Long before Sundance became shorthand for independent film, it was a struggling ski area in Utah’s Provo Canyon, and Robert Redford was one of its neighbors.
In 1961, Redford and his first wife, Lola Van Wagenen, bought two acres near the small-scale Timp Haven ski resort and built a house there. He considered the land a refuge from Hollywood. “Other people have analysis. I have Utah,” he would say, according to the …