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The Hidden History of Sun Valley, the Mountain Retreat of Moguls and Icons

What began as a railroad scheme became one of America’s most elite cultural and corporate destinations.

(Editor’s note: This article was originally published on June 16, 2025.) For over 40 years, some of the world’s most prominent figures in business and media have made the trek to Sun Valley, Idaho, for the annual Allen & Company conference—a mogul-packed summer gathering of dealmaking and networking. But long before Sun Valley became synonymous with “Summer Camp for Billionaires,” the idyllic ski resort attracted Hollywood icons, literary luminaries and adventure-seeking visitors. One of the town’s most prominent fans was Ernest Hemingway, who first visited Sun Valley in 1939 and wrote parts of his 1940 novel, For Whom the Bells Toll, in the Sun Valley Lodge—a four-story resort with a starting nightlate rate of $519 that offers a “Celebrity Suite” dedicated to the author. Hemingway spent the last years of his life in the adjacent town of Ketchum.

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