Local police officers, like Lloyd Evans, tell them they had to get snow tires and figure out how to park the car on that steep driveway or park it somewhere else. Mac would later purchase the Washington School (then an abandoned ruin of a building) on Park Avenue and renovate it into an elegant tiny country inn.
We would meet up for dinners at everyone’s favorite (and only) Mexican restaurant, The Utah Coal and Lumber. It was in a historic building close to the old railroad Depot building. There were no paved roads after that corner in Old Town. The liquor laws in Utah were especially quirky in those years. There were rules about mixing drinks, yet bringing in your own liquor was fine. So, Mac also started bringing his blender and all the ingredients for margaritas to the restaurant, except for the actual liquor, which he legally purchased in state-issued mini bottles. He would unplug the Coors beer sign and plug in the blender, and voila! Margaritas!
A year or two later, Mac and Ann were involved, as so many folks were then, in a community theater in the renovated Egyptian in the early ‘80s.They played tourists in The Night of the Iguana. There was a scene where they were supposed to have a live iguana in a burlap bag. Being fresh out of iguanas in Park City, some child’s pet bunny filled in for the run of the show. There are stories about the backstage bunny. You should ask about them.
After Mac built the Motherlode and renovated the Washington School Inn, Park City Municipal decided to sell the old War Memorial building on Main Street. The city needed money to run the town and make improvements and that tired old building, with the tiny bowling alley and basketball court(s) and police station and the fledgling KPCW nonprofit radio station, upstairs in the bunker, was something the City could turn into much needed cash.
Mac and Ann bought the building and for years it served as the place for The One Sundance party that happened at the end of the festival. We hung balloons on the basketball hoops and thirty/forty something former cheerleaders dug out their old uniforms and dressed up to be supportive of the winning film Hoosiers in 1987.
Ann opened Park City’s first spa Vie, located just up from the Egyptian theater. Mac was ready for a new project. His brother had served in the occupation forces after World War II in Europe and had met Countess Harriet Walderdorff at her magical Goldener Hirsh hotel. Mac went to Austria to meet with The Countess in the late ‘80s and explained his dream to create a sister version of that quintessential Austrian inn at the emerging ski resort of Deer Valley. For the next two years, Mac traveled to Salzburg where, with the Countess’ approval, collected interior finishes and furniture that grace the inn today. She tested his intentions time and time again and came out to Park City twice to make certain their intentions were pure.
When the Goldener Hirsh opened in 1991, Mac dressed in his lederhosen with his giant St Bernard, named Schnapps, by his side. He had created a space that had the approval of the Countess; from the high thread count of the sheets to the perfect kirsch enhanced fondue.
Around the same time, actors Heather Menzies and Robert Urich moved to town and became friends with the MacQuoid’s. Robert and Heather performed the play, Love Letters, at the Egyptian. After their performance was over, they quietly told Mac and Ann that if they wanted to draw genuine talent to Park City, they would need a facility with a much larger stage and proper dressing rooms and a terrific sound system and technical equipment. So, along with then Arts Council director JoAnn Charnes, Ann set about to help create a joint-use facility with the school district. It required the passage of a bond election where an ice rink and conventions center failed to get the needed votes. And in January of 1998 The Eccles Center for the Performing Arts opened with Robert as emcee for the star-studded evening, featuring his old co-star, Bill Cosby.
Ann had led the most successful fundraising campaign for the arts in the shortest period of time in the history of the town. Park City High School students continue to have a remarkable state-of-the-art auditorium/theater space to perform their own concerts and plays. And for 20 plus years it has served as the home for the Sundance Film Festival.
Ann’s successful fundraising had segued into a successful career in real estate which allowed the couple to partner with other Parkites in 1999 to start a winery in Napa, named Parallel wines. Named for the skiing aspect of its Park City founders, and paralleling food and wine and lifestyles.
Today Mac and Ann live in Park Meadows near their daughter, Katy, her husband Josh, and their greatest joy, grandson Bodie. The family love to travel to Europe and Africa - where their favorite shared adventures have taken place.
From Mac’s time on the historic district commission fighting to save the old miner shacks on Deer Valley Drive, to Ann’s time being awarded Citizen of the Year by the Park City Rotary Club, the couple have been fixtures in the town’s rich recent history.
And all those times you saw the USC Marching Band parade down Main Street in the fall, that was the doing of USC alum, Mac. When the team was playing in Utah for a football game, he would ask them to swing by Park City so all the music students here, and the rest of us, could witness one of the greatest marching bands ever.
Mac and Ann didn’t move to Park City all those decades ago to just live here. They moved and helped shape a community. One baton waving, perfect Parallel pour, standing ovation time after time.