Art Jubin uses a kicksled to cross-country ski in his older years at the Lake Placid Central School District athletic fields. (Provided photo)

LAKE PLACID — Arthur “Art” Jubin was known for his love and his larger-than-life parties, and for his beloved businesses that drew little distinction between friends and family. Jubin died Saturday, Nov. 2 at the age of 96.

In the early 1950s, Jubin opened his first business, an insurance and real estate agency called Whiteface Agency. The insurance part of the business fell away in 1979 when he opened the Cascade Ski Touring Center on state Route 73, but he continued in real estate work almost until the day he died.

“Nothing was more beautiful to him than land,” said Jen Jubin, Art’s youngest daughter. He had a talent for finding special places in the place he loved to call home.

Jubin inherited a knack for business. The house that he grew up in was also the family business, a guest house that his father ran. His first job was working at the Lake Placid Club, where his grandfather had been the treasurer.

Jubin was always working, but it never seemed to weigh on him because he loved it so much. Jen said even in his last year, she would hear him downstairs on the phone with clients. He lived at the ski center for more than 40 years, where he slept on one side of the bed and kept his telephone on the other. When he was woken by a phone call in the middle of the night, Jen remembers hearing the joy in his voice.

Art Jubin enjoys life (Provided photo)

For Jubin, his businesses were family affairs. Ken Jubin, one of Art’s sons, partnered with him in his real estate work and kept the books for Cascade Ski Touring Center starting in the late 1990s. Jubin’s son Arthur “Artie” Vlaun Jubin was instrumental in running the ski center and building the original trails. Jen started helping out at the ski center around age 10.

“The ski center raised me,” she said, adding that her father called her “Velcro” because she would stick close to his side.

When Jen attended Clarkson University, she started as a business major but switched once she realized that the classes didn’t have the same “soul” of the small business she had fallen in love with. After graduating and despite being offered a full scholarship to Brown University to continue her studies, she instead chose to move home to help her dad at the ski center.

As more people came to work at the ski center, they became part of an ever-growing family. Friends of the family and long-time customers at the center remember being welcomed to a place they thought of as a second home. Krista Berger, a native to Lake Placid who grew up hearing stories, said he would make sure anyone who wanted to ski was able to, whether they could afford it or not.

“Somehow, I had cross-county skis and I was allowed to ski whenever I wanted,” Berger said. “When we came in, they always had hot chocolate, and I don’t remember my mom ever having to pay.”

Art Jubin enjoys life (Provided photo)

Through this work at the ski center, Jubin was also instrumental in establishing cross-country skiing as a staple in the Lake Placid community. For this reason, Berger has been working to get Jubin inducted into the Lake Placid Hall of Fame.

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“A will for life”

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As a businessman and in his personal life, Jubin was strong-willed. Once he had an idea, he would see it through. Ken remembers spending months creating a golf cart-sized trail on Mount Colburn, over terrain that was nearly impossible. Jubin would bring him a sandwich for lunch every day, and one day a thunderstorm descended. Jubin, who was in his 80s at the time, hated thunder and took off running down the mountain. He started feeling some chest pain and ended up getting airlifted to Plattsburgh to get treated for a heart attack. He walked away with eight stents in his heart, but not this, or any other health issue, could slow him down.

Art Jubin enjoys life (Provided photo)

“His determination and will for life was unmatched,” Ken said, adding that he never complained.

Instead, he found ways to let handicaps and setbacks become opportunities. When he could no longer walk without a walker, he started cross-country skiing with a kicksled. Even this past year, well into his 90s, he was still out skiing.

Born in Lake Placid, Jubin spent most of his life in the Adirondacks, and barely traveled anywhere else, except occasional trips to Florida.

He graduated from Lake Placid High School and studied business at Syracuse University. He also served stateside in the U.S. Army during the Korean War.

Early in his career, he spent some time in New York City working for an insurance agency. From what Jen and Ken remember him saying, he was only ever gathering expertise and information so that he could come right back to the Adirondacks and open his own business.

He loved skiing and did whatever he could to share that love. For a time, he ran the ski program at Scotts Cobble and taught kids how to ski. One of those kids was Roby Politi, former Lake Placid mayor and North Elba town supervisor, who was one of the most celebrated ski athletes at St. Lawrence University.

As a father, Jubin’s kids knew they could count on him. He was never late. Every day that he picked Jen up from school, he was five minutes early, and the only time he missed one of her tennis matches was when he was in the hospital after having a heart attack.

“He was a giver,” Ken said. “And you wanted to give back.”

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“He was always up to something”

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Jubin was known for his parties, but they always had a twist. Bob Frawley, a family friend and loyal ski center customer, was on some of the Tahawus backcountry ski parties, where two groups would converge on Lake Colden in the High Peaks Wilderness.

On one of these trips, they had reached the lake and heard a plane overhead. As it turns out, Jubin had hired his friend, Steve Short of the Adirondack Flying Service, to airdrop a keg of beer, some steaks and a huge bottle of champagne.

For Jubin, just about anything could become an excuse to throw a party. He had a tradition of throwing full moon parties, which became a staple at the ski center. People would drive for hours and brave any temperature to come to these parties — which usually featured beer, hot dogs, hot chocolate and some type of live music playing in the background — even if they had to huddle together like penguins and find ways to stop the taps on the kegs of beer from freezing.

He also loved sailing. His favorite boat was an E Scow, a long and narrow racing boat with a tall mast. He used to race the Lake Champlain ferry. On other occasions, he would take parties of people out on a boat that was affectionately referred to as the “lobster boat.” He had a lobster trap that he had found at an auction — another hobby of his — and would fill the trap with lobsters and sink it ahead of time, just to go retrieve it as a part of the festivities.

Frawley and others who participated in the adventures that Jubin engineered knew that he was both creative in his event planning and had a flair for the dramatic. But underneath the novelty, it was all about bringing a community together.

“He really loved people,” Frawley said. “I think he was one of my favorite human beings.”

“You were coming home to this place where you were important and loved,” Berger said, reflecting on the time she spent at the ski center.

In summing up what Jubin’s work at the ski center was all about, Jen said, “It was soul, it was family, it was gathering around the fire.”