Mountain Real Estate

All it will take is a carelessly tossed cigarette, a drunken hunter spitting booze across a campfire or a spark from the heavens and many of Colorado's precious pines will be decimated.  Right now, surrounding some of Centennial State's most expensive resort properties, are thousands of dead and dry trees still standing but only for a refuge to the pine beetle that killed them.  The once-green and now burnt orange and brown hills of Breckenridge, Copper and Vail might inspire some passing tourist to say "ah, the changing colors of fall!"  But they might be more accurate in saying, "ah, I love a nice warm fire!"  Because very soon, no matter how long the tourist and real estate industries try and pretend there's nothing wrong, Colorado will be a giant menorah.  I don't want this to happen, but I think it needs to.  Even precious Yellowstone has had it's massive, regenerative fires.  It's what is supposed to happen to an unhealthy forest.  They burn.  Eventually, though, they come back healthier and without all of the build up of highly flammable underbrush that accumulates through years of man's desperate attempts at fire suppression.  However, I'm not here to lecture on forestry and the health of trees.  I'm hardly qualified.  I'm here to offer a list of necessities for the eventual rebuilding of Colorado's ski towns.  Having spent much of our life in the 'quaint' confines of Durango, and recently traveling the state looking for property in some of our more treed and mountainous areas (always scarred with ski runs and littered with stoned lift chair operators,)  my wife and I took note of what's necessary to make a normal, affordable town, into a ritzy, high-priced Aspen or Telluride.

While a normal, affordable town has a King Soopers or Piggly Wiggly or Safeway, when we raise the ritzy, ski town from it's ashes, we need to be sure it has a natural foods coop with a climbing wall.  An apple can sell for no less then twelve dollars.

And the list goes on.  The normal, affordable town has a JC Penneys.  The ski town will have The Twisted Prune, The Beguiled Elk or some boutique clothier named after something natural in a completely unnatural state.  Juniper is also a popular noun associated with such store names as The Happy Juniper or The Juniper Deflowered.  Practical clothing is not sold here.  You can find, for no less than 500 dollars, face scarves knitted by
Nicaraguan rebels and, for some reason, organic goat's milk.

It is also necessary for a proper ski town to have several businesses refering to themselves as a haus, with two dots over the 'a'.  In a normal town you might be familiar with the International House of Pancakes.  In the newly rebuilt Aspen we will erect an IHAUP.  And have a BeerHaus, SkiHaus and Organic Goat's Milk Haus.   

In a normal town you might find one realtor for every ten people.  In a ritzy, ski town there's one person for every ten realtors.   Look for Remax, Century 21 and the local Haus of Houses. 

However, in a normal town the realtors sell real estate.  In a ski town many of them work at any number of the Historic District's coffee shops while they await someone to pay five million dollars for a condo.  Ritzy, ski town zoning code requires a coffee shop every twelve feet.  Don't look to hard for the capitalist pigs of Starbucks.  While their will be no less than five of those, the place to go shares inspiration with the clothing stores.  You'll only want to be seen getting your caffeine fix at a place called The Steaming Bean.   Note: Underground tunnels must be dug so that  addicted locals can sneak into Starbucks. 

Finally, beer.  In a normal town you might be used to paying two dollars for your favorite suds.  In a ritzy, ski town you'll have to sell body fluid to buy the latest Pinecone Wheat Hefeviezen.  No one really truly likes beer as thick as stew but it's a tradition to at least pretend.  The good news is with all the blood you sold to afford a Hummer Tire Porter, you'll only have to drink one.