DEK Builds
A ski resort development, acquisitions, and construction platform delivering hospitality and home building across North American mountain communities.
Hero photo: Sunday River, Newry, Maine — unit held as a passive investment through an affiliate; not a DEK Builds development
OVERVIEW
DEK Builds is a ski-resort and mountain-community platform based in Cheyenne, Wyoming, founded in 2026, engaged in development, acquisitions, advisory, construction, hospitality, and home building within mountain resorts and communities across North America, directly and through joint ventures.
Backed by its controlling family office, Kaufman & Company, for mountain-community investment and development and for resort and hospitality acquisitions, development, and investment, DEK Builds takes a long-term ownership approach across ski resorts and mountain communities, from ground-up construction to repositioning distressed mountain assets.
“There’s a real gap in this market between the handful of large operators consolidating destination resorts and the independent mountains that get left behind.”
Daniel Kaufman brings more than 25 years of experience in real estate development, private credit, and distressed asset investment to DEK Builds, which targets operating ski resorts in need of capital, distressed or closed mountain assets with reopening potential, ski-adjacent real estate and base-area land, and resorts with master-plan entitlements. DEK Builds is not a fund and not a broker, and does not charge fees to evaluate a property.
- Sector
- Ski Resort Development, Acquisitions & Construction
- Headquarters
- Cheyenne, WY
- Experience
- Founded 2026
- Website
- dekbuilds.com
- Capital Source
- Committed family office capital
- Launched
- August 12, 2026
- Geography
- United States and Canada
- Social
- Instagram @danskiandbuild · X/Twitter @Danskiandbuild
WHY MOUNTAIN REAL ESTATE
Mountain-town real estate is outperforming the broader market, and record visitation is straining the workforce housing these resorts depend on.
Source: Realtor.com data, cited in Builder Magazine, Dec. 2023.
Source: National Ski Areas Association, reported via SAM, May 2025. 492 U.S. ski areas operated in 2024–25. Housing strain is acute: in the Park City region, an estimated 52% of housing stock sits vacant or seasonal, with 800–1,000 additional workforce housing units needed over the next five years (Colorado Association of Ski Towns / Northwest Colorado Council of Governments, 2023 Workforce Housing Report).
OUR COMMUNITIES
CUSTOM MOUNTAIN HOMES
IN CONSTRUCTION
CONCEPTS
