{"id":2447586,"date":"2019-08-15T09:59:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T15:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=311209"},"modified":"2019-08-15T09:59:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-15T15:59:00","slug":"a-tale-of-two-aspen-clubs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/a-tale-of-two-aspen-clubs\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Two Aspen Clubs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"swift-gallery p402_hide\" readability=\"6.8579234972678\">\n<ul id=\"imageGallery-311209-356\" class=\"gallery list-unstyled\">\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Aspen Historical Society\/Katey Buster Collection | Arthur Ashe and Billy Jean King at the Aspen Tennis Festival, July 1984.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-1\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"9\">\n<p><strong>Arthur Ashe and Billy Jean King at the Aspen Tennis Festival, July 1984.<\/strong><br \/>Aspen Historical Society\/Katey Buster Collection<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1.jpg\" alt=\"Arthur Ashe and Billy Jean King at the Aspen Tennis Festival, July 1984.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-1.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Aspen Historical Society\/Katey Buster Collection | Howard Cosell and John McEnroe at the Aspen Tennis Festival, July 1984.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-1\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"9\">\n<p><strong>Howard Cosell and John McEnroe at the Aspen Tennis Festival, July 1984.<\/strong><br \/>Aspen Historical Society\/Katey Buster Collection<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"Howard Cosell and John McEnroe at the Aspen Tennis Festival, July 1984.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-2-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-2.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Aspen Historical Society\/Aspen Times | Morty Raynes and John McEnroe, who defeated Kenny Rogers and Bjorn Borg during the Aspen Tennis Fest, a fundraiser for the National Cerebral Palsy Foundation. This image was published Aug. 4, 1983, in The Aspen Times.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"1\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"13\">\n<p><strong>Morty Raynes and John McEnroe, who defeated Kenny Rogers and Bjorn Borg during the Aspen Tennis Fest, a fundraiser for the National Cerebral Palsy Foundation. This image was published Aug. 4, 1983, in The Aspen Times.<\/strong><br \/>Aspen Historical Society\/Aspen Times<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-2.jpg\" alt=\"Morty Raynes and John McEnroe, who defeated Kenny Rogers and Bjorn Borg during the Aspen Tennis Fest, a fundraiser for the National Cerebral Palsy Foundation. This image was published Aug. 4, 1983, in The Aspen Times.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-3-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-3.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Aspen Historical Society\/Katey Buster Collection | Ted Kennedy on the court at the Aspen Tennis Festival, July 1984.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-1\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"9\">\n<p><strong>Ted Kennedy on the court at the Aspen Tennis Festival, July 1984.<\/strong><br \/>Aspen Historical Society\/Katey Buster Collection<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-3.jpg\" alt=\"Ted Kennedy on the court at the Aspen Tennis Festival, July 1984.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-4-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-4.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Aspen Times file photo | Investigators surround the Jeep that Steve Grabow was killed in by a car bomb outside the Aspen Club on Dec. 8, 1985.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-1\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"9\">\n<p><strong>Investigators surround the Jeep that Steve Grabow was killed in by a car bomb outside the Aspen Club on Dec. 8, 1985.<\/strong><br \/>Aspen Times file photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-4.jpg\" alt=\"Investigators surround the Jeep that Steve Grabow was killed in by a car bomb outside the Aspen Club on Dec. 8, 1985.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-5-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-5.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Courtesy Photo | Steve Grabow\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-2\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"7\">\n<p><strong>Steve Grabow<\/strong><br \/>Courtesy Photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-5.jpg\" alt=\"Steve Grabow\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-6-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-6.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Aspen Times file photo | Dick Butera\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-2\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"7\">\n<p><strong>Dick Butera<\/strong><br \/>Aspen Times file photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-6.jpg\" alt=\"Dick Butera\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-7-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-7.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Aspen Times file photo | Inside the gym at the Aspen Club, in 2009.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-1.5\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"8\">\n<p><strong>Inside the gym at the Aspen Club, in 2009.<\/strong><br \/>Aspen Times file photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-7.jpg\" alt=\"Inside the gym at the Aspen Club, in 2009.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-8-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-8.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Aspen Times file photo | Levi Borst, now a deputy with the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office, pumping iron at the Aspen Club in November 2005.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-0.5\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"10\">\n<p><strong>Levi Borst, now a deputy with the Pitkin County Sheriff&#8217;s Office, pumping iron at the Aspen Club in November 2005.<\/strong><br \/>Aspen Times file photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-8.jpg\" alt=\"Levi Borst, now a deputy with the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office, pumping iron at the Aspen Club in November 2005.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-9-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-9.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Aspen Times file photo | The site of theAspen Club redevelopment project sits dormant on a recent June morning.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-1.5\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"8\">\n<p><strong>The site of theAspen Club redevelopment project sits dormant on a recent June morning.<\/strong><br \/>Aspen Times file photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-9.jpg\" alt=\"The site of theAspen Club redevelopment project sits dormant on a recent June morning.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-10-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-10.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Aspen Times file photo | The redevelopment site for the bankrupt Aspen Club showed no signs of activity on a recent June day.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-1.5\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"8\">\n<p><strong>The redevelopment site for the bankrupt Aspen Club showed no signs of activity on a recent June day.<\/strong><br \/>Aspen Times file photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/cover-atw-081519-1-10.jpg\" alt=\"The redevelopment site for the bankrupt Aspen Club showed no signs of activity on a recent June day.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"caption-toggle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/weekly\/a-tale-of-two-aspen-clubs\/#\" class=\"show-captions\">Show Captions<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/weekly\/a-tale-of-two-aspen-clubs\/#\" class=\"hide-captions\">Hide Captions<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">There was a time when a tennis and fitness club was Aspen\u2019s social nerve center. Of all the stories that fill the halls of modern-day Aspen lore \u2014 and there are plenty of them \u2014 it is worth revisiting an era when the Aspen Club captivated the sportsworld and celebrities alike.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Today the Aspen Club and Spa infamously symbolizes the depths that a project with high community expectations can sink. Ask owner and president Michael Fox, however, and you\u2019ll get an optimistic outlook that the company will emerge from the financial mess that\u2019s spelled out in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. You\u2019ll hear that the redevelopment project eventually will resume, and that returning club members one day will enjoy immense upgrades after faithfully enduring the club\u2019s multi-year closure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Fox bought the club in 1996 with an eye toward the future. After his proposal cleared the complex and arduous red tape of Aspen\u2019s development approval process in June 2010, the club closed in February 2016 so construction could begin. And so it did, until late August 2017, when work stopped after the majority of subcontractors left the job because they hadn\u2019t been paid for their labor and materials. The Aspen Club\u2019s debts snowballed and now stand at more than $25 million due t0 contractors and $50 million to other creditors and lenders, according to bankruptcy documents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">As the bankruptcy court in Denver sifts through the Aspen Club\u2019s complex web of finances, the venue sits dormant on the edge of Ute Avenue, now a failed-development wasteland surrounded by locked fencing peppered with keep-out signs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">It is that same location that was once a hotspot for celebrities and a social spot for locals, while also being on the frontier of sports medicine and rehabilitation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cIt was a wonderful time,\u201d said Julie Anthony, who with her husband at the time, developer Dick Butera, owned and operated the club from 1982 to 1996, and also started the Fitness and Sports Medicine Institute. \u201cThose were halcyon days of the club. It was very close-knit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Indeed, the Aspen Club today and the Aspen Club then symbolize different times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">The former Aspen Club smacked of Aspen\u2019s more carefree days \u2014 if not its youthful and middle-aged indiscretion \u2014 combined with a thirst for fitness, health and socializing, and maybe a game of tennis or two.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Today\u2019s Aspen Club, at least since its financial struggles, has epitomized what can go wrong when the financial spigots turn off for an ambitious development.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">While it would be premature to write an obituary for the Aspen Club \u2014 construction-loan-note holder GPIF Aspen Club, which is owed $34 million, is making a push to take over project \u2014 its outlook does not hold the same promise it once did, at least in the court papers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Yet if there\u2019s an Aspen locale that has weathered some dark moments and shined in the bright ones, it\u2019s the Aspen Club.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Prior to Fox\u2019s $5.5 million acquisition of the Aspen Club from Butera in September 1996, headlines about the club usually gushed about its star power, popularity, cutting-edge sports medicine and industry accolades. A mysterious death at the club also remains unsolved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Butera said he bought the club for $2.5 million from an owner who was in over his head in both debt and cocaine addiction. The club\u2019s size \u2014 60,000 square feet \u2014 was immense for that time, Butera noted, as was its level of decadence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cThey were selling cocaine in the kitchen,\u201d Butera said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Butera would clean up that illegal aspect of the Aspen Club, but it was an open secret that a swath of Aspen\u2019s fitness-minded also enjoyed the smell of cocaine, something not lost on the squeaky clean Butera.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">On Dec. 8, 1985, ski instructor and suspected drug kingpin Steve Grabow was killed by a pipe bomb after playing a round of tennis. The device, placed under the seat of his Jeep Cherokee, exploded as he started to drive away from the Aspen Club. Grabow, who was awaiting federal trial for cocaine distribution charges, died two hours after the explosion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">The case remains unsolved, and Butera said he believes it will remain that way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">When Butera came to Aspen in the early 1980s, he was a successful developer who not only owned a portion of Hilton Head Island, but had a close friendship with the tennis star and activist Billie Jean King. That relationship would help provide the springboard for the Aspen Tennis Festival in the 1980s, while attracting such local homeowners and accomplished tennis players as Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, who trained at the club. Evert would also meet former Olympic skier Andy Mill there; the two would marry and later divorce. Butera\u2019s close connections with the tennis world were well known in the sport\u2019s circles in the 1970s. Time magazine, reporting on the Sept. 20, 1973, match in the Houston Astrodome between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King \u2014 also known as \u201cBattle of the Sexes\u201d \u2014 noted a courtside wager between Riggs and Butera.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cSure enough, though she started out playing as cautiously as Riggs, King took her first service easily. While switching sides, Riggs, still cocky, gave Tennis Promoter Dick Butera 2-1 odds (putting up $10,000),\u201d Time reported.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">King, who had been a player-coach on Butera\u2019s Philadelphia Freedoms tennis team \u2014 the inspiration for the like-named Elton John tune \u201cPhiladelphia Freedom\u201d\u2014 would win in three sets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Over the next decade, King would make appearances in the Aspen Tennis Festival at the Aspen Club. During its heyday in the 1980s, the Aspen Tennis Festival, which raised money for charity, was a name-dropper\u2019s heaven.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">It attracted both celebrity contestants and observers including Barbi Benton, Jimmy Buffet, Bill Cosby, Ted Kennedy, Sugar Ray Leonard, Jack Nicholson, Christopher Reeve and Donna Mills. They rubbed elbows as some of the biggest names in tennis \u2014 Arthur Ashe, Bj\u00f6rn Borg, Vitas Geralaitis, John McEnroe and Navratilova played its courts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">There to capture the Aspen Tennis Festival was ABC\u2019s now legendary \u201cWide World of Sports,\u201d along with whom else but famed sportscaster Howard Cosell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cThe concept of celebrity may never be properly defined or explained, but whatever it is, it drew hundreds to the Aspen Tennis Festival this weekend and raised thousands of dollars for the battle against cerebral palsy,\u201d The Aspen Times reported in July 1984. \u201cTennis stars John McEnroe and Vitas Gerulaitis \u2014 backed by a field of lesser luminaries and a small army of ABC contract entertainers \u2014 put on a crowd-pleasing weekend at the Aspen Club, including two hours of network programming on ABC\u2019s Wide World of Sports.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Aspen is home to some quality people-watching, not to mention those inclined to draw attention to themselves, and the Aspen Club fully embraced the idea. In his book \u201cWhiteout: Lost in Aspen,\u201d Ted Conover wrote that the club\u2019s modern gym equipment was a magnet for \u201cbody Nazis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Aside from the club\u2019s appeal with the celebrities and workout fiends, Butera said its foundation was the local community. They brought on such locally respected physicians as Harold Whitcomb and Barry Mink, along with a staff of personal trainers focused on \u201cserious health,\u201d Butera said. \u201cThey weren\u2019t muscle-head trainers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Anthony, who met Butera when she played for the Philadelphia Freedoms, earned her Ph.D. while playing on the pro circuit in the 1970s. The former Stanford tennis player-turned sports psychologist said she envisioned the Aspen Club as a hub for emotional and physical health, as well as a place to introduce amateur athletes to tennis techniques and strategies used by professionals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cIt was wonderful in the early days,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was a very mom-and-pop operation. All of the employees would come to our house for Thanksgiving. We really did have a wonderful crew.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Butera and Anthony enjoyed the ride, though Butera said they never made a profit on the Aspen Club.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">\u201cI never got a check,\u201d said Butera, a member of the Aspen Hall of Fame who would go on to buy and remodel both the Woodbridge Inn and the Hotel Jerome.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Whatever transpires with today\u2019s Aspen Club, it will join either the success stories or failed enterprises that have defined Aspen\u2019s high-stakes and contentious world of development in recent decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">The 47-foot-tall, $46 million Aspen Art Museum, for instance, could be heralded a success \u2014 if only because the ground-up project was completed after a sequence of negotiations and litigation with the city amid a chorus of dissent from residents appalled by its size and design.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">There\u2019s also St. Regis Aspen Resort, originally built in 1992 as a 257-room Ritz-Carlton at the base of Aspen Mountain after triumphing in a public vote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Those were both major developments by Aspen standards, the same which can be said about the W Hotel, which is poised to open this summer at the base of Aspen Mountain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">The dark side of Aspen\u2019s development scene has been on display of late with events surrounding the Lift One Corridor Project, which voters approved in March and now appears all but doomed after one of the project\u2019s key partners \u2014 the Brown brothers \u2014 balked on the alliance and will build their own timeshare project using previous entitlements.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Other examples of frustrated development projects are aplenty. Take, for instance, the Dancing Bear Lodge and the Base Village at Snowmass: the build-outs of both projects didn\u2019t happen; they were acquired by new ownership that had to square away a litany of financing issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">Except for the Lift One development, all of these projects eventually were built \u2014 albeit whittled down from their original proposals \u2014 despite push-back, challenges and doubts that hung over them all.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Body_Serif\">What\u2019s the fate of the Aspen Club? For now, nobody really knows, but something tells us there\u2019s another story or two in the making \u2014 whether it\u2019s with the current ownership or a new group of investors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Special Sections-ATW-ATW_Shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:rcarroll@aspentimes.com\">rcarroll@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/weekly\/a-tale-of-two-aspen-clubs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arthur Ashe and Billy Jean King at the Aspen Tennis Festival, July 1984.Aspen Historical Society\/Katey Buster Collection Howard Cosell and John McEnroe at the Aspen Tennis Festival, July 1984.Aspen Historical Society\/Katey Buster Collection Morty Raynes and John McEnroe, who defeated Kenny Rogers and Bjorn Borg during the Aspen Tennis Fest, a fundraiser for the National [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2447586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 02:35:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}