Beaver Creek – Former President Gerald Ford is considering selling his longtime home in this ski resort town after frail health this year forced him to cancel plans to spend the season here, his spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Ford, 93, ended up in a Vail hospital in July after experiencing shortness of breath, and later at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. He also had a heart pacemaker implanted.
Whether Ford, who is now at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., returns to his Beaver Creek home remains questionable.
“It all depends on how he feels,” spokeswoman Penny Circle said.
A final decision has not been made on the sale of the house, one of the first built in the Vail Valley, Circle said.
Around Vail, Ford and his wife, Betty, are recognized for their charity work.
“They were always here, always such a part of what was going on,” John Dakin of the Vail Valley Foundation said. “You’d see them at the amphitheater, or at the grocery store, or at the ski classic. I think their absence will be a lot larger, and felt more broadly, than it is now.”
Ford has also been active in local issues, including a letter of opposition he recently wrote to the Eagle County Commission opposing construction of a controversial alpine slide amusement ride at Beaver Creek.
Ford suffered two small strokes five years ago. He became the nation’s oldest living former president with the death of Ronald Reagan in 2004.
