Sandpoint among 'Coolest Small Towns'

SANDPOINT — Lenny Volland does not live here, but he comes back often.

Volland owns property near Sandpoint, which allows him to return to ski in the winter and enjoy the lake in the summer.

“It’s low key,” Volland said. “There’s a lot to do.”

Those are two key criteria for Sandpoint’s recent standing as one of the easiest-going, small towns in the U.S.

The recent report in Budget Traveler magazine, released this month, includes Sandpoint as one of the Top 20 Coolest Small Towns in the country.

The North Idaho burg was chosen from 147 candidates and shares the cool category with the likes of Sitka, Alaska, Red Lodge, Mont., Coverdale, Calif., Lyons, Colo. and Sisters, Ore.

To Volland, Sandpoint beats Sisters for its friendly, blue-collar appeal.

“I used to ski in Sisters, before it got discovered,” Volland said as he waited for an order at Joe’s Philly Steaks on Church Street.

Up the block at Joel’s Mexican Food, Korrine Palmer and her grown children sit outside in the sun after lunch.

The news that her favorite small town was chosen as one of the coolest in the nation excites, but does not surprise her.

“That validates us even more,” Palmer said, peering through a sleek pair of black lens sunglasses.

She has lived throughout the West from Texas to Washington, she said, but settled in Sandpoint for its small-community feel, pleasant views and winter sunshine.

 “Even the winter gray days here are good days,” she said.

Amy Little, president and CEO of Sandpoint’s chamber of commerce, has her own bias.

Sandpoint, Idaho is America’s Coolest Small Town,” Little wrote on the Budget Travel Web site where people may cast votes until May for the top cool town. “Not only do we have an amazing lake that laps gently at the shores of our very own City Beach, but we have a giant award-winning ski resort in Schweitzer Mountain that overlooks the lake and the city like a mother-bear watching her cub.”

The state chamber of commerce is taking advantage of Sandpoint’s standing to promote the community and the northern part of the state, Cathy Bournier, tourism analyst for the Idaho Division of Tourism, said.

“We’re still trying to tell those people who have the world to go visit, ‘Why go someplace else when Idaho is right here?’” Bournier said.

For some residents, though, Sandpoint’s less than high-maintenance crowd is just fine.

“There are no five-star hotels here, no airports, no amenities that the real cool crowd demands, Jim Aiken, owner of the Pend Oreille Barber Shop on N. Second Ave., said. “That’s what makes Sandpoint neat.

“It’s a little more even keeled, we don’t have the big swings that some of those communities have. We’re lucky. That’s what makes it cool.”

Volland has another reason for Sandpoint’s coolness.

“I think the people are real personable,” he said.

He recounted meeting a bearded man at a local grocery store who carried a big, side-arm stuck into a holster on his hip.

He was friendly, a regular nice guy, Volland said.

“That’s what makes a neat town.”

The magazine’s contest for Coolest Small Town includes cities of under 10,000 residents that are beginning to draw attention — and new residents — because of the quality of life, arts, and restaurant scene, or proximity to nature, according to Budget Traveler.

“ We want towns with an edge, so think avant-garde galleries, not country stores,” according to the magazine.

To cast a vote for Sandpoint visit www.budgettravel.com/bt-srv/coolestsmalltowns/CST2010.html?wpisrc=newsletter.