at Wintergreen, 11,000 acres along the solitary spine of the Blue Ridge, overlooking both the Shenandoah Valley and the rolling Piedmont foothills. Winner of the American Hotel and Motel Association's 1987 National Environmental Quality Achievement Award, among other accolades, Wintergreen embodies the idea that conservation is good for development.

That philosophy has paid off. The resort is one of the South's most popular ski areas, home to the highest golf course in the Old Dominion, and the site of one of the nation's top 50 tennis resorts according to TENNIS magazine, as well as an eminently livable residential area. Wintergreen is today widely known for its preservation orientation, and that has proved to be a prime marketing tool. From the 4,000-foot summit area, adjacent to the Appalachian Trail and Blue Ridge Parkway, Wintergreen drops 2,500 feet, through cascade-dotted gorges, to broad bottomland along the Rockfish River. The upper and lower elevations were set for development of golf course, tennis facilities, and a ski resort.

All that proposed development still left more than 6,000 of the current 11,000 acres undeveloped. Five thousand acres of that is a band of mountainside land mandated to remain as wilderness or forested open space by the resort's master plan and bound by restrictive covenant.

The resort's current owners took over in 1984 when Wintergreen Development, Inc. purchased the resort and sold its facilities to a nonprofit, taxable corporation of Wintergreen property owners called Wintergreen Partners, Inc. Today Wintergreen Development owns the developable land, builds new facilities, and manages the resort's recreation for the Wintergreen Partners.

As part of the deal with the conservation-oriented property owners, the development company agreed to reduce the allowable residential density at Wintergreen, in part by shrinking the resort of 1 1, 000 acres by donating a 3,000-acre tract to the National Park Service's Blue Ridge Parkway.

Though the Appalachian Trail was rerouted around the resort three years ago, Wintergreen has always been proud that the Trail ran through the resort. Over the years, Wintergreen donated land and construction work to the trail.

Current Wintergreen Partner's president and former Virginia Attorney General Anthony F. Troy says the arrangement between the two groups has crystallized to prevent the decline seen at similar second-home communities: "One of the things you notice about these kinds of resorts is that eventually the developer cashes out and things start going downhill. To prevent that, the property owners effectively bought from the initial developer. " Wintergreen Partners is nonprofit "so that the incentive is not to earn dividends, but to earn a profit that can in turn be put back into facilities."

The point man for Wintergreen's efforts to co-exist with nature is staff naturalist Doug Coleman. "It's a real credit to Wintergreen Development that it asked a naturalist to evaluate its development plans all along. Few developers will subject their construction engineers to a Doug Coleman," says Troy.

Coleman efforts fall into two categories: education and application.

Wintergreen's year-round recreation program includes options from golf, tennis, and skiing to computer workshops to swimming lessons. But Coleman's work, called the outdoor program, is "sacred and above" those other activities. Popularity is the key. Up to 60 people jam Coleman's year-round guided hikes. Using 20 miles of trails he laid out, Coleman and staff discuss botany, archaeology, birds, geology, history, and more.

"At Wintergreen, visitors are hit in the face with the outdoors," he says. "It never ceases to surprise me how many developments choose a natural backdrop and then don't follow through. People are drawn by the natural beauty. You have to take the second step and help them understand and enjoy it. "

Coleman's follow-through includes summer nature camps for children, a Spring Wildflower Symposium, and a "Fall Flight of the Raptors," program focusing on hawk migration through the Shenandoah Valley. But that's just the start. Coleman offers advanced field trips as far-flung as watching waterfowl on the Virginia coast and studying reef ecology in the West Indies.

He likes to take visitors to the Blue Ridge Parkway-style overlooks constructed on the resort's scenic roads, where they can "talk textbook geology" while looking at the view. The Wintergreen property is home to 450 wildflower species and a mostly deciduous forest that includes a stand of virgin hemlocks.

But for all the emphasis on education, "application" is the key to how Coleman makes the case for nature in the boardroom and backcountry at Wintergreen. The focus of his environmental "application" program is the land about to be developed.

"To make a difference, you have to work way, way ahead," he notes. "There are often sites where biological diversity can be preserved if developers will work around special features. "

That's accomplished in two ways at Wintergreen. Coleman surveys sites scheduled for development, both for the resort and for individual property owners.

For example, four years ago Coleman interceded on behalf of a 13-acre site scheduled for home development. He went to bat for keeping it undeveloped, and the Shamokin Springs Nature Preserve was born. "It harbors a variety of botanical rarities for Virginia, including the spotted coralroot orchid and northern star flower.

Coleman has ongoing, informal contacts with the developers and property owners, as well as formal input to the Board of Directors as a member of the Outdoor Program Committee. He also meets quarterly with Wintergreen Development president Ed Spears.

Coleman's biggest impact on the resort may come through the "lot-consultation" program, offering a nonnon-mandatory micro-site analysis to property owners that fully itemizes the natural features of their land. About half of lot purchasers now take advantage of the naturalist's advice. The analysis, free to the land owner, is paid for by the real-estate arm of the resort. Coleman says the program helps owners see from the start that stewardship is built into the business of Wintergreen.

The "plant rescue" program may be the resort's most significant conservation effort. When development threatens significant species on a tract of any size, plant rescues take place. Sparked by Coleman's field trips and consultations, a growing brigade of property-owning nature lovers transplant all kinds of plants. Some end up on participant's own lots. Others are placed in a wildflower garden dedicated by Lady Bird johnson, or in various arboreta.

That once-delicate bridge between the natural world, as championed by Doug Coleman, and Wintergreen's corporate leadership is now solid and stable. Coleman says, "That's the real challenge here-and one that is facing this country's conservationists as more and more land gets developed. "