Report of Independent Accountants
To the Shareholders and Trustees
Alpine Equity Trust
In planning and performing our audit of the financial statements of
Alpine US Real Estate Equity Fund (the "Fund") for the year ended
September 30, 2000, we considered its internal control, including
control activities for safeguarding securities, in order to
determine our auditing procedures for the purpose of expressing
our opinion on the financial statements and to comply with the
requirements of Form N-SAR, not to provide assurance on
internal control.
The management of the Fund is responsible for establishing
and maintaining internal control. In fulfilling this responsibility,
estimates and judgments by management are required to assess the
expected benefits and related costs of controls. Generally, controls
that are relevant to an audit pertain to the entity's objective of
preparing financial statements for external purposes that are fairly
presented in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles.
Those controls include the safeguarding of assets against unauthorized
acquisition, use or disposition.
Because of inherent limitations in internal control, errors or
fraud may occur and not be detected. Also, projection of any
evaluation of internal control to future periods is subject to
the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in
conditions or that the effectiveness of their design and operation
may deteriorate.
Our consideration of internal control would not necessarily disclose
all matters in internal control that might be material weaknesses
under standards established by the American Institute of Certified
Public Accountants. A material weakness is a condition in which the
design or operation of one or more of the internal control components
does not reduce to a relatively low level the risk that misstatements
caused by error or fraud in amounts that would be material in relation
to the financial statements being audited may occur and not be
detected within a timely period by employees in the normal course of
performing their assigned functions. However, we noted no matters
involving internal control and its operation, including controls for
safeguarding securities, that we consider to be material weaknesses
as defined above as of September 30, 2000.
This report is intended solely for the information and use of the
Trustees, management and the Securities and Exchange Commission
and is not intended to be and should not be used by anyone other
than these specified parties.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
November 15, 2000
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