Shay Butler’s Latest Project? Proprietorship Of An Idaho-Based Alpine Ski Resort

Perennial YouTube family vlogging patriarch Shay Butler announced last week that he would be taking a year-long break from his channel starting in March. And now we might have a better sense of how the 36-year-old Maker Studios co-founder will be occupying himself during the well-earned sabbatical.

Utah-based Butler has purchased a local ski resort called Pebble Creek Ski Area, according to the Idaho State Journal. Pebble Creek was previously owned by a group of investors for over three decades. Butler and his wife — fellow YouTube star Colette Butler — initially moved to purchase the property in nearby Inkom, Idaho, for an undisclosed sum last February, though the deal couldn’t be finalized until this month when the U.S. Forest Service officially signed off on the sale.

Though the resort had been on the market many years, potential buyers were skeptical of its money-making prospects. But Butler told the Journal — where he used to work as a paperboy as a kid — that his motivation for buying the property wasn’t necessarily to turn a profit, but to be a part of the very resort where he’d learned to ski as a kid.

“We want to keep the local, family-like vibe, but there’s a lot of potential for summertime activities,” he explained, noting that the team also wanted to maintain a program letting local public school students take ski lessons in exchange for P.E. credits. Also on the table are: paving mountain bike trails, hosting outdoor concerts and movie nights, and offering summer mountain tubing. And Butler is already tapping his social media expertise to help hone the resort’s future: the team will be hosting polls on Pebble Creek’s Facebook page to help determine new offerings. The resort has also rolled out brand new accounts on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.