Ralph & Marian Melville

Interviewee: Ralph & Marian Melville

Interviewer:  Judith Gertler

July 25, 1994

Mountain Chalet,  Aspen, Colorado

C106 – 1994.045.0001

Well, I want to say thank you to both of you in advance for participating in the Aspen Historical Societies oral history project and thought I’d like to start with a little bit of personal background before we get into what Aspen was like in the days of the past.  So Ralph, why don’t we start with you and then Marian, I’ll ask you some of the same questions.  Ralph, where were you born and where were you raised?

I was born and brought up south of Boston, in a little town called Braintree, it’s not little anymore.  But I was interested in skiing and that’s why I came out here in the first place.

What were your first experiences of skiing, when you were little or when you were younger?

It was mostly when I was going to college, I went to Dartmouth College up in New Hampshire and there isn’t an awful lot to do up there other than…well, outside of studying, of course.  But as far as social life… so I did a lot in the outdoors and really enjoyed it and got to know some of the skiers there.  I was one of those skiers that was at Dartmouth, Brookie Dodge who was on the FIS team in 1950 out here that suggested that I come out and look at Aspen before I decided where I wanted a ski lodge.

So you had the idea of wanting to build a ski lodge, or start a ski lodge before you left Dartmouth?

No, it was right after I left Dartmouth that I decided that.

Did you look at any other areas in Colorado?

Visited a few of the other areas and at that time, this was back in the early 1950’s.  It looked like Aspen had the best possibilities.

What made that so for you?

The fact that it was growing and it had good potential for growth and the snow was so great coming from the East, it was like being in paradise coming out here skiing.

What about the mountain (Aspen Mountain) and the landscape, was that a pull for you also, the trails and the potential trails and the skiing here?

I’d say more the potential trails than what we had at the time.  Because at that time there was just a t-bar on Little Nell and the Number One (Lift One) and Number Two lifts that went to the Sundeck with 180 an hour capacity on that upper lift.  It looked like it had a lot of potential, it’s a great area.

Good, and so you came here and then did you stay initially?

No, I came here and ski bummed the winter of 1951 and actually, I guess at that time wasn’t quite as impressed because it looked like it would be really tough to make a living out here.  And came back again in ’53 and that’s when I first purchased the land that the Mountain Chalet is on now.

Good.  Let’s catch Marian up with you and then we’ll proceed from 1953 when you purchased the land.  Ok, Marian…

You can’t catch up with me yet because I didn’t come out here until the winter of ’55-’56.

Ok, let’s find out where you were raised and where you grew up and how you happened to get here.

Ok.  I was born in Philadelphia, raised in suburban Philadelphia.  Went to Bucknell University, had no interest in skiing.  I thought that the week or two that you ever had off for vacation from work would be spent at the beach.  Then I quit a job in the…by that time I lived in Pittsburgh… and I quit my job and the receptionist there asked me if I would like to go on a ski trip to Mt. Tremblant with the Pittsburgh Ski Club.  And I thought ,well, that sounds interesting.  I’ll have an extra week not this beach one.  So I went up there and met Dottie Kelleher.  We were in a bunkroom together and she was much more adventurous than I. I just thought you went along and lived where you lived and did work and went on one-week vacations.  But she said, “How would you like to go ski bumming next winter out west?”  And I said, “That sounds fun.”  So she investigated through her age group in New York and found that Charles Patterson and his father were out here because she knew Charlie’s sister.  So she made all of the arrangements, came out and cased the place and got a job and a place to live and then I came out when winter had already started and we lived…do you want this much detail?

Yes, this is fine.

We lived at what’s now the Independence Lodging, it was called the Prince Albert and there were a few rooms with a sink and we put hot plates in and lived there full time as ski bums.

This is what year?

This is the winter of 1955-56 and she already had a job.  I came around January 2nd.  It was hard to find a job, it was very quiet in town then.  But she worked at the Sundeck and I skied and ate lunch at the Sundeck.  One day then Hannah and Paul Wirth called her and said, “Would you bring your roommate.”  Someone had quit and of course they lived up there so they couldn’t find help.  So I started working there and at the same time Jack DePagter at the Holland House asked me if I would help serve breakfast because his wife was pregnant and not quite as active as she had been other years.  So I had a job at the Holland House serving breakfast and a job at the Sundeck serving lunch and then I took care of their baby and as time went on eventually Hannah and Paul told me that they would never have hired me because they thought I was a playgirl.  But very recently there was an 80th birthday party for Paul Wirth and at that party he said, “If all my employees were like you, I would still be running the restaurant on the mountain.”  So times change.

So you got yourself situated pretty easily once you got going here.  Were there a lot of young people in town doing the same thing that you were doing?

Oh, there were enough to fill all of the jobs but we knew each other, it wasn’t like it is now that the town is so large.  It really took the whole town to make a party in those days and you know the (Walter & Elizabeth) Paepckes would be there, the Stantons would be there, who else might there be?  There was a guy named, no, his name isn’t going to come to me.  He worked with Lowell Thomas.  Dick Parker was his name and just all kinds of people would come to every party because there weren’t that many people here.

Alright, let’s move on just a little bit.  Ralph did you purchase the land prior to your meeting Marian or together with her or…?

Yes, I did that in ’53 and Marian didn’t come out until ’56.

Well, let’s catch you up a little bit now with Marian.  How did it happen that you purchased the land that the Mountain Chalet sits on now?

Well, it’s one of those things that you think starts out being bad and ends up being good.  I had come out that year on a three week vacation with a friend of mine from the east.  We had driven out and about halfway through that I broke my ankle and of course, prior to breaking my ankle I just spent all my time skiing.  So I didn’t have too much to do and we didn’t want to leave early, so I just kind of wandered around town and I still had in my mind that I would like to have a ski lodge.  I saw Jim Moore, who was the one and only real estate man in town at the time and ended up buying the corner where the original part of the Mountain Chalet is.

Would you say for the record where exactly it’s located?

It’s right on the corner of Mill and Durant.  It would be the southwest corner.

Do you remember what you paid for it in those days?

Yes I do.  It was $2000 that I paid for 60 x 100 feet at that time.

Was that a lot of money for land in Aspen in those days?

That was a lot of money because on the west end of town you could still get some property for not much more than back taxes and a lot of the land was selling very low.  I felt that the location was real important for having a ski lodge and at that time the lifts were on Little Nell and the Number One (Lift One) and I was halfway in between the two of those and just about a little less than that distance from where the business part of the town and the restaurants, the Golden Horn and the Red Onion were the main ones at that time.

Were there any restrictions in those days of where things could be built and what you built and how close to the mountain (Aspen Mountain) and buildings on the mountain (Aspen Mountain) et cetera?

The restrictions were, I guess, a little bit looser than they are now.  I remember going to get my building permit and I had a little sketch on a piece of 8 1/2 x 11”  paper of what I wanted to do and I went down to City Hall and talked to Ethel Frost, who was the City Clerk at the time, and asked for the Building Inspector’s office and that was just 40 years ago because it was the end of July in 1954.  She sort of hemmed and hawed for a while and said, “Well, why don’t you go see the Town Marshall?” So I went to see him and he sort of, kind of looked around and thought, well why don’t I walk up with you and see where it is you want to build and I had put stakes in the ground on the corner where I wanted to build and we walked up and he stood where the stakes were and he moved over a little bit towards the street and he lined up the Opera House with the Hotel Jerome and he said, “Well, it looks like you’re on your own property alright, go ahead.”  And that’s all there was to it…

Pretty casual.

No fees, no plans, no permits, no nothing.

Did you design the building itself, schematically what you wanted it to look like?

No, when you look at it as it is now, I did the original part myself and built that. Then when we started adding on I went to an architect in town, Bob Roy, who got to be a good friend of ours and he helped me with planning the rest of the lodge and having it so it would tie in with the original part that I started with.

How would you describe the architecture of the original part?

Well, I would say it’s Swiss style architecture.  I suppose it doesn’t fit that well into Colorado, but I felt with the large overhangs, the way those Swiss buildings were designed, were designed for areas that had a lot of snow and I thought it would be real practical here.

So you actually built the lodge?

Yes, I had been building houses in the east prior to coming out here, so I was familiar with the building business although not all of the different trades.  When I did the original part of the Mountain Chalet then a fellow that came out with me from Boston and I did the whole thing, just the two of us.

You actually built it with your own hands?

From mixing the concrete by hand and laying all of the blocks and doing all of the electrical and plumbing and everything.

I would like to ask both of you a question based on something that you just mentioned and see what your take is on it.  What do you think about the influence, the European influence both on the mountain (Aspen Mountain) and off of the mountain in the early days of skiing?  The original chalet had a European flavor, a Swiss flavor and there were certainly a lot of people here teaching skiing and owning the, starting the ski school, et cetera,  who were from Europe.  Ralph, why don’t we start with you and then Marian, maybe you can jump in.  What do you think the tie-in was between the European skiing experience and architecture with Aspen?

Well, I guess at that time a lot of people that were really interested in the skiing and were really avid skiers thought that the Swiss Alps was the ultimate.   And of course, a lot of the early people that came into town were from Europe and that’s where their skiing experience was from.  I had done most of my skiing up in New Hampshire and it was the same thing up there.  The ones that were really getting things started were from Europe.  Of course, at that time there were a lot of Americans that were really catching on and being involved in it.  But it was I think a good mixture of getting the Americans and, of course, all the people from the Tenth Mountain Division, Camp Hale that were involved in the skiing at that time there was a real mixture of Americans and Europeans and we all worked together; all helped each other out.

Marian, do you have anything to add to that?

I guess I was just thinking that all of the ski bums that I knew were from the States and most of the business people I knew were from the old country, from Europe and so it really did have much more of a European flavor.  It seemed like a lot of the ski instructors were European, the lodge owners that I can think of were not from the States and the restaurateurs were not from the States.  So it really did have more of a European flavor, I would say, just all over.

What do you think drew these European skiers and owners of lodges and stores and also the instructors, the skiers who were also instructors, what do you think lured them to Aspen of all places in this world?

Are you asking me?

Either one of you is fine.

Oh, well, I think it was just that the skiing was so great here.

Do you think there were similarities between…?

Oh, I’m sure, you know, we haven’t been to the Alps either other than seeing pictures and talking to people that have been there, so it’s kind of…we can’t give a real good answer on that but I’m sure that they saw the potential for the Aspen area and with the town of Aspen right at the base of the mountain  (Aspen Mountain) it must have really appealed to them.

Do you think that is true also Marian?

Oh, I was just trying to think.  I thought maybe the FIS in 1950 that drew people from all around the world, maybe they took the news back about how fantastic it was and there was at least a (Dick) Durrance film about that race and it looks fantastic.  They come down Niagara and I think they started up, do they still just call that the top of FIS? Yeah, and I think about the Wirths in particular because I worked for them and knew them and they actually got a job as chauffeur and whatever in a home and I think if I remember correctly it was James Hopkins Smith who brought them here.  So I don’t know that they knew they were heading for a beautiful ski area that they would do very well at and give a lot to.  But everyone I don’t know about.

What I’m hearing is that some people like Ralph and some others came back at least the second time because it was really appealing to you and Marian you came because some of your friends were coming…

A friend.

A friend was coming and you thought it might be a good place to ski.  Does that pretty much describe…?

Uh huh, I only planned to be here for the winter.

You’re not alone, a lot of people thought the same thing.

Well, and then I only planned…I mean all of the people that I knew said you must stay, summer is so different and you will really enjoy it too and everybody goes to Mexico in the spring and that was true too.

As long as we’re talking about that and you brought that up, what were summers like in the early days, in the Fifties and the early Sixties?

I guess the first thing I would think of was dusty, there were no paved roads and it’s a nice breezy community, as you know.  Summer is just… always got a nice breeze blowing through and it would pick up the dust from all of the empty lots and the streets and take it all the way over to the east and then once in a while there would be a little breeze from the east that would pick some up and take it back to the west.  But generally it blew the other way.  There were a lot of irrigation ditches and no sidewalks.  Were there any wooden sidewalks still downtown?  Yeah, there were a few.  There were a few…there were irrigation ditches on almost all of the streets and, you know, thinking about that dust ,you know, there were times that we would look out our front window toward the (Wheeler) Opera House and you couldn’t even see the Opera House the dust would be so thick that was blowing by.  A lot of tourists that came for the first time would say, “We’re not coming back until you pave the roads, it’s just too dusty.”

When did they get paved?

——————————me areas do have mosquitoes now and I think maybe it’s the ponds and still water that people have on their property.

What was there to do in the summer? You certainly couldn’t ski and you, of course, had your business.  Did you have business in the summer as well?  Did people come and stay here in the summer?

Not as much business in the summer, it was a lot tougher to make a living in those days and almost everyone had at least two season jobs.  Like you’d have one job connected with the skiing in the winter and then in the spring, summer and fall it was usually construction.  Almost everyone was connected with construction in some way at that time.

I’m sorry, when people…you said tourists came here or as locals what did you do in the summer for fun?  Were there cultural events, were there any movies or what…?

Well, the Music Festival  started in ’49 and so it had that and then the Institute started even earlier than that.  Mostly made our own fun like people do now, except that things were a little different.  Climbing, hiking, fishing, horses, picnics, that’s where I met Marian was at a picnic in June up at Chapman Dam up on the Frying Pan.  Although we had both been here in the winter, we didn’t really meet in the winter.

Did the two of you…well, you got married in what year?

Fifty-six, summer, August.

And then you moved in and started working here also, helping and running the Mountain Chalet?

That’s right.

To get back to the summer for just a minute, did the two of you ever go to concerts or do anything at the Institute or that kind of thing?

Not those first few years we didn’t, we worked very hard.  Most of what we did when we were dating, you know, it would be more picnics and hiking and that type of thing.

Did some of the other town people that you knew in those days participate in the summer events or were they mostly people who came in especially for the Music Festival or the Institute or other things like that?

I think most of the Institute sessions were for people who came specifically for that, but a lot of people that had moved to town at that time really enjoyed the Music (MAA) and we did and now go to more concerts.  But at that time being younger we were more interested in the outdoors and doing things with other young people that was a little more active.  I remember at that time we…or I had a horse that I traded a water heater for and I kept it pastured right up where the Ritz-Carlton is now and we had it there and we’d go horseback riding a lot with friends that had horses and do that.

Sounds like the two of you enjoyed your life here a lot in those days, you worked hard and you played hard is that accurate?

That’s right, it was tougher to make a living but I think we enjoyed or had more time for the company of other people too.  Doing things together I think it was great not having to because you’re forced to go out and make your own entertainment.  A lot of the work that we did at that time was working with some of the others that were in town.  I can remember Kenny Moore was building the Tippler over there and I’d go over and help him at times and he’d come over and help me in my building and you know different ones would do that and we’d work with each other rather than just on our own projects.

Let’s talk, oh I’m sorry, Marian, go ahead.

I just thought about one other thing in the summertime and that, or maybe even all year, but the Isis Theatre was a big gathering place.  People went, the movie was at 8:30, we all went at 8:00 to visit with each other and usually afterwards went home with somebody or had somebody come home with you for coffee and a visit.  A lot of our entertaining was all our friends over for dinner and then over to their house for a picnic.  We just really made our own fun.

And you said in those days, in the Fifties and even the Sixties, perhaps farther on?  The town was more homogenous in terms of the people that would gather together?

Oh yes.

When did that stop?  Or did that stop?

Oh, I just think it stopped as there got to be more population and people broke off as golfers or as polo players or whatever their interest was, there were enough in each group slowly to break off and we seemed to break off in a group that worked for a living.  I don’t know if it’s in here but we from the very beginning had music students as a dormitory in the summertime.  So even in the summer of 1956 when I was first was on the scene it was a dormitory and …

And you continue to do so?

Until four years ago we were a dormitory for the Music School (MAA) and then they built Marolt and moved their students out there.  Of course, that was their intention.  I just, I don’t know, maybe it’s not very interesting but really how I got to know Ralph even though we met there was that he hired me to clean the lodge.  To get it ready for the music students and I thought I, I mean, I was an only child and my mother took care of the house and I really never cleaned.  But I thought I did a good job and he came up to inspect and discovered that I had only vacuumed the top sides of the mattresses and not the underside and that I had not cleaned the blower in the bathrooms.  I mean on the outside I did, but he wanted me to take it down and clean the inside.  So he found a few things that I didn’t do.

Did you do a lot right?

I guess I did enough to pass the test, because he put me into full time service.

How many years later, are you still together?

Married 38 years.

Let’s move on just a little bit.  You mentioned Ralph, that when you came here there were two lifts and there was a tow on Aspen Mountain, is that right?

There were two single chairlifts that went to the Sundeck, one right after the other and then on Little Nell it was the T-bar.

Oh, that’s right.

At that time…, but then I think it was around ’53, I’m pretty sure around ’53 that they changed that to a chairlift and then they put in the Number Three lift on the top of the mountain (Aspen Mountain).  So when I came out the second time in ’53 then the number of skiers had increased quite a bit and there was a lot more available skiing, more people.

What were the kind of people that came to Aspen in those days, both that stayed with you at the Mountain Chalet and also perhaps may have stayed some other places?  How would you describe the type of skier in terms of where they were from, why they came, what they were looking for on the mountain (Aspen Mountain) ?  Let’s say on the mountain (Aspen Mountain) first, what were they looking for in skiing do you think?

I think what they were looking for in skiing was the ski conditions and Aspen had that when there weren’t that many people skiing here.  You could find powder snow, you know, several days after a snowstorm and enjoy it, which you can’t do much more than a couple of hours after one now.  People were not as fussy as far as what they wanted in the way of restaurants and accommodations.  The original part of the Mountain Chalet when I built it had several rooms that had connecting baths and we had to do some remodeling back in the Sixties because people were looking for a little more private and a little nicer accommodations than they were originally.  Things like bunkrooms were real popular then, people were not looking for fancy accommodations.  They wanted a place that was in out of the snow and warm and had a shower.

Do you think they were looking for as “fancy accommodations” on the mountain (Aspen Mountain) as well?  I mean, do you think they were looking for slopes that were as well groomed and the kinds of conditions…would they ski in conditions with blowing snow more than perhaps they do now?  Or have things changed in terms of their expectations of skiing, do you think?

Oh, I think that is quite a bit different now because we didn’t even think about groomed slopes at that time because they didn’t have the grooming equipment.  About the only grooming that was done was once in a while they would have somebody side slip an area and pack it down or something, or knock down maybe some of the moguls but maybe as far as the grooming that we have now, there was nothing even close to that.  It was just taking the conditions as they were.

Marian maybe you could also answer this since you were one of those skiers who came in the mid-Fifties?

Uh huh.

How do you compare what you know of skiers who come to Aspen to ski today compared to…well, technique-wise, ability-wise, adventure-wise. How do you compare to the earlier skiers?

You know, as Ralph was talking I was thinking people like Rollie Bishop and Sam Southwick who really came here because there was lots of powder snow and lots of deep snow that hadn’t been tracked in any way and they were pretty rugged.  Well, then when Aspen got a little more polished and groomed, they were bunkroom types, you know, they would just take one bunk in a bunkroom for four and we had a lot more demand for bunkrooms then too just like Ralph was saying.  Then they didn’t come here anymore, they were looking for areas that were like Aspen was when they first came, new and rugged and not too polished.  But they have grown older and they’re coming back out here and maybe have since they’ve been in their fifties.

Where would they have gone in those days?  Would they have gone to other places in Colorado or would they have gone somewhere else, do you think and what kinds of areas?

I think maybe for a while Jackson Hole, do you think Jackson Hole was the place?  Uh huh, and then Utah, they really liked Utah.  Mostly what was the name of that place?  Alta was what they really liked then because it’s also got lots of deep snow and rugged terrain and it didn’t have a lot of grooming because they didn’t really think they needed it with all of that snow, I guess.

Ralph, I’d like to ask you another question, as the years went on, what year did the Mountain Chalet open?

1954.

So, if you think about the changes and advances in skiing and the skiing industry as time went on how could you…

You mean as far as equipment goes?

 

As far as equipment, as far as…

Lifts

Lifts

And all of that.

As far as philosophy in Aspen in terms of the Aspen Skiing Company, et etera, what are some of the things that come to mind as the years went on?

Well, I guess, you know, it’s all been so gradual that you really don’t take note of it too much as it’s happening.  I remember in relation to the ski equipment that you have in particular you know your skis and bindings and that, that years ago when they had the old hospital up there they were feeling oh, we’re just so overcrowded we’ve got to build a new hospital because there are so many broken legs and so forth in the winter that we really need that. Then about that same time that they put in the new hospital they were perfecting the bindings even more so that there were a lot less accidents, by the time they got the new hospital built they didn’t even need the extra space.  So there are some real good things that have come around like that.  Then, of course, the lifts, it’s so much nicer in a snowstorm to ride up in a gondola than it is in an open chair.

That was pretty recently, how long has the gondola been…the Silver Queen been in?

Oh, I lose track of time.  Is it five years now?  I think four or five, yeah.

So, between the early Fifties and the late Eighties or early Nineties, there certainly have been a lot of changes.  Also there were the openings of different ski mountains as part of the Aspen Skiing Company.  What was the Aspen Skiing Company called in those days, was it…in the early days, was it…?

It was the Aspen Ski Corporation it was called and later they changed it to the Aspen Ski Company.

And in the early days was it a large corporation?  Was it owned by someone…?

No, there were just a few people that had been the original investors and I think it was the time that they built the original Number Three lift which was around 1953 that they needed more money to do that and there were quite a few people around town that invested in it at that time.

So originally, the people that originally started the Aspen Skiing Company, some of the (Walter and Elizabeth) Paepcke money I think, and also there were some other people obviously involved.

Right, I’m probably the wrong one to ask on that because…

Well, I guess my question is that they were people who were in Aspen, who began it?

Right.  Well, let’s see the (Walter and Elizabeth) Paepckes, you know, they had a lot of friends that were interested in the skiing because I think that the (Walter and Elizabeth) Paepckes themselves were not that much interested in the skiing.  But they had…

They were involved in the early forming of the Aspen Skiing Company?

Right.

I guess my question is as the years have gone on, the ownership of the Aspen Skiing Company has changed, it’s been bought by different large corporations et cetera.   I’m wondering, do you see a difference from the time when it was more kind of in-house owned by people who were involved somehow in the community as opposed to in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties when it…?

I think there is a little difference now, I think maybe more of a them-and-us type of thing and… but I think there was a little feeling that way right from the beginning and maybe it was one of possibly not knowing just exactly what was going on.  Because the different business people that had lodges and restaurants and so forth were so dependent on the Aspen Skiing Company, but on the other hand did not have a voice in what was going on.

I was going to ask you about that, what your relationship as a lodge owner was to the Aspen Skiing Company?

I know I was involved in the original package plan that was put together in Aspen…

What was that?

1956, I think or around ’57 we did that.  It combined skiing and lodging and, at that time, meals.  In fact, I’ve got an old brochure, one of the original ones, upstairs that was put together and it advertises a lift, lodging and, I think it was 21 meals, you know, for a week’s skiing and it was less than $100.  For our rooms, two people to a room, we were charging $8 a night for two people to a room and that included a full breakfast in the morning.  Now you can’t get breakfast for that, but it kind of shows what inflation has been like in that time.

And then Buttermilk opened…?

In the late Fifties.

In the late Fifties and Snowmass in the late Sixties, ’69 and…

Sixty-seven.

Sixty-seven, excuse me.

December ’67.  Where was Highlands in that, though?

That’s what I was going to ask.

They were right around ’59 too.  I think they were within a year of Buttermilk opening.  I can’t remember if it was before or after.

You mentioned other lodges, did the two of you have a lot of competition in the Fifties, Sixties?

We didn’t think of it as competition…

Who else was around?

We pretty much worked together on that, referred a lot back and forth because it was before we had any type of reservation service in town and if somebody came to your place and you didn’t have anything you’d call around, in fact we still do it somewhat because the reservation service closes at 7:00 at night and if people come in we try to find places for them.

Who else was here in the Fifties and the Sixties?  What other lodges and what were some of the other places?

Well, when we first started in here in the middle Fifties, Jack DePagter had his place up there at the Holland House but it was in the old house that they moved down under where the Castle Creek bridge is now. Then Charlie Patterson had his place and Norway Lodge up there.  Sandy Sanderson at the Aspenhof, right, which was Shadow Mountain Lodge and then the Christiana and…We wouldn’t take each other’s guests if people came and didn’t like where they were staying and tried to switch nobody would take them, they were stuck.  They had to stay in that place because we wouldn’t… we were just too small and intimate to do that to each other.  Now we wouldn’t even know where the people come from if they come in during the middle of the week.  If they’re at another place or just coming into town.  But I think the fanciest place to stay at that time was the Prospector with the two Jenny’s.  Jenny Henry and Jenny Chamberlain ran that and that was real nice there, but by today’s standards it was very rustic and probably wouldn’t be popular at all today.  But at that time it was the place to stay.  Of course the Hotel Jerome and then there was the Hillside Lodge that was next to us on one side and they referred a lot of people to us.  I remember the mothers’ march when the Aspen Skiing Company…. They had always had completely free skiing for all of the children in town, but our town grew and we had a lot more people skiing free and they had to make some adjustment.  I can’t remember what, but not expensive.  But there was a parade through town against the Aspen Skiing Company, because they were taking the free tickets from the mothers’ children, you know, and we were maybe unreasonable on those kinds of things because what they did wasn’t too bad.

When did this take place?

I don’t know.

Sixties, you think?

I think in the Sixties, that was when the town really started to grow and I think it was connected a lot with passing the laws that allowed condominiums.  Because prior to that if you built anything in the way of accommodations it was you owned it and you had to make the payments and so forth.  With condominiums you could build it and sell it and then you were out of it.  I think that encouraged a lot more building.

That’s interesting.

So with the Aspen Skiing Company they were always trying to do something.  I remember they made a way for us to have, depending on the size of your business, how many ski passes that we purchased not too expensively but were completely transferable amongst our employees.  I remember our size had four and we were really careful about doling them out, but apparently at some places the employees were selling them for the day on the streets.  That ended.  I think they were real reasonable and always got taken advantage of, kind of, when they would do those nice things, so they would pull them off again.  I just remember one time when I thought the Aspen Skiing Company was pretty unfriendly, I can’t think was it six or seven years ago?  I don’t know who was there but they just wouldn’t budge on anything for a little while.  They’re wonderful now to work with, now I don’t know how much of it is the personalities of their employees and how much of it is what they’re really going to do but I think they really tried to work with the community.  Of course, they have a lot more vested interest for three or four hotels and a lot of stuff on that end too.  So maybe understanding more, but I think we’ve always worked really well with them and they with us.

It’s interesting about the condominiums because that brought in a whole other element.  Do you think that brought in other kinds of skiers, people who were maybe here for a different length of time or…?

I think the big difference was it brought people into Aspen that were here to make money, whereas the original ones that came in I think that was at the best secondary and probably third or fourth place in their reasons for being in Aspen.  I think most people then were here because it was a great place to live and people were friendly.  You know, the skiing was so great, you know, that type of thing.  But with the starts of the condominiums there were people who were coming in here that could see a way to make quite a bit of money and that’s an entirely different type of person.

I’m going to turn the tape over and then we’ll go on to something else.  I’d like to talk a little bit about your personal participation in skiing both of you and about your families involvement and a little bit about the development of the skiing industry as your kids were growing up.  Ralph, you continued…have you continued skiing throughout the years?

We’ve both continued skiing, we don’t ski as much as we used to or as much as we’d like too, but we do both ski and get out a few times each year.  I’m hoping as we get our kids involved more in running the lodge here that we’ll have time for skiing and doing those things.

What about you Marian?

What was the beginning of that question, back when…?

I’m asking kind of how, if you wanted to say anything about what it was like for you to ski in Aspen over the years and how it’s changed and …?

Well, I came here as a beginner practically and there was not really a beginner area to ski on.  I worked at the Sundeck so I skied every single day and I never got better and I fell all of the time and it was just a horrible, horrible thing that traps you, you just can’t give up.  So I probably kind of limped along for a long time and then I don’t even remember when Highlands was new, Ralph would ski Thunderbowl with me and he’d ride the lift three or four times while I was getting down and he’d just wave at me to try and spur me along.  She didn’t want me to give her any pointers.  Well and then eventually, I don’t know maybe twenty some, 23 years ago my closest friend in town was someone named Lorna Waddington and she said, “You know if you wait for Ralph to go skiing, you’re never going to ski as long as you live here because you work all of the time, come with me.”  So we made a date to meet three days a week and ski and she never gave me any instruction, she just skied in front of me and even it’s one of the things I mentioned at Vivian Goodnough’s memorial service.  One day at the end of the season we were skiing powder with Bill and Vivian Goodnough and I had skied down behind Bill and Lorna was standing by Vivian and she said, “Look at Marian ski and that’s just thanks to you.”  So Lorna had worked really hard with me and from them on I have really enjoyed skiing.  I can ski anywhere in any terrain and I love powder.  But I hurt my knee at Mt. Tremblant that one time that I had earlier mentioned and I think it’s catching up with me now.  I’ve had meniscus surgery and it still hurts a lot, so my skiing is on much more groomed, easier terrain.  I love Tiehack and so forth now.

And Ralph, what about you over the years, the little bit of time that you could ski, what did you like to do and how do you see the skiing, the quality of skiing has changed over the years, either positively or negatively?

I mostly skied Aspen Mountain because it was so handy.  I’d just go out the back door and hop on the lift and up you go instead of going over to the other areas.  We did ski Highlands a lot and some at Buttermilk, but mostly right here.  I shouldn’t admit it, but I think I’ve only skied Snowmass twice.

We won’t tell anybody.

Well, you know, if the truth is known he doesn’t ski until April, the end of the season, maybe March or April.

Is that because of work or because of…?

That’s exactly why.  Well, I keep feeling that if we’re gone from here any amount of time they’ll find out that I’m not needed and then I’ll be out of a job.  But I do enjoy skiing and I think I’m drawn less to the more challenging runs now than I was before.

But you still get pleasure out of it?

I still enjoy it, right.

Things have quieted down in town a little bit.

I enjoyed those days of skiing in the snow too.  I remember one day I went up in the spring and I thought it was going to be a nice spring day but luckily I had worn a winter parka up there because you don’t know what the weather is going to be after a while.  It started snowing and blowing and it was kind of fun to get back into that again when you have the right clothing for it.  They were our favorite days.

That’s when the real skiers skied.  Now in the present that is when the real skiers ski, but we were saying that in the early days people would ski pretty much most of the time?

Oh yes, any type of weather.

Of course, the other thing, one of the things you haven’t mentioned and I didn’t ask you about is not only is the skiing equipment changed, but skiing clothing has changed.  It’s more comfortable now to ski.

And much warmer.

Warmer, yeah.  You told me before we started taping you have five kids, or six kids?

Six.

Six kids plus two foster children, so you’ve raised eight children in Aspen.  What…can you just encapsulate what their experience was as kids growing up in Aspen in the ski clubs, what opportunities they had to ski growing up here?

I think with our first one, our oldest one, Julie, at that time we were really insistent that she go out for the ski team and take all of the lessons and do that.  Well, as our other kids came along I guess they kind of wore us down gradually and we didn’t push quite as hard, so Julie was really active with the skiing and was on the ski team and really enjoyed it.  Then our next one, Frank, when he started skiing he didn’t like the downhill as much at that time and he got more involved in the cross-country and the jumping.  Then he went to Dartmouth also and he was on the jumping team for Dartmouth.  In fact the last jumping team that they had, it’s no longer an intercollegiate sport.  But you used to go up and stand here while Frank was able to practice on the mountain (Aspen Mountain) because there a ski jump, two ski jumps.  It started up where the water tank is and Dad had to go and watch, you weren’t allowed to go alone.  But now it’s all gone, no jumping.  But you know like I kind of wish if anything that we had pushed the younger kids a little bit more to do that, but having more kids and all the work and so forth, we didn’t push quite as hard.  But now they all enjoy it, they do all ski but the others were not all competitive in their skiing.  They all took advantage of the skiing that the Aspen Skiing Company offered.  Early days, it was Wednesday after school was it?  Uh huh.  Then later on, Saturday mornings and…or maybe all day Saturday for the local kids.  Then we helped with the races and so forth, worked on the races.

You mentioned FIS early on and you said it started in 1950 was the first FIS?

That was the FIS in Aspen, yes.

What role do you think that the international racing scene had played in Aspen participation in skiing?

Well, I think that really put Aspen on the map for skiing.  It made it an internationally known area for skiing.  Then another thing that you don’t hear much about anymore, but it was called Interski and they had that here, I can’t remember the year can you Marian?  Oh yeah, it was ’68 and they had that and it’s funny, they scheduled it for the last two weeks in April and everyone thought, oh, the Aspen Skiing Company is absolutely crazy to schedule it for such a late time because we get that soft spring snow and it’s just going to be terrible.  Well, when that started that year it started snowing and for the two weeks that they were here it snowed every night for two weeks.  We had fresh snow and those people had come from all around the world, ski instructors from all around the world thought, there’s just no place like Aspen, you know, having this fresh snow every day.

The competitors were ski instructors from all over the world, was that the…?

No, I think they were called like demonstration teams and they had…there were eight to a team, do you remember?  Well, I don’t remember the details.

So, Aspen got a lot of good press in those days.

It was a phenomenal year of skiing, I mean now you could have that because of all of the snowmaking on the bottom of the mountain.  They didn’t have any snowmaking on the bottom of the mountain then and to be able to ski all of the way down was amazing on April 28th.

Did other Colorado ski towns, think of some of them, participate in the international ski racing as well.  How do you think Aspen got to be the place that had the races if others didn’t?

Well, at that time, in 1950 Aspen was really the only one that had the terrain was needed for that.

 

I’m thinking about more in the present.  I don’t know if Vail, do they have races?

Well, there was a time a while back that a lot of people wanted to get the Olympics here in Colorado.  But there was so many people not connected with skiing that objected because of the cost of putting on the events and all of the work that would be required to do it.  So it was voted down.  You know I was just thinking, remember I told you that I met Dottie Kelleher and we decided to come out here, we asked someone at Mt. Tremblant where we should go and they said either Arapahoe or Aspen and if it wasn’t for Charlie Patterson’s sister being in her AYH club we might have ended up in Arapahoe and it’s the same today as it was 38 years ago, 39 years ago.

That’s really a good point, what do you think it is about Aspen that created the growth both in the skiing industry, the tourists, the town, everything that an Arapahoe or some of these smaller areas never achieved?

Well, I think you mentioned it right there, like the other things.  The summer, the Music (MAA), the Institute, you know, so many things taking place in Aspen.  It made it a complete town.  The idea of having the town right here at the base of the mountain (Aspen Mountain) rather than an artificial town that’s been built up.  A lot of people mention that.

What do they say Marian?

A real town and yet with all of the other amenities, I thought…I think Breckenridge is a real town, but I think it’s a little limited. I think it’s also colder in the winter too and I think Telluride is supposed to have a real town there, I’ve never been there, but Aspen had the real town in the early start and I think that made the difference.  I think a lot of people from here went to Telluride hoping to preserve what this used to be like and I hear there’s a lot of resistance to growth there because people don’t want another Aspen.

What about Crested Butte?  Do you know anything about that in terms of development or their skiing?

Well, it’s a little bit different in that the old town is not at the base of the mountain and they have a little village at the base of the mountain.  But it’s not the same, it kind of splits things up for them.  So I think Aspen is still one of the few places that have it’s town right at the base.  This reminds me that in 1963 Crested Butte powers-that-be flew a lot of the lodge owners from Aspen over for a weekend and it was amazing to fly there so fast.

Was that to show you…?

Yeah, so we’d probably help promote them and refer people to them and say, “Boy this is really a nice area too.”

Oh, let’s see, anything else about your personal mountain experience or skiing experiences or how you percieved changes over the years or that kind of thing in terms of your family’s life, or your life, or the life of your friends here?

For me anyway, it would be that a lot of dear friends that we had in those early, early years are still here and I never see them or run into them in the grocery store.  We just got so busy and so fractured, the pace is just you know….and one other thing is that we can finally take vacations which we couldn’t do in those early years.  So now, in those off-seasons, at least in May we go on a trip so maybe that’s part of the reason, but I kind of miss some of those really close relationships and then some have moved away too.

Do you find that many of your friends, you said some have moved away.  Many of your friends have become discouraged about growth and Aspenizing and moved or do they move for other reasons?

I think at our age a lot of people saw an opportunity to sell what they had here for a pretty dear price and move somewhere for a very low price, relatively speaking, and they can have a nice retirement.  We do know people who did that, a number of people who did that.  They made new lives in new communities and some of them don’t even involve skiing anymore.  A few that moved because they were getting tired of all of the political fighting that’s going on here.  We have so many different opinions on every subject that comes up.  I know there’s more, but I can just think of one that moved away and eventually was back and said, “Well, it wasn’t what it used to be, but it’s better than anywhere else we have tried, so we’re back.”  So I think that happens too.

Well, you two have contributed a great deal to the community in terms of what you’ve built here.  That part I know about in terms of the Mountain Chalet.  What about any other community involvements, have you… I don’t know exactly how to put this, are you involved in business associations?  Do you kind of participate in other aspects of Aspen life as well?

We’ve been involved probably not anywhere near as much now as we have in the past, but I think I mentioned a while back when they were having races, you know, we used to work at the races and I used to be a timer at the races and always enjoyed that and different things there.  Involved with the ski club and other things in town, I was on Mountain Rescue for, oh I think, over 20 years and on the school board for a while, nine years I think it was, nine years on the school board.  We’ve tried to be involved and contribute to the community and we probably are not doing as much now as we should but I think it’s time for some of the younger people to get involved too.

Anything to add to that Marian?

Well, I guess not, I was just thinking about my, like when we were working as actively as we had to in the early years and the one thing I do remember being involved in a babysitting co-op where we all took turns and had a secretary and it was all very organized and it worked really well.  And I was the official timer at the sports car races.  I would have forgotten it, but Dr. Baxter just reminded me of it recently.  I would never have thought of it otherwise, but he went somewhere to races and I don’t know whether they had trouble or not, but he said he knew somebody who could really make it function well.  Then for the last 15 years I have been a volunteer at the Hospital and I was really active at the Center for Conflict Resolution for a few years, but then we got busy back here at the lodge and I did have to taper off from that.

So you really have been busy, plus you had eight kids, plus all of the other things.  How do you see your role as lodge owners and residents of Aspen having changed over the…you know in 1990 for now as opposed to what it was like in the Fifties and the Sixties?  Or do you see a change in your role as owners and managers and…?

I think although we’re trying to phase ourselves out and get some of our kids more active in the management of it, we find that we spend quite a bit of time with our guests here and that may be part of why we’re not doing quite as many things in the town.  We’ll spend more time talking to our guests and almost acting as concierges there and helping them with where to go, what to see, what to do in Aspen.  We find a lot of guests that come in, maybe just drop in for one night and end up staying three or four nights.  It’s good that way to help people to appreciate the town like we appreciate it.

I think it’s a really important service that you provide as well because it’s personal, it’s…people feel like almost like from what I’ve heard and what I’ve experienced as a guest here, you feel like you’re in someone else’s home and that there is personal service instead of just being in a hotel or something?

We just like to treat them like we like to be treated ourselves.

Do you find that your guests, especially in the winter require different kinds, additional services than they used to or is it pretty much the same as it has been over the years?

Not so much and I think it’s mostly because we have such a large percentage of repeat guests that they come here and they know what they want to do, where they want to ski, those things and in the wintertime we probably don’t spend as much time with the guests that way, but more just kind of talking over old times.  We have many guests who make sure they come back the same week every winter so that they can see all of those other people whom they see that same week and vice-versa.

Am I right in assuming that the Mountain Chalet is a unique lodge especially in the sense of it’s personal attention and, you know, the kind of family atmosphere?  Are there other lodges like that in Aspen that are left?

Well, we’d like to think it’s unique but sure, there are others that do that also and I think of the Holland House because we’ve known the DePagters so long that they’ve run theirs very much like we’ve run ours, I think serving a full breakfast.  I think the Alpine Lodge is one where they’re very active with their guests and there they serve a couple of meals a day for their guests, so it’s more of a family-type thing there than even what we have.  That’s Friedl Pfeifer’s daughter Christy.  You know, they do a great job up there in the Mountain House, it’s like a bed and breakfast type of operation and with that terminology now, bed and breakfast being so popular we kind of think of ourselves more like a bed and breakfast than we do like a lodge or hotel or whatever.

Have you been heavily impacted by the large hotels and the condominiums that have sprung up in terms of who you were serving and your business?

I think so, I think in some ways.  Oh, I don’t know how long ago, we used to have some pretty well known people stay here in the early days because we had a nice place.  People like Robert McNamara and Ken Dies had parties here, but now we have more just regular people because there are places for those people to stay.  The other thing that impacted us is a number of guests have bought condominiums here after enjoying Aspen for a number of years.  We even had a couple of guests buy or build lodges here.  The St. Moritz was built by guests of ours and so was the Mollie Gibson.  Or was the Mollie Gibson taken over by them?  No it was, they built it and then somebody came that was a guest of ours also and bought it from the original person at the Mollie Gibson.  You know, I do think maybe we really do make it fun to be here, but sometimes when they buy the lodge and start operating it, they find out that it isn’t as much fun on the other end as it looked like and those didn’t last as long.

Have the two of you ever considered leaving, selling, it’s too much work or it’s never…?

Well, at our age we consider leaving and where we’d like to go to retire and we voted on Aspen.  You know, Ralph tells all of our guests, “Yes I’m retired, I’m just doing my hobby.”  So it’s really just the same thing.  He has asked me, “You know what would you want to do if you had your choice?”  And I’ve just been here so long that I don’t even know what I would have wanted to do 40 years ago, so I’m pretty ingrained too.

I have a personal question which I think is also interesting, it would be interesting for the record.  I’ve noticed that you have a new neighbor surrounding you, the Ritz has been built, it looks like it’s almost around the Mountain Chalet.

It really is, they own the three sides of us.

Were you a holdout when the Ritz-Carlton came in a few years ago?  Did they offer to buy the Chalet and were you a holdout and how did you manage to survive?

Well, I guess by holding out.  Yeah, they did offer us a good-sized price for it and we told them that we were not interested in selling, that we enjoyed the business and, like our guests have been loyal to us, we feel a loyalty to them and we told them we would do a trade if they could build us something within a block of here, but that didn’t materialize. So we just didn’t have any more dealings with them other than we got use of this space that we’re sitting in right now (under Dean St.), which goes right up to the side of the Ritz and that was with an agreement with Hadid when he was originally doing it that allowed us to do this.  So they were very nice to us that way even though we didn’t agree to sell and even though we opposed the height of the Ritz.  Our objection was that they were allowing them to build it so high, 65 feet in a 28 foot zone, so we did write letters and go to all of the meetings and object to that.  But as far as being a hotel there, we expected that there was going to be one.

Well, I’ve asked you a lot of questions and I’m wondering if there’s anything that you think might be interesting or important or that I forgot to ask you?  Or that you wanted to add to your comments on, anything about the development of the skiing industry in Aspen, perhaps what make it unique or the interrelationship between the cultural life and you know, the skiing, anything?  Take a minute and see if there’s anything that strikes you that maybe you’d like to add.

Well, I guess I would say I think it’s the most amazing place for it’s size for what it does have culturally, outdoors-wise, even security-wise. I mean I would walk up and down these streets any time of the day or night and feel completely safe because it’s just a community that isn’t so fractured.  I do a bible study actually at the jail every Wednesday afternoon, I’ve gone for well over four years and even at the jail you don’t run into any hardened criminals so much, they’re pretty easy to be with.  It’s just an all around community with a lot of diversity in a little tiny place.  Of course, the big disadvantage is the price of owning anything, or renting and that’s really astronomical compared to most other places in the nation.  It’s caused by the size of the valley, it’s just a limited valley bottom.  But there’s something for everybody, winter and summer.  I’d say if there’s one thing that I don’t like about Aspen now it’s how most of the permanent population has moved away from here because they can’t afford to stay here.

Do you mean moved downvalley?

Downvalley, yes.

 

So we are talking about areas like Carbondale, Basalt, Emma, Glenwood Springs?

Right.  I don’t think we know people who have moved as far away as Rifle that still come up here, but there are people in Rifle who do come up here to work.

I’ve certainly heard resentment expressed, not necessarily through interviews but by people who have been here for so long, who either grew up here or came here earlier and who either can’t afford to live here anymore or…Do you find that’s something that your friends talk about or…?

You know our daughter, our oldest girl, lives in Denver and her license plate is 02BZG, so that’s how the kids feel about it.  They would love to live here, but there’s no way.  Our son bought in Emma, our daughter bought by Elk Run (Basalt) and the rest are on the Eastern Slope.

 

Ralph, is there anything else that you’d like to add as a lodge owner, a skier, a long time resident of Aspen?

I guess not other than the fact that we have thoroughly enjoyed it, to be here all of this time and have such great guests here.  Because that’s one thing that makes it easy to operate a business:  to have guests that think kind of like you do and we haven’t really catered to people with a lot of money.  We’d rather have people that are used to working for a living like we are and it’s really been pleasant for us that way and we consider them as friends probably more than guests.  But you know sometimes we do get demanding people.  I can remember somebody calling Ralph “boy” and saying, “Bring my luggage” and he stayed year after year, too.  When they get to know us, and vice-versa, they either like it here or they don’t like it here.  The ones that don’t like it find another place they do like.

I just thought of one more question, it’s a little bit off of the subject but it might be interesting.  You opened a Mountain Chalet in Snowmass, do you still own that?

No, we don’t.  We sold it…. what would it be, like six years ago and one thing that really pleases me is the fact that the new owner has, I think, three of the people that worked for us when we sold it are still working there.  He just is running it the same way as we ran it and those kids are doing a great job, well, they’re not kids anymore, they’re doing a great job running it and the new owner likes that.  Most of the same guests that were coming back when we had it, are still going there.

That really says a lot for both of you and the kind of training that they had and the experiences that they had too.  Well, is there anything else that you think you might like to finish with?  Well, I want to thank you for participating and sharing your experiences and your views of Aspen and it’s skiing and your life.  So thank you very much.

You’re welcome.  Thank you.