Wintergreen, VA – The leadership of Wintergreen Resort has agreed that the financially beleaguered Virginia ski area will be acquired by the owner of Greenbrier Resort in White Sulfur Springs, W.V.

“We are gratified to have found an excellent business partner who has provided Wintergreen with the opportunity to grow, while at the same time preserving the family oriented nature of our community,”  L. Allen Bennett Jr., chairman of Wintergreen Partners, said in a prepared statement.

Although new owner Jim Justice is contemplating a longer ski season at Wintergreen via additional snowmaking from a water source further up the mountain, or a major PGA tournament at Wintergreen’s Devil’s Knob golf course, his immediate concern is to prop up residential properties at the resort in Nelson County in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Earlier this year, Wintergreen’s residential owners were asked to pay their association dues four months early to bolster the resort’s coffers after a $3 million line of credit was canceled by Bank of America.  Jobs at the resort were slashed in a cost-cutting measure in February.

The sale to Justice, estimated at $16.5 million, is expected to close by the end of June. Justice, who is also active in mining and timber interests, saved Greenbrier Resort from bankruptcy when he acquired the property in 2009. He plans to jointly market both properties to residents in the District of Columbia, their largest nearby population base.