Spa Rockies Style ~ Dunton Hot Springs
Sit at Dunton Hot Springs Saloon's main table any day of the year, winter or summer, and by 8am the sun has come up over the rugged '14-ers' (14,000 ft Wilson Range in the Colorado Rockies), says Mary Gostelow.
Over the table - seats 12, green-canvas directors' chairs - hang two red cartwheels, turned into chandeliers, suspended from a ceiling that is entirely beaten tin. The whole area of this room is about 75 x 20 feet. There is a pool table down one end, the kitchen is open plan, with a bar counter around, and behind me as I write is the bar, its counter a hundred year-old plank heavily inscribed by ghost names.
Yes, this is a ghost town, established in 1885 as the camp for the nearby Emma Mine in the San Juan Range of the Colorado Rockies. Later Dunton Hot Springs - named for Horatio Dunton, who owned a local mine (and yes, there are hot springs right here, see below) - became a cattle ranch, run by Joe and Dominica Roscio, and then it was a dude ranch. In 1994 Christoph Henkel, who had been looking for something in Telluride, was persuaded by a friend to take a look at it. He saw it, and put in an immediate offer (thought they would sell it on, or build 30 or 15 villas to sell on but eventually he decided to keep it for himself and his family as their home away from home). Henkel originally had 187 overgrown acres in flat pasture, 8,900 feet above sea level, encircled by forested mountains that soar upwards. Since then he has increased his landmass to 1,400 acres.
Christoph Henkel found himself the master - he prefers 'sheriff' - of numerous dilapidated wooden huts of assorted shape and size, with rusted corrugated iron roofs from which protruded stove-pipe chimneys. He has moved some, bought more: it is rumoured that if you drive around the West with him he might well see some forgotten shed and make an offer for it.
He now has 12 letting cabins, set somewhat haphazardly about 50m from each other, with a few rusty and decades' old trucks and tractors strewn around for good measure. The houses are all wood, with iron roofs and porches with boot scrapers, and boxes for spare firewood, but otherwise they are unique - some are single floor, some have an upper floor. There are one-bedroom and up to 3-bedroom units. In all, the resort can sleep 42.
Well House, my luxury cabin home for the night, is about 25 x 12 feet inside. The stone-slab floor has a sisal rug at the foot of the king size bed, made up with high-count white linens from Whitney Street. Horizontally-set wood beams form the walls, and the ceiling is wood planks. There are four windows, with crewel-embroidered linen curtains, and French doors leading to a small porch with two wicker-loom chairs. Lighting is intentionally rustic, also known as hit and miss (putting in one's contacts is decidedly hit-and-miss). I have a good shower with masses of Elemis toiletries, thick towels with DHS embroidered on them and a pair of hooded green terry robes from Cotton Palace. There is a radio (no television, no minibar, no safe). I have two hardback books, On Bullshit, by Harry Frankfurt, and The Lost Art of Travel, Vic Darkwood. The highlight of Well House, however, is its own inbuilt hot spring. There is a six feet-long raised rectangular sandstone tub with a pipe going into it. Let in the hot water, about 102°, depending on the level of the ground water, and soak. You have already filled an adjacent wrought iron bowl (about the size of a big Pilates ball), with cold water, so you get into that. Repeat the process, again and again.
If you prefer company, or if you are in one of the other houses that does not have its own bath, there is a separate bathhouse, with a pool that is about 30 x 15 feet, and another pool outside. There are two spa houses (one was the Pony Express station): each is neatly set out with a bed and Elemis supplies. There is an open-sided tepee-topped wedding chapel, set near a 100ft gushing waterfall. For the active, depending on the season, there is heli- and ordinary skiing and snowmobiling, and ice-skating, and fishing and kayaking, and hiking and using the specialized mountain bikes. There is a dedicated boxing house, and an outside climbing wall. And if you want intellectual stimulation, one house is a two-floor library (with a biggest-size latest iMac upstairs), complete with a massive range of local interest that includes Colorado's Hot Springs, Deborah Frazier; Ghost Towns: Colorado Style, Kenneth Jessen. Downstairs, here, are comfy chairs either side of a big wood fire. There is a grizzly bear skin on the floor, and on the mantel a Cape Buffalo skull, a trophy gained by Christoph Henkel's wife Katrin (he gave her the library as their wedding present).
Katrin Henkel is an Old Masters specialist - co-owner of Colnaghi, in London's Bond Street, and Munich - and her many other skills include interior design. Here she is responsible for such one-offs as the Rajasthan bed and hangings in the Honeymoon House. She also worked closely with her long-time friend architect Annabelle Selldorf on the Henkels' own house, a five-floor wooden tower conveniently hidden out of sight of the main Dunton Hot Springs 'village'. (Selldorf's current projects include finishing the late Philip Johnson's Urban Glass House in New York, where she is based.)
It is 60 minutes' drive from the sleepy airstrip at Cortez past the small one-floor town of Dolores to Dolores Road, a 23-miler that starts paved and then, thanks to local pressure, continues as red sand, the red of Africa, of Madagascar. The winding Dolores River meanders down to your right. After we arrived and had a tour of the village, I headed up into the foothills of the Colorado Rockies for a memorable 90-minute hike which involved fording several rushing streams over which beavers had conveniently been building makeshift bridges. Then we went for drinks with neighbours and back to The Saloon for dinner, which is always family-style. We drank local wine, made by former-commando John Sutcliffe near Cortez (Chardonnay, Merlot and Petit Verdot, all 2005). Chef Mario produced individual crab rillettes with avocado salsa. Thick multi-grain home-made bread filled the gaps. Then we spooned creamy mash - fortunately not as much butter as M Robuchon's - into green and white striped bowls from the Austrian firm of Gmunden, and helped ourselves to boeuf bourguignon that had been cooking for 6 hours. Portioned dessert was a rich chocolate tart with cream. Prices here include all meals, but alcohol is extra - one happy 35-strong banking group recently polished off $27,000-worth of Opus One during their three-day stay.
We were waited on by the green polo-shirted, jean-clad crew that is, to a man - and woman - young, fit and totally as passionate as the resort's owner (James, who has been here 18 months, keeps on looking out of the window and exclaiming at the view). Not surprisingly, I slept like a log, and as the sun came up I was back in the Saloon to use its excellent WiFi, which I could not pick up in Well House - though I am told it works perfectly in some of the other houses that make up this luxury resort - and there is no mobile connectivity. There was another guest already working there... but then, as owner Christoph Henkel says, luxury is space, and time, and feeling at home.
And the breakfast, with yogurt and mango and blueberries and bananas among the fruit on offer, and there is home-made granola, make your own toast, and a crew member cooks to order, and there is Nespresso or Bunn filter or tea from a Cuisinart kettle or what you want... well, Dunton Hot Springs is just like home should be. This place is paradise, and that is why 68% of guests are repeats.
Dunton Hot Springs
~ Mary Gostelow, Kiwi Collection. Mary Gostelow is Editor-in-Chief of WOW.Travel, the Online Luxury Magazine of Kiwi Collection Inc.
