When guest reviews describe the Alta Lodge as “warm” and “cozy” — as hundreds of them have over the past 40 years — they’re rarely referencing the heat emanating from its tall brick fireplace after a day in the snow.
Instead, it’s a nod to owner Mimi Levitt.
“She embodied the lodge. She knew every guest by name, knew their families, knew who were good friends with them,” said Levitt’s stepdaughter, Cassie Levitt Dippo. “If you asked any guests who’d been there for the last 40 years, they would say: ‘Mimi. The lodge is Mimi.’”
Not just the lodge. Levitt’s presence can be felt throughout the Town of Alta and, verily, the entire Little Cottonwood Canyon. In addition to being the face of the Alta Lodge — the town’s oldest inn — she volunteered as a member of the Alta Fire Department and served on the advisory committee for the arts nonprofit Alta Community Enrichment. Most notably, she helped found the conservation group Friends of Alta, which for decades has fought against largescale development in the picturesque canyon and to protect the Salt Lake Valley watershed.
Levitt was just 23 when she moved to Alta to ski and work at the lodge. She would spend the rest of her life there before her death on July 22 at age 82.
Courtesy of Friends of Alta Mimi Levitt cofounded the Alta Defense Fund, which later became Friends of Alta, in 1979 alongside her future husband, Bill Levitt, and lawyer Pat Shea. The organization has shielded Little Cottonwood Canyon from largescale development for more than 40 years was a passion project for Levitt, who died July 22, 2025 at age 82.
“I always told her that she was the queen of Alta,” said Pat Shea, a lawyer who joined Levitt and her husband Bill in founding Friends of Alta.
“She said, ‘Well, we didn’t have a coronation.’”
Frida and a father’s lens
Levitt did come from royalty, but of the photographic kind.
Her father was Nickolas Muray, a Hungarian immigrant who gained fame through his portraits of celebrities, including Babe Ruth, Marlene Deitrich and Dwight D. Eisenhower. From 1931-1941, Muray had an affair with Frida Kahlo, who became his most photographed subject. According to the Rockwell Museum, Muray took Mimi; her brother, Christopher; and their mother, Peggy Schwab — Muray’s fourth wife — to Mexico to meet Kahlo in 1951. It was the last time Muray would see Kahlo before she died in 1954.
Decades later, Levitt and her brother uncovered a trove of her father’s prints and negatives of Kahlo as well as letters between the two. The siblings used them to create the Nickolas Muray Photo Archives to honor their father, who was also an Olympic fencer.
“She was very proud of her father’s work,” said Rosie O’Grady, Alta Lodge’s president and head innkeeper who worked alongside Levitt for more than 15 years. “And I think she was very proud to be his daughter. She didn’t tout that. But when she wore the hat of managing the photo archive, she wore that proudly.”
Levitt also enjoyed photography and several of her photos are on display at the lodge as well. Though she played host to numerous celebrities at the lodge, her photos, fittingly, tend to focus on nature scenes.
(Mimi Levitt, courtesy of Friends of Alta) Mimi Levitt, the co-owner of the Alta Lodge near Alta Ski Area, was a founder of the Friends of Alta and an outspoken advocate for protecting the Little Cottonwood Canyon watershed. She was also a nature photographer.
Protecting a ‘magical place’
Levitt arrived in Alta — as many do — as a ski bum in 1966. Graceful and always game to take a few runs, Levitt learned to ski at the North Country School, an upstate New York boarding school for fourth through ninth graders. Dippo said Levitt’s interest in environmental conservation probably took root there as well.
It clearly bloomed as she spent more time in Little Cottonwood Canyon and with Alta Lodge owner Bill Levitt.
Also beguiled by Alta’s beauty, Bill Levitt bought the lodge and moved his family from New York to the Utah mountains in 1959. He became the town’s first mayor in 1972 and often fought for environmental protections during his 34 years in office. He and Mimi connected over that shared passion, among other interests, and the two married in 1982.
(Friends of Alta) Mimi Levitt co-owned the Alta Lodge near Alta Ski Area with her husband Bill Levitt. They were founders of the Friends of Alta and an outspoken advocates for protecting the Little Cottonwood Canyon watershed.
“Alta is a very magical place,” Dippo said. “And it gets into your bones and your blood, and you’ll do everything you can to save it.”
Their commitment to preserving Alta was put to the test three years before they wed, when the Town of Alta faced what both Mimi and Bill saw as an existential threat: A timeshare developer wanted to build a large block of condominiums on the bypass road between Alta Ski Area and Snowbird. To get the project through, Shea said the developer promised to sue Alta until the town went bankrupt. In response, Mimi, Bill and Shea created the Alta Defense Fund.
With its financial backing, Alta successfully fended off the developer. Five years later, the conservation nonprofit was renamed Friends of Alta. Now, Shea said, the organization has stockpiled more than $1 million, which “acts as a great deterrent” to aggressive developers.
(Friends of Alta) Mimi Levitt, the co-owner of the Alta Lodge near Alta Ski Area, was a founder of the Friends of Alta and an outspoken advocate for protecting the Little Cottonwood Canyon watershed.
Kody Fox, the director of Friends of Alta, credits those robust coffers to Levitt’s charm and passion for preserving the canyon.
“I swear we owe everything our organization has — as far as supporters, members, donors — really to the relationships that Mimi built over the years from Alta Lodge guests,” Fox said.
“The way that we look at Mimi has always been: She’s the heart and soul of everything we do.”
That sentiment echoes through the Alta Lodge as well.
Bringing guests together with the big board
Before computers, there was the big board. Alta Lodge had one for each month, and a slot per day for each of its 56 rooms. For most of her five decades there, it was Levitt’s job to puzzle out, and pencil in, where guests would stay and even where at the community dining tables they would sit.
(Alta Lodge) Mimi Levitt moved to Alta to work at the Alta Lodge after graduating from college in 1966 and she never left. She was a graceful skier and fierce protector of Little Cottonwood Canyon. Levitt died July 22, 2025, at 82.
She didn’t just take down dates and party sizes, though. She learned which guests were friends, who needed special accommodations, even which ones detested mushrooms. Then, she would piece the sets of guests together to give them the most enjoyable stay possible.
“She would see things in a way, and know things about different people and what their likes and dislikes were, and make it so everybody would come to the lodge and be happy,” O’Grady said. “And she took it all very seriously and true to heart.”
Armed with a Coca-Cola, an iron-tight memory and plenty of puns, Levitt could charm even the most bristly guests. That included ones upset about things she couldn’t control, such as subpar snow or being trapped inside for days during an interlodge.
(Alta Lodge) To many guests, Mimi Levitt was the Alta Lodge incarnate. At first a deskie and later the owner, her love of dogs fell behind only her love of the lodge, Friends of Alta and her husband, Bill. Levitt died on July 22, 2025 at age 82.
“Her joy of life, her smile, her welcoming attitude. She was so supportive, one of the most supportive, wonderful, welcoming people,” said Levitt’s stepson Toby Levitt. “I mean, people will use the word beloved, but it’s true of her.”
The Alta Lodge posted a notice of Levitt’s death and of an Aug. 31 celebration of life on its Facebook page and asked people to leave memories. Many said they can’t imagine the lodge without Levitt.
“Thank you Mimi for letting us all into your house,” wrote Paul Shin, a 54-year-old from Washington D.C. who said he has been coming to Alta for 20 years. “That’s what the alta lodge has always felt like—having dinner and a chat by the fire at your best friend’s house.”
Correction: Aug. 22, 2025, 9 a.m. • Friends of Alta has more than $1 million. Also, Alta Lodge has 56 rooms. Those numbers were incorrect in a previous version of this article.