Robert Redford’s Utah Sanctuary: A Love Affair with Mount Timpanogos

When Robert Redford first wound his way up Provo Canyon in the early 1960s, the snow-capped summit of Mount Timpanogos rose before him like a revelation. He would later say that living in the shadow of that peak “almost feels as though the mountain embraces you.” For more than six decades, that embrace defined Redford’s life as an artist, conservationist, and cultural icon.

Finding Home Beneath a Mountain

In 1969, Redford purchased a modest ski area called Timp Haven, nestled at the base of Mount Timpanogos. The land had a deep history. Centuries ago, Native Americans from the Timpanogos Tribe made Provo Canyon their summer retreat—a spiritual landscape of cool streams, thick forest, cascading waterfalls, and abundant game. The land was subsequently owned by the Stewart family, Scottish immigrants who initially used the 2,200 acre-area to raise sheep and cattle. 

It was known back then as "Stewart Flats" but was officially renamed Timp Haven in 1944, when Ray Stewart and his wife Ava had a vision to turn it into a a small local ski resort. Timp Haven was rustic in the best way: a rope tow built by hand, a single chair lift crafted with local timbers, and a small cafe.

Robert Redford initially purchased a small 2-acre lot from the Stewarts in 1968. It cost just $500. Then as his career took off, he bought the rest of the available land. It was fortunate that he did. At the time, many investors were eyeing the land for potential hotels and condominiums. Redford saw himself more as a steward of the mountain than an owner, and was determined “to develop a little and preserve a great deal.”

Timp Haven was officially renamed Sundance Mountain Resort in 1969, but Redford's vision for the land went far beyond a ski resort. He saw it as the perfect place to blend art and nature. It also became a muse. 

“When I started making films, like Butch Cassidy and Jeremiah Johnson, films about the West—I felt it was important to really feature the landscape," he recalled. "In the case of Jeremiah Johnson, that was about showcasing (Utah’s) Mount Timpanogos, a landscape where I have lived since 1960. Where I raised my family. I was always taken with mountains. When I came back from Europe after shooting Downhill Racer in 1969, I focused on the mountains, and Timpanogos was a big one. It reminded me of the Eiger, which is a mountain that I had been to in Switzerland. Bringing the land and the value of the natural landscape into the picture was important to me.”

Preservation Before Profit

From the beginning, Redford feared the “thundering hooves of development galloping toward” Utah’s wild places. His response was radical for the era: he put much of his own land into conservation easements, limiting growth in order to preserve the canyon’s character. In the late 1990s, the Redford family dedicated more than 860 acres as a Nature and Wildlife Preserve at the base of Timpanogos. In 2020, they added another 316 acres of Elk Meadows, securing moose and elk habitat and protecting the beloved Stewart Falls trail. In total, some 1,200 acres bordering the Mount Timpanogos Wilderness have been set aside in perpetuity.

“It’s about storytelling,” Redford once said of Sundance. “There’s a history to this place. There’s a story to be told.” For him, preservation was part of that story: to “develop a little and preserve a great deal.”

A Sanctuary for Nature and Art

Sundance became more than a resort. It was a philosophy: art, nature, and community braided together in a space intentionally shielded from the sprawl creeping across the West. Redford separated the film festival from the canyon, holding it in Park City, because he feared the impact of thousands of visitors. “Right now,” he told TIME, “we have become an oasis.”

For generations of filmmakers, hikers, and visitors, that oasis was proof of what Redford believed all along: that landscapes could inspire, heal, and tell stories of their own.

Full Circle

On September 16, 2025, Redford died at his home in Sundance — the same mountainside he had spent decades defending. Timpanogos still towers above, largely unchanged, a sentinel over the land and legacy he fought to preserve. The mountain he loved now stands as monument to his vision: a reminder that art and nature, when nurtured together, can endure.