Andre Agassi and Stefanie Graf fell in love with Tamarack the first time they saw it. "A friend of mine was in Boise in 2003 and went to Tamarack and called us and said we just had to see the place," Agassi said in a telephone interview from Las Vegas, where he lives with Graf and their two children.
"We went up there and we absolutely fell in love with the place. It's rare to find a place in the world that brings together all those elements - a lake, a meadow and the mountain.
"My passions are connections. When I played tennis, you know you go out there for maybe two hours and you make connections, connections with people. In Tamarack, we wanted to create an environment where other people made connections - on a ski lift, or skiing and all that, sharing time together."
Attracted not just by the location, Agassi and Graf warmed to the vision for Tamarack that was articulated by Jean-Pierre Boespflug: a high end, exclusive resort that respected the environment and limited the numbers that would be in the resort at any one time.
They bought their own place, "something practical", as Agassi says. It's a modest, mid-range timber house, one of several in a group and different from those adjacent to it only by the privacy screen around the open-air hot tub. They also bought an apartment in the (about to be built) Fairmont hotel and condominium, in which they have a 50/50 interest with Bayview financial of Miami.
Their family (they have two children aged six and four) go to Tamarack very regularly - about seven times last winter and three times over the summer. It's family time and, despite their celebrity status, the Agassis are left alone and simply get on with the fun like anyone else.
Not so easy for an Irish person, perhaps. Idaho, let's face it, is not a few hours drive away - more like 24 hours in airports and planes: Dublin to Chicago or Los Angeles and then a connector flight to Boise, 90 miles from the resort.
Agassi accepts this. "The travel might be tough," he agrees. "But the question is - what does Tamarack provide when you are there? This is a place providing something anytime of the year - water sports in the lake (it's like 72 degrees), golf, cross country skiing, snowboarding, downhill skiing . . . ice fishing for God's sake! It's an all season resort."
At a business level, Agassi and Graf have been intimately involved in setting the interior design of the Fairmont apartments and choosing the fabric and furnishings. The end result is plummy and rich, lots of dark wood and deep colours but the show apartment is also modern and uncluttered. The decisions have been theirs.
"Steffi and I . . . this whole process will explore the health or otherwise of your relationship. Steffi and I love aged material, mature colours. But we also like modern design . . . If you are doing things the right way, eventually the rubber meets the road."
Agassi learnt skiing and snowboarding with his six-year-old son Jaden. He's got meetings with architects and builders, tweaking the design just before construction of the Fairmont starts. He and Steffi and the children will be back in Tamarack soon. "Once you park your car there, you won't see it again till you leave," he says.
