ABOUT GARY LIRETTE

Gary Lirette, featured in Where To Retire magazine, with almost three million readers in December 2009, Gary is a Sandpoint real estate professional and avid community supporter. As the host of two radio shows - North Idaho Business and North Idaho Arts and Adventure for many years - the position of interviewing hundreds of native Idahoans and transplants has given Gary a unique perspective.

"Having owned several homes and properties here gives me a view from your side, as a home owner and buyer. I owned two restaurants in town, and work with over a dozen charities. Certainly real estate is my job, but if you really want to have a guide for your life in North Idaho, with my experience, I hope you find me a resource for you and your family for life."

ABOUT SANDPOINT, IDAHO

While certainly one can lament that this fantastic place has changed over the years, it is still a quaint, high quality of life small North Idaho town with a population under 10,000. Year after year the national media has awarded great accolades to Sandpoint: Best Small Town in the West, Top 10 Resort Towns, America's Dream Town, Top 10 Adventure Town. The NY Times, USA Today, Sunset Magazine, AOL Travel, National Geographic and many, many more all have touted this place as a dream town, undiscovered and hidden from the rest of the world. Right above the city of Sandpoint is Schweitzer Mountain Ski Resort, and similarly, over the last few years, Schweitzer has also garnered national attention, being named for the first time in 2008 to Skiing Magazine's Top 25 Ski Resorts, and #3 for Tree Skiing. Lake Pend Oreille, gargantuan with its 111 miles of coastline sandwiches Sandpoint on one side, with Schweitzer on the other. Manufacturer and national businesses have made the area home, with companies such as Coldwater Creek, Litehouse Foods, Quest Aircraft, Encoder Products, Thorne Research, and many more finding great employees and a quality of life few other places can offer.

With growth has come growing pains, yet the essence of this part of the North Idaho Panhandle has remained. It is a great place to live, raise a family, and enjoy what nature offers. Festivals and events pepper each season, and the people are friendly to a fault. Certainly if one looks, we find issues that are troubling, such as the cost of living, traffic, and attitudes the newcomers bring that differ with the local populace. Many believe, however, that these are comparatively minor aberrations; our slice of North Idaho heaven is still better than most of the places any of us have been before.

Our economy is suffering much like the rest of the nation, yet we still have good unemployment figures, optimistic future job growth, and are tackling our issues with fervent community involvement.

We are so, so proud of our little community, and while we worry about growth, we are also proud, and welcome more than we turn away.

Sandpoint is truly what they say about us. Perhaps Cabin Life, Cabin Living said it best calling our community "the quintessential Western outdoor lover's town."