Hank Greenberg, King Of The Mountain?

A Vermont ski town's future is tied to AIG's misfortunes and the dreams of its former chairman.

Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the former chairman of troubled insurer American International Group and an avid skier, says he wouldn't rule out buying the Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont's picturesque Green mountains and now in the midst of a $400 million expansion.

Called Spruce Peak, the development, which is nestled between two peaks, includes a newly opened 139-room luxury hotel, restaurants, 18-hole golf course, 21,000-square-foot spa, high-speed chairlifts and mountainside residences. "I have an emotional attachment to the place," Greenberg says. "If I can play a role in putting a group together to buy it, I would consider it."

His attachment derives from a fact unrealized by much of the outside world: The resort is 100% owned by AIG (nyse: AIG - news - people ). The insurer, which is struggling to survive even after receiving a $150 billion government bailout and ceding 80% ownership to the American taxpayer, has invested $200 million in the project thus far but needs to spend another $200 million to finish it.

Stowe Mountain makes few mentions of its corporate parent on its Web site, and it is next to impossible to find mention of the resort on AIG's site. AIG's most recent annual report is no more forthcoming. The word "Stowe" is not to be found and there's only a single line in the SEC filing that reveals the insurer's 100% ownership of Mt. Mansfield Company--the official corporate name of the ski resort.

While the development is a small piece of AIG Global Real Estate, a division that oversees AIG's property portfolio of more than 53 million square feet of retail, residential, industrial, office and hospitality properties and projects in more than 50 countries, the ties between Stowe and AIG are deep and historic.

The relationship began when AIG's founder, Cornelius Vander Starr, visited the ski town for the first time in 1943. Six years later, Starr launched the Mt. Mansfield Company, which he owned until he sold it to AIG in 1970. AIG owns one of the two mountains at the resort, while the other is leased from the state of Vermont. Many of AIG's highest ranking executives built and bought homes in Stowe. Some chose to retire there.

Owning Stowe brought a certain cache to AIG, says Greenberg, now chairman of C.V. Starr, a privately held global investment holding company with insurance agencies and a portfolio of global investments (including five condos at Stowe). "We used to have brokerage meetings there and races for clients and brokers," he says. "It was a very unique property for us. It was one of the many things that made AIG great and differentiated us from other companies."