The mountain area’s newspaper since 1958
WEEK OF DECEMBER 26, 2024
VOLUME 66 | ISSUE 6
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2024 in rewind for the foothills
Evergreen captures ‘Mocha & Mistletoe’ film crew’s hearts Town featured in 2025 holiday romcom that was filmed this month BY JANE REUTER JREUTER@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
The crew from “Mocha & Mistletoe, which was filmed in Evergreen for two weeks in December. BY JANE REUTER JREUTER@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
2024 was a news-packed year in the foothills, with some long-standing issues resolved and others taking fresh turns. A four-year-long battle over a proposed Conifer bike park finally concluded in defeat for developers. And while that story ended, the twists and turns of a proposed merger of the area’s fire departments continues. In neighboring Evergreen, the fire department moved away from its history as an all-volunteer agency, bringing on six paid firefighters.
Down the hill in Morrison, residents saw upheaval within and ultimately the dissolution of its police department. And ending the year on a bright note, Evergreen was temporarily transformed into a movie set as a New York film crew made the charming mountain town the backdrop of a 2025 holiday rom-com. Let’s take a look back at those and other stories that impacted and uplifted our communities in 2024. Controversial Red Hotel gets green light from Morrison Town Board
A scaled-back version of the Red Hotel gained unanimous approval from the
VOICES: 10 | LIFE: 12 | SPORTS: 14 | PUZZLES: 16
PHOTO COURTESY OF GEMELLI FILMS
Morrison Town Board on April 2. The three-story building on Bear Creek Avenue has been the subject of 15 months of scrutiny and contentious public debate in Morrison, a town grappling to preserve its historic character in the face of development pressures. The Red Hotel is the first hotel approved in Morrison. While the hotel’s front is designed with historic elements, the bulk of the building is decidedly contemporary — a dramatic departure for a 150-year-old town that’s changed little in the last several de-
For the first few weeks of December, the picturesque community of Evergreen has served as a movie set — with its Lake House, the banks of Bear Creek, Little Bear Saloon, Java Groove coffee shop and main street providing the wintery backdrop for a holiday rom-com. At the urging of Java Groove owner Eric Martinez, New York-based independent filmmaker Candy Cain chose Evergreen and his shop as the setting for a 2025 movie called “Mocha & Mistletoe.” The crew, actors and support team finished two weeks of filming on Dec. 18, with plans to release the movie late next year. The movie is centered on a small-town coffee shop in which Cupid’s magical mistletoe is accidentally hung, causing unexpected romantic mayhem. For the cast and crew, the magic wasn’t limited to a fictional storyline. All said the mountain community and setting surpassed their expectations. “Evergreen was everything I thought it would be,” Cain said. “The town definitely gives the movie the atmosphere — that holiday vibe — we wanted.” Cain, who’s produced 16 holiday movies through her company Gemelli Films, wrote “Mocha & Mistletoe” with Evergreen in mind. But until last year, she’d never SEE MOVIE, P6
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