Leadville, Colorado · 10,152 feet
Park at the door. Sleep at altitude.
Eleven rooms on Elm Street, with our own lot off Harrison Avenue. No front desk, no waiting up. Your door code arrives before you do.
The building
It was the Alps Motel. Now it sleeps better.
We kept what a 1950s motor court gets right: park at your door, one floor, nothing between you and the mountains but a screen door. Then we rebuilt everything behind it. New beds, real bedding, quiet heat, and a shower with pressure that works at this elevation.
It is the plainest kind of good: a warm, clean room a short walk from Harrison Avenue, at the trailhead end of town.
The details
Somebody chose every one of these.
The rooms
Eleven rooms. Four ways to sleep.
King
Charcoal panelled walls, a brass bed and a wool rug. Reading sconces on both sides and a table with room for two plates or one laptop.
Queen
The same character in a slightly tighter footprint. Two chairs and a table by the window for coffee before the sun clears the ridge.
Queen Bonus
A queen room with a fridge and a microwave along one wall, for the nights you would rather not go back out for dinner.
King, Accessible
A ramp from the lot to the door, a wider doorway and a roll-in shower with grab bars. Room 211 is the one step-free room on the property; every other room has two small steps in.
Check in from 4:00 pm, check out by 11:00 am. Rates move with the season, and live pricing is on the booking page.
Out back
The hot tub is the whole point of the last hour of daylight.
It sits outside, open to the sky, which at ten thousand feet in February is the entire argument. Get out of the boots, get in the water, watch the Sawatch go pink.
Why people come
You did not drive to Leadville to sit in a lobby.
The high ones
Mount Elbert and Mount Massive, the two highest peaks in Colorado, fill the windshield from town. Fifteen of the state’s fifty-eight fourteeners are inside a reasonable morning’s drive.
Water at altitude
Turquoise Lake and Twin Lakes sit minutes from town, ringed by the Sawatch. Rent a board or a boat locally and be on the water before the afternoon wind comes up.
Harrison Avenue
Ten minutes up the avenue on foot: an intact Victorian main street of saloons, outfitters and breakfast. Our sister property, the Historic Delaware Hotel, has anchored the corner since 1886.
Before you drive up
One thing about your GPS.
Typing 207 Elm Street into a phone routes most people to the back of the building, where there is no entrance. Head for the parking lot off Harrison Avenue instead and you will pull in right where you should.
Our other place
Rather have a front desk and a grand lobby?
In the center of town, about half a mile up Harrison Avenue, is our sister property, the Historic Delaware Hotel: an 1886 Victorian with a lobby bar, a piano, thirty six rooms up the stairs and somebody at the desk around the clock. Same owners, a very different night. If you would rather be in the middle of town with a person to talk to, that is the one to book.