{"id":2449014,"date":"2019-09-22T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=313267"},"modified":"2019-09-22T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T03:00:00","slug":"power-struggle-at-aspen-mountain-lodge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/power-struggle-at-aspen-mountain-lodge\/","title":{"rendered":"Power struggle at Aspen Mountain Lodge"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A power struggle at an Aspen lodge has prompted a bank to freeze its financial accounts and seek a judge\u2019s clarification on whom should be able to access the operation\u2019s money.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, checks have bounced to employees and vendors of Aspen Mountain Lodge, a 38-room condominium-hotel on the 300 block of West Main Street that remains open despite an ongoing squabble among its unit owners over control of its homeowners association and funds, according to individuals knowledgeable of the situation.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Alpine Bank filed what\u2019s called a \u201ccomplaint in interpleader\u201d in Pitkin County District Court, which asks a judge to determine who is allowed to use the disputed funds that have been managed by The Aspen Homeowners\u2019 Association, which is run by the lodge\u2019s unit owners. The HOA also handles financial affairs for the lodge.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the dustup are brothers Aaron and Michael Brown, who own Hotel Aspen and the Molly Gibson Lodge, also on West Main Street, and Bob Morris, who manages Aspen Mountain Lodge.<\/p>\n

The Browns own 20 of the lodges\u2019 units. By virtue of that ownership \u2014 which amounts to 52.6% of the hotel\u2019s rooms \u2014 Aaron and Michael Brown believe they had legal footing and voting clout to take the two top director positions at the lodge earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Alpine Bank\u2019s complaint says the recently elected board made Michael Brown the sole signatory for the three accounts that are now frozen, while removing Morris from having access to the funds.<\/p>\n

The previous board, however, countered by asking Alpine to make no changes on the accounts, which consists of $252,819, according to the bank\u2019s complaint. The unclear situation prompted the bank to take the matter to court.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe old board asserts that the New Board was not properly elected at the May 2019 meeting of the members of the association and therefore has no right or authority to take action on behalf of the association,\u201d says the complaint, which was filed by Chris Bryan of the Aspen firm Garfield & Hecht PC. \u201cThe new board claims the opposite. Members of the old board and the new board have given Alpine conflicting direction regarding who is an authorized signers on the association\u2019s accounts and whether or not to allow use of the line of credit loan extended by Alpine to the association in 2013.\u201d<\/p>\n

The HOA received a $150,000 line of credit from Alpine Bank in June 2014. Alpine extended that credit to $200,000 in July 2018. Questions have risen whether Morris had proper authority to receive those lines of credit; Morris contends it was done properly.<\/p>\n

Aaron and Michael Brown, in a statement given to The Aspen Times on Sunday, said: \u201cEven though we have owned units at The Aspen Mountain Lodge for seven years, we\u2019ve never held a board seat. Because of our major investment, we decided to get more actively involved. Since our ownership of 20 units allows us to have a majority on the board, we decided to run for two of the three seats and were duly elected by a majority of the 38 homeowners.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seriously concerned about the lack of appropriate reserves to cover normal building maintenance and upkeep needs and strongly believe that the association must follow sound financial principals and state laws to assure sufficient money to fund the reserves. We are deeply sorry that the staff has been impacted by this association dispute and are working hard to address it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morris said the Browns have \u201chandcuffed\u201d his ability to run the lodge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have employees that live check to check,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re being harmed; their families are being harmed. They can\u2019t pay rent; they can\u2019t pay for food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morris accused the Browns of violating their fiduciary duties at the expense of the lodge\u2019s operations. The Browns maintain they are simply guarding the bottom line and being fiscally responsible.<\/p>\n

Public records show the Browns, through Mountain House Lodge LLC, began buying units at the lodge in 2012 in the neighborhood of $100,000 each; the bulk of their purchases came last year when they acquired units ranging from $165,000 to $200,000.<\/p>\n

The Brown brothers also hold entitlements to build Lift One Lodge on the western base of Aspen Lodge. The Browns and their investors, however, are no longer part of the Lift One Corridor Project they jointly and successfully campaigned for with the Gorsuch Haus group, through the passage of an Aspen vote in March. In July, the Browns said they were going out on their own<\/a> because of concerns about the financial stability of Gorsuch.<\/p>\n

rcarroll@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A power struggle at an Aspen lodge has prompted a bank to freeze its financial accounts and seek a judge\u2019s clarification on whom should be able to access the operation\u2019s money. In the meantime, checks have bounced to employees and vendors of Aspen Mountain Lodge, a 38-room condominium-hotel on the 300 block of West Main […]<\/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-2449014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 04:47:25","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'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\/2449014","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=2449014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2449014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2449014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2449014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}