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Ski Butternut: from a 1936 CCC trail to the Murdock family's Warner Mountain

Great Barrington, MA

Part of Skiing New England

Skiing on Warner Mountain dates to 1936 and 1937, per the Berkshire Edge's retelling of New England Ski History: the Civilian Conservation Corps cut two trails atop the mountain, whose summit the Berkshire Edge gives as 1,770 feet, leading to the G-Bar-S Dude Ranch, owned by Henry J. "Pop" Cairns, who had purchased the Warner Mountain property in 1929 and opened the ranch in 1936. By the 1939-40 season, two rope tows were running and the area drew 14,500 visitors that season; it stayed open through World War II while other ski areas closed. That property was sold in April 1960 to James and Margaret Joyce of Barrington School, Inc., which ran into financial trouble and let the land sit idle. Channing Murdock, a former Mount Snow employee and former manager of Mohawk Mountain in Cornwall, Connecticut, purchased the property with his wife Jane Murdock in 1962; the couple invested in new ski terrain, a vertical double chairlift, and a new base lodge before reopening the area as Butternut Basin on Christmas Eve 1963.

  1. A Warner Mountain ski area with roots in a 1936 CCC trail and a 1962 reopening by the Murdock family, who still own it.

  2. An 1904 Great Barrington theater run since 2002 by a nonprofit performing arts center.

  3. A Great Barrington brewpub operating since 1995.

  4. A Great Barrington church associated with Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant, now owned by Guthrie.

  5. A 5-acre National Historic Landmark containing the remnants of W.E.B. Du Bois's grandfather's home.

A 1962 agreement with an agency that did not yet exist

Ski Butternut's own history page states: "In 1962, a quiet ceremony in Boston celebrated the marriage between a fledgling corporation called Butternut and the Department of Environmental Management of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," describing the resort as "located on the northern slopes of East Mountain State Forest near the lovely village of Great Barrington." That page's own history page describes the 1962 agreement as being with the Department of Environmental Management, an agency not created until 1975 -- an anachronism on the resort's own page, presented here as its own quoted claim rather than as settled fact for 1962.

The Murdock family, a 1995 tornado, and two recent deaths

Jeffrey Murdock, son of founders Channing and Jane Murdock, took over management of Ski Butternut from his father in June 1994 and remained its owner as of a January 2024 Berkshire Edge article. The May 29, 1995 Great Barrington tornado -- rated F-4 by the National Weather Service, the second-strongest rating on the Fujita scale -- tracked east, felling dozens of large trees on East Mountain before damaging Ski Butternut and several homes in the Lake Buel area and killing three people near Eagleton School, per the Berkshire Edge's own account of the storm; then-fire chief Mike Fitzpatrick separately recalled his own experience at the firehouse that day in the same article. Ski Butternut's homepage announced the installation of a new Skytrac lift, "Jane's Quad," to replace the Overbrook Triple Chair for the 2025-2026 season, honoring co-founder "Jane Murdock, who passed away recently at age 88" and who "opened the ski area with her husband Channing in 1963." Ski Butternut's history page states that founder Channing Brown Murdock "passed away peacefully" on July 8, 2026, at the age of 91.

In Great Barrington

The Mahaiwe Theater and its surrounding Mahaiwe Block were built in 1904 at the direction of a coalition of Great Barrington businessmen led by John H.C. Church, designed by architect Joseph McArthur Vance; the theater officially opened with live performances in 1905, and the nonprofit that operates it today, the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, was formed in 2002. Barrington Brewery & Restaurant's own site states, "Since 1995 Barrington Brewery has been serving our own Barn Brewed Beer and food made from scratch," and that it "was the first brewery on the east coast to install a solar panel system that supplies solar-heated hot water for brewing and restaurant use." Old Trinity Church, per Wikipedia's article on Great Barrington, is associated with the history of Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" and is now owned by Guthrie. The 5-acre W.E.B. Du Bois Boyhood Homesite contains the foundational remnants of the home of Du Bois's grandfather, where Du Bois lived for the first five years of his life; per Wikipedia, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark on the same day, May 11, 1976, and the site was donated to the state in 1987 and is administered by the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Frequently asked questions

How old is Ski Butternut?
Skiing on Warner Mountain dates to 1936-37, per the Berkshire Edge, when the CCC cut trails to the G-Bar-S Dude Ranch. The present-day Butternut Basin operation dates to 1962-63, when Channing and Jane Murdock bought the idled property and reopened it as Butternut Basin on Christmas Eve 1963.
Who owns Ski Butternut?
The Murdock family. Jeffrey Murdock, son of founders Channing and Jane Murdock, took over management in June 1994 and remained owner as of a January 2024 Berkshire Edge article; both his parents have since died, Jane at age 88 and Channing on July 8, 2026 at age 91.

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