Carol Holding - Resort owner and family matriarch

Carol Holding, owner of Idaho's Sun Valley resort, passed away on December 22, 2024, in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was 95.

Carol Joy Orme grew up in Idaho and Utah and attended the University of Utah. In 1949, she married Robert Earl Holding and began a life-long partnership. Carol was a frequent hands-on business partner and became the family matriarch. They were married for 64 years. Earl died in 2013.

Together, they cultivated a 25-acre peach, pear and apple orchard in Dimple Dell, Utah. In 1952, the couple—still in their early 20s—moved to Little America, Wyoming, to manage a truck stop there. At the time, the service station had a café with 12 seats and a motel with 12 rooms. They expanded the business to a chain of similar “travel plazas” throughout the West under the Little America name.

After purchasing a Mobil refinery in Casper, Wyoming, in the 1960s, the Holdings bought Sinclair Oil in 1976. A year later, Carol showed her husband a newspaper article about the possible sale of the Sun Valley resort in Idaho. They purchased the resort in 1977 from owner Bill Janss. Neither had skied before. The Holdings upgraded the infrastructure of the resort, including lifts and snowmaking, and renovated its lodges. In 1984, the Holdings purchased Snowbasin resort in Utah.

Carol took particular interest in the Sun Valley Lodge, the resort’s flagship hotel. The lodge has been renovated three times under her guidance, most recently in 2015.