October 13, 1999

Small cabins become upscale homes in Colorado

By CAROL KAUDER
Daily Camera

ELDORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) -- For Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower, it was a honeymoon getaway. For Bruce and Vija Handley, it's home.

The residents of Eldorado Springs preserve the essence of the former resort as they renovate small cabins into upscale homes. The spectacular scenery and quiet mountain setting contribute to a strong sense of community.

"We can get out of the mountains quickly, but we are near recreation," says Bruce Handley, who built an office for Handley Computer Corp. across the street from his creekside home. He says the 15-year-old edifice is the newest building under heavy zoning restrictions.

"It's a small, integrated community where everybody knows everybody," he says.

If Handley sees a neighbor's dog loose, he will bring it to his office and e-mail the owner. Two community gardens are on his property for those who live too close to the river or have little yard space of their own.

The swimming pool is all that's left of the Eldorado Springs Resort, a popular summer vacation area for the rich and famous in the first decades of the century.

"In the 1920s, Eldorado Springs was packed with people. Electric trolleys came every hour," says Helen Kneale, who lives up the canyon in the house in which she was born 83 years ago.

Historians estimate 60,000 visitors came each summer. "As kids, it was real fun to see all the activity -- picnicking, roller skating, eating at restaurants, the pool, the shooting galleries. It was a booming little village."

The resort slumped in the Depression and fell out of fashion during World War II, Kneale says. The owner, the Fowler family, started selling the cabins on small lots of property in the 1950s and '60s. They are all now private residences.

In 1978, the state bought 400 acres of Fowler property to establish Eldorado Canyon State Park, recognized internationally for excellent rock climbing. Five years later, Jeremy Martin and two partners bought the last of the resort and converted it into the Eldorado Springs Artesian Water Co.

"The core area was the pool, ballroom and roads," Martin says. "And the town utility water system, we run that, too."

The ballroom has been converted to a water-bottling facility. Martin says the company is looking into laying cobblestone on dirt roads.

Many owners have kept such names as Sueo House and Apple Inn on the cabins but have done considerable construction to make the buildings comfortable for year-round living.

The Handleys moved in with a wave of young professionals in the late 1960s, buying their 1,600-square-foot home for $4,600 in 1970.

Home ownership is a little bit harder to come by these days. Residents put a high premium on park proximity. Property rates are comparable to or higher than downtown Boulder. And buyers must act quickly.

"A place sells in 24 hours," Handley says. "If you don't live here, and someone doesn't call you, it's gone."

Kneale's father built her house on property he and his brothers homesteaded in the late 1800s. "He cut the trees, sawed the lumber and built the house," she says. She and her late sister, Mona, worked in Denver, but kept the house for their retirement.

Some people rent for years, waiting for a home to open up.

"People get so committed to living here," Ms. Handley says. "They pay astronomical sums of money for little tiny places on small lots. It's a certain type of person who likes the feeling of independence and closeness to nature."

Traffic is the biggest drawback, Bruce Handley says. The park sees 250,000 visitors per year, and trucks come and go for the bottled water company.

The canyon house that petroleum engineer and rock climber Rick Marsalka bought three years ago gets pretty cold in the winter, he says.

These seem like small problems to him on a late-summer afternoon, as brilliant sunshine takes the edge off a cool breeze. South Boulder Creek babbles below jagged rock walls and steep wooded hillsides of the canyon.

"Just look around," Marsalka says.