Financial Advisor magazine is doing a series on what advisors say it costs to retire in many locations. See the end of this article for links to previous articles in the series.

The secret about Park City, Utah, as a luscious retirement locale has been out for years now.

How could you miss it? Majestic mountains, stunning ski resorts, endless hiking and biking trails, the Sundance Film Festival and weather that locals describe as perfect through all four seasons. Plus all this comes within a half-hour drive of Salt Lake City and its international airport.

This mountain resort area has everything you could want for settling down in your Golden Years, said Chase Thomas, a lifelong resident and a CFP who is a partner at Alpha Wealth Funds in Park City.

"There is a cost to that, of course," he said. "If you're going to live where the millionaires retire, you have to be a millionaire."

Park City is caught in what Thomas describes as a "positive feedback loop." Rich retirees, many of them successful entrepreneurs with abundant liquid wealth, have shown an increasing desire to live in the area, driving up real estate values, home sales and luxury home construction. All the activity attracts more attention from wealthy baby boomer retirees, which drives up the activity further.

The end result has been an explosion in wealth that has effectively priced many lifelong residents out of their own market.

"For many of the local people, the only way they are able to live here is because they have retained their homes or real estate they have inherited," said Thomas.

Since 2012, the median price of a home in Park City has increased from $475,000 to about $711,000, according to Zillow. That makes the area among the most expensive areas in the nation to buy a home, behind only the California cities of San Jose, San Francisco and Anaheim, and Honolulu, according to data released by the National Association of Realtors.

The average Park City home listed for sale today has a median price of about $1.35 million, according to Zillow.

"You are paying for the fact that you live in a resort area," said Paul Winter, a CFP and founder of Five Seasons Financial Planning in Salt Lake City.

One slight measure of relief is Utah's tax burden, which is moderate compared to some other states. The owner of a $750,000 home, for example, can expect to pay an annual state property tax of about $5,556. On top of that is a 5 percent state income tax, which is average compared to the rest of the nation, and a combined sales tax of 8.45 percent.

With all this considered, how much wealth do you need to retire in Park City?

For a single person retiring at the age of 65, Thomas believes the magic number is $4 million.

He estimates that such a retiree will have to devote about $1 million of that amount to purchasing a home. For that amount, Thomas said, someone could buy a residence with three or four bedrooms and 2,500 square feet of space, probably on the outskirts of the city. Thomas noted that location is important: In the heart of the city, in a resort area such as Deer Valley, a million bucks would only get you a quarter-acre undeveloped lot.

Considering that many of the people retiring in Park City probably earned in the area of at least $150,000 to $200,000 per year during their careers, Thomas feels a minimum annual budget of $120,000 per year should allow anyone to retire comfortably in Park City.

That should allow someone to live off the interest of $3 million in investments well into their 90s, he said.

For married couples aged 65, he said, bump the assets to about $4.5 million and build a budget of about $150,000 per year.

Thomas notes that it's also important for advisors to keep clients within their budgets, especially in an area such as Park City, where people can become so enamored with locations and luxury homes that they trick themselves into thinking they can afford something they really can't.

"Some of the areas are very showy," he said. "It's very easy for people to get into an area that's too expensive for their long-term plan."

Read other articles on what advisors have to say about retiring in San Francisco, San Diego and New York City.