The Broadmoor is a hotel and resort in the Old Broadmoor neighborhood of Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Broadmoor is a member of Historic Hotels of America of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Its visitors have included heads of state, celebrities, professional sports stars, and businessmen.
The main resort complex, situated at the base of Cheyenne Mountain, is 6,230 feet (1,900Â m) above sea level, and 5 miles (8.0Â km) southwest of downtown Colorado Springs. The resort has hotel, conference, sports, and spa buildings that radiate out from Cheyenne Lake. The Broadmoor's Ranch at Emerald Valley is a luxury lodge and set of cabins situated on Cheyenne Mountain.
Historically, national and world skating and hockey championships were held at the Broadmoor World Arena. Golf championships have been held at the Broadmoor Golf Club since 1921. The resort has also been the site of clay shooting championships.
Facilities
Broadmoor resort
The architecture and the color is like the grand hotels that would be found on the coast of the Mediterranean, in an Italian Renaissance style. The pink stucco of the façade also helps to blend into the Pikes Peak area landscape. The main buildings are connected on a circular path around a lake. The original hotel building is Broadmoor Main that was built in 1918. The othersâ€"built between 1961 and 2001â€"are Broadmoor South, Broadmoor West, Lakeside Suites and West Tower.
The Broadmoor has 779 rooms. Many of the Broadmoor South rooms have balconies and some have fireplaces. The Penrose Room restaurant is located on the top of the nine-story building. There are eighteen restaurants that are located in the main hotel buildings, golf club, pool cafes, Summit Restaurant, and Golden Bee pub. Broadmoor Golf Club has three golf courses, designed by Donald Ross, Robert Trent Jones and Ed Seay and Arnold Palmer.
The full-service spa has an indoor pool, fitness center, 43 treatment rooms, relaxation room, and hair and nail salon. It offers more than 100 services. The resort has indoor and outdoor pools and tennis courts. There are 25 retail shops, including clothing boutiques and shops, a florist, sundry shop, jewelry store, and gift shop.
There is a .75 miles (1.21Â km) trail around Cheyenne Lake that is creek-fed and manmade. In the summer guests can rent bikes and paddleboats. The Stables at the Broadmoor offer horseback riding. The Penrose Heritage Museum, formerly called the El Pomar Carriage House Museum, houses a collection of vintage carriages and automobiles, including race cars from the Pikes Peak Auto Hill Climb in the early 20th century.
The Broadmoor has 185,000 square feet (17,200Â m2) of meeting space. It earns 70% of its revenue from conventions. The Broadmoor Fire Protection District serves the resort and surrounding area.
Ranch at Emerald Valley
The Broadmoor offers a luxurious mountain experience at their 16-acre Ranch on Emerald Green on Cheyenne Mountain. Philip Anschutz purchased the property and built a main lodge and ten cabins and restored other original buildings. There are two small lakes, horse stables, a gazebo, hot tubs, and an outdoor fire pit.
Cloud Camp
Spencer Penrose, founder of Broadmoor, established Cheyenne Lodge, which is now Cloud Camp®, a wilderness retreat situated 3,000 feet above the resort.
Fishing Camp
Located 75 minutes west of the Resort along a five-mile stretch of Tarryall River, The Broadmoor Fishing Camp borders 120,000 acres of the Lost Creek Wilderness.
History
Early years
Spencer Penrose bought the property in 1916 and began to build The Broadmoor in 1918 to be "Grand Dame of the Rockies", patterned after elegant European hotels with excellent service and cuisine. Architects Warren and Wetmore, who designed Ritz-Carlton and Biltmore Hotels, were hired to design the hotel buildings. Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of landscape architecture and the landscape architect of Central Park, was brought on to design the landscape for The Broadmoor's 3,000 acres. Penrose hired Donald Ross, a golf architect, to design the first golf course. At the time, it was the highest golf course in the United States. Far Eastern and European artwork and antiques were purchased for the hotel. A dismantled English pub was brought to the United States and reassembled at the resort. The resort had one of the first full-service spas in the country and a supervised activities club for children. Penrose's goal was to build "the finest hotel in the United States". The shooting school was run by Annie Oakley. After having spent $2 million (equivalent to $31,845,133 in 2016) building the resort, it opened in 1918.
A polo field was built west of the hotel in 1928. The Broadmoor Riding Arena was built across Cheyenne Lake from the main hotel in 1930. The Broadmoor's hangar was built in 1930 at the Colorado Springs Airport, east of the city, for the guest's use. In 1942, the resort sold the hangar to the city of Colorado Springs.
The Broadmoor Ice Palace, an Olympic training center, opened on January 1, 1938 on the resort grounds. It held a total of fourteen National Sports Festivals, World Figure Skating Championship, and U.S. Figure Skating championships. It was renamed the Broadmoor World Arena in 1961. Also in 1938, the Will Rogers Memorial Stadium was built across Cheyenne Lake from the hotel where concerts, rodeos, and Native American dances were held. It was named Penrose Stadium after Spencer's death. In the 1970s it was torn down to allow for the construction of Broadmoor West.
When Penrose built the Broadmoor he had two partners, Albert E. Carlton and C.M. MacNeill, and in 1932 Spencer's El Pomar Investment Company sued the hotel and purchased it, becoming the only owner, when it went into receivership.
El Pomar Foundation
After Spencer Penrose died, the hotel was owned in 1939 by the Spencer's charitable organization, El Pomar Foundation. Charles L. Tutt, Jr., who was the secretary of the Broadmoor Hotel and Land Company, was made president. Julie Penrose had the Carriage House Museum (now the Penrose Heritage Museum) built for her husband's collection of carriages and automobiles. She moved into the hotel's sixth floor in 1944.
A ski area was built for the resort in 1959. The 144-room Broadmoor South and the International Center were built in 1961. The son of Charles Tutt, Jr., William Thayer Tutt, became the hotels' president that year.
On February 15, 1961, members of the U.S. Figure Skating Team were killed during the airplane crash of Sabena Flight 548 near Brussels, Belgium. Eighteen skaters and 16 others associated with the team were killed on their way to the World Figure Skating Championships. A memorial bench made of granite was installed across from the entrance to the World Arena building (now razed) at the edge of the resort's lake.
The second golf course was designed by Robert Trent Jones in 1965. Russell Thayer Tutt, son of Charles Tutt, Jr., became president of The Broadmoor in 1975. The resort was located within the unincorporated village of Broadmoor until it was annexed into the city of Colorado Springs in 1980. Following attempts to revert the annexation legally, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld the annexation in 1982. The third golf course was designed in 1976 by Ed Seay and Arnold Palmer.
Colorado Hall, the resort's second conference center, was built in 1982. In 1986, the resort closed Ski Broadmoor, but the city of Colorado Springs and Ski Vail stepped in to keep it open. It closed in 1991.
Oklahoma Publishing
Due to the Tax Reform Act of 1969, the foundation sold its majority interest of the resort in 1988. The resort was renovated after The Oklahoma Publishing Company gained controlling interest in 1989.
Plans were made to raze the Broadmoor Golf Club and built the Broadmoor Spa, Golf and Tennis Club for $12.2 million (equivalent to $20,226,538 in 2016) in 1993. The Broadmoor World Arena was torn down in April 1994 and the next year Broadmoor West was built. Between 2000 and 2002, a renovation was completed for $75 million (equivalent to $99,865,865 in 2016).
A North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit was held at the Broadmoor in October 2003 with President George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Defence Ministers from seven countries.
Between 2003 and 2008, the resort was expanded to include a group of retail stores, 160 luxury townhomes and condominiums, rooftop tennis courts, underground parking, and expansion of the third golf course.
Anschutz
The Anschutz Corporation purchased the resort in 2011. President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Bartolin continued to run the hotel.
Broadmoor name and logo
The hotel's name and logo is always officially presented as all uppercase with the 'A' being smaller and raised higher than the other letters: BROADMOOR. The reasoning behind this is surrounded by legend. One story is that Spencer Penrose had a friendly rivalry with the Antlers Hotel, and for that reason, Penrose required the 'A' in "Broadmoor" to always be smaller than the other letters.
The original copyright documents, filed December 15, 1918, stored in the hotel archive show that the alteration was necessary to obtain exclusive copyright due to other uses of the word Broadmoor in the nearby area since the 1880s.
Tournaments
The resort has been the site of tournaments, such as the US Women's Open and the US Senior's Open, since its first years in operation. The first Broadmoor Invitation Golf Tournament was held in 1921. National Figure Skating Championships were held at The Broadmoor in 1948 and 1973. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) golf tournament was held in June 1957. Five years later, World and European Hockey Championships were held at The Broadmoor.
The Broadmoor World Arena was the site of the World Figure Skating Championships in January 1966. Broadmoor East was the site of the World Senior golf tournament in 1966. The United States Sporting Clays Association (USSCA) had its national sporting clays championship in 1990 at the Broadmoor. The 2011 U.S. Women's Open Golf Championship was held at The Broadmoor.
In 2005, for his contributions in building The Broadmoor resort into one of the leading tennis centers in the United States, Chet Murphy was inducted into the Colorado Tennis Hall of Fame.
Awards
Some of the awards that the resort has received include:
- 5-star ranking for the resort by Forbes, formerly Mobile Guide, for 54 consecutive years, as of 2015. This is the longest period of time of any establishments in the United States.
- 5-diamond ranking by American Automobile Association (AAA) for the resort for 39 straight years, as of 2015
- 5-diamond ranking by American Automobile Association (AAA) for the Penrose restaurant for 8 straight years, as of 2015
- 5-star restaurant ranking by Forbes in 2012, makes the Broadmoor one of three hotel and restaurant combinations to receive the ranking
- Listed as Historic Hotel of America by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
- The hotel was ranked one of Colorado's Finest Hotels in an article by ColoradoBiz in 2001.
In the news and film
- Ice Castles (1978) was filmed in the former Broadmoor World Arena. It starred Lynn-Holly Johnson, a skater, and Robby Benson
- Perry Mason: The Case of the Sinister Spirit (1987) was filmed at The Broadmoor.
- According to a report in The Gazette in 2001, President George W. Bush decided to quit drinking after waking up with a hangover in The Broadmoor one morning in the summer of 1986. He wrote about the incident in his book A Charge to Keep. He said, "This run was different. I felt worse than usual. And about halfway through, I decided I would drink no more" and never drank again.
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