The Broadmoor (Colorado Springs, Colorado)

 hotel, landmark, place with historical importance, resort

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1 Lake Avenue
Colorado Springs, CO 80906
(719) 623-5112
www.broadmoor.com

Historic, luxury resort hotel featuring 744 guestrooms and suites, three 18-hole championship golf courses, a spa, meeting facilities, wedding venues, restaurants, cafés and bars as well as a variety of vacation packages.

Built in 1918 by Cripple Creek gold mining magnate Spencer Penrose. Now owned by Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz.

It has been the most prestigious hotel in the Colorado Springs area since its construction. It has consistently maintained a five-star rating from the Mobil/Forbes Travel Guide for more than 50 years, longer than any other hotel. It is rated five diamonds by AAA.

History:

The site of the Broadmoor Hotel was homesteaded as a farm in the 1860s by Burton C. Myers of Colorado City.

In the 1880s the Burton farm was purchased by William J. Wilcox, who raised dairy cattle on it and called it the "Broadmoor Dairy Farm".

Burton later partnered with a Prussian Count, James Pourtales of Silesia. Count Pourtales eventually took over the entire enterprise.

In 1888 Count Pourtales made plans to convert the farm to a resort and residential development called "Broadmoor City". In 1891, as the centerpiece for the new resort, he built an elaborate casino building on the site of the current hotel.

The original casino building burned down in 1897. It was replaced with a somewhat smaller building on the same site the following year.

Count Pourtales died in 1908, after which the property was acquired by the Myron Stratton Foundation (a philanthropic organization founded posthumously by Cripple Creek gold mining magnate Winfield Scott Stratton upon his death in 1902).

In 1916 the Foundation sold it to Spencer Penrose, another Cripple Creek gold mining magnate, who set out to build the finest hotel in the Western U.S. on the site. Construction was overseen by Charles Leaming Tutt II, son of Penrose's late business partner, and yet another Cripple Creek gold mining magnate, Charles Leaming Tutt Sr. The new hotel was completed in 1918 at a cost of over $2,000,000.

To make way for the new hotel, the second casino building was moved a short distance away
and re-named the "Colonial Club". It was demolished in 1961.

Penrose died in 1939, after which his controlling interest in the hotel passed to the El Pomar Foundation, a philanthropic organization he had founded in 1937, and named after his estate, located just to the west of the hotel. Charles L. Tutt II succeeded Penrose as president of the hotel. Penrose's widow, Julie Penrose, succeeded her husband as president of the El Pomar Foundation, a role she served until her own death in 1956.

In 1988 the El Pomar Foundation sold the hotel to the Oklahoma Publishing Company, the publisher of The Oklahoman newspaper.

Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz, former owner of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, acquired the hotel in 2011 through his purchase of the OPC.

Historic photos of the first Broadmoor Casino:

cdm15330.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15330co...
cdm15981.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15981co...

Historic photo of the second Broadmoor Casino:

cdm15330.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15330co...