75th Historical Booklet Draft

BECOMING A LEGACY

WHERE WE’VE BEEN, WHERE WE’RE GOING, & THE STORIES TOLD IN BETWEEN

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EARLY BEGINNINGS

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE PIKES PEAK REGION

A BOLD VISION FOR THE MESA BUILDING THE DREAM DESIGNING THEIR DREAM

OPENING DAY(S) OF THE CLUB

DREAMS COME TO LIFE

THE FABULOUS 1950’S

THE SIXTIES BRING CHANGE

THE SEVENTIES: CELEBRATING 25 YEARS MOVING FROM ONE CENTURY TO THE NEXT

ENRICHING BY NATURE

NEW OWNERSHIP

A VISION OF WELLNESS

THE FUTURE AND BEYOND

“On this anniversary, we honor my father’s vision for the land that mirrors the brilliance of these surroundings. By blending this legacy with a new focus on innovation and wellness, we’re ensuring this remains a source of inspiration for generations to come.”

-LYDA HILL

BECOMING A LEGACY

An Introduction

The year 2026 finds the Garden of the Gods Resort and Club marking its seventy-fifth anniversary while the nation marks its two hundred and fiftieth and the state of Colorado its one hundred and fiftieth. The country was founded in 1776, the state granted statehood in 1876, and the Club opened its doors in 1951 — three milestones aligning on a single calendar with the kind of symmetry that, in another age, would have invited a parade.

On this anniversary, the Resort and Club owes a particular debt of gratitude to the Hill Family, whose trust and encouragement have made it possible to honor the institution’s history while continuing to build, for a new century, an inclusive destination of discovery.

A place where everyone and everything is enriched by nature.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE PIKES PEAK REGION

Long before Al and Margaret Hill had the foresight and the patience to imagine the original Garden of the Gods Club, the Mesa upon which it would rise was a treeless expanse of short grass dotted with hardy yucca. Yet for millennia, people had been drawn to this stretch of country where the mountains meet the plains, in full view of the dramatic sedimentary formations that line the valley below.

The high rugged plains of the Pikes Peak region had discouraged most early real-estate ventures. General William Jackson Palmer was unmoved by the discouragement; he had seen his future here. In a letter to his fiancée, Mary Lincoln “Queen” Mellen, written on July 28, 1869, he described a one-hundred-twenty-mile journey along the Arkansas River within full sight of the Rocky Mountains. One moonlit night he had spread his blankets atop a coach and fallen asleep. He woke, he wrote, to find a “round moon looking steadily in my face, when I found the magnificent Pike’s Peak immediately above at an elevation of 14,000 feet and topped with a little snow.”

Almost exactly two years later, on July 31, 1871, the first stake of the Fountain Colony — soon renamed Colorado Springs — was driven into the ground. Palmer was a Philadelphian, a Civil War cavalry officer who had commanded the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry until 1865, and a man of great talent without much in the way of capital. He had gone west with the Kansas and Pacific Railroad before founding his own road, the Denver and Rio Grande, with a singular ambition: to connect Colorado with Mexico by rail and to build thriving communities along the route.

Colorado Springs in particular was designed by Palmer and his partners as an elite health resort, banking on scenic beauty, abundant sunshine, fresh air, medicinal soda springs, and a wealth of recreational opportunity.

“AT COLORADO CITY, “THE GARDEN OF THE GODS,” WE STOPPED TO BREAKFAST. I FRESHENED MYSELF UP BY A PRELIMINARY BATH IN THE WATERS OF THE FOUNTAIN. NEAR HERE ARE THE FINEST SODA SPRINGS AND THE MOST ENTICING SCENERY. I AM SURE THERE WILL BE A FAMOUS SUMMER RESORT HERE SOON AFTER THE RAILROAD REACHES DENVER.”

— GENERAL WILLIAM PALMER

Palmer himself built his estate, Glen Eyrie, outside the original city limits, at the mouth of Queen’s Canyon just north of the Garden of the Gods. He believed in the healing powers of nature with the conviction of a soldier and the persistence of a railroad man — and required his three daughters, Elsie, Dorothy, and Marjory, to walk or ride horseback through the property and the nearby Garden almost as a matter of household discipline.

A cavalry officer is, by training, most at home on horseback, and Palmer had crossed thousands of miles of the American West on a saddle — first in the war, later as a surveyor of railroad routes. He travelled, in his lifetime, around the world. He loved the Pikes Peak region better than anywhere else. To preserve the country he had come to consider his own, he bought parcels of land and laid out parks, hired crews to cut trails, and engaged landscape architects to fill the parks with rusticated bridges and stone work. Sometime in the early 1870s, he improved what was probably an older track into a road, running across the Mesa from Glen Eyrie to downtown Colorado Springs.

Unlike most of the West’s settlements, Colorado Springs was not founded at the meeting of two rivers or two trails. It was staked on a dry grassy plain with Pikes Peak as a dramatic backdrop. Aided by the traffic of the Denver and Rio Grande and a growing network of other railroads,

its reputation as an elite health destination grew steadily. Visitors and writers compared it to Italy and Switzerland, to Newport and Saratoga Springs. By 1915, more than fifteen sanatoriums operated within or near its borders.

Local boosters christened the city with names that left nothing to chance — “America’s Greatest Sanatorium,” “City of Sunshine” — and promised “over 300 days of sunshine” each year, medicinal springs within easy reach, and air, they assured the eastern reader, “free of all impurities.” Hotels, boarding houses, and tent cottages multiplied to accommodate the health-seekers who arrived. From the outset, the history of Colorado Springs was inextricable from the question of its healthfulness.

When Al Hill enrolled at Colorado College in the early 1920s, the city held just over thirty thousand people, and its principal economic drivers were wellness and tourism — the same pair that would, in the next century, become its essential brand. From the moment Hill purchased the Mesa land from Frank Dent in April 1949, he and Margaret worked tirelessly to bring their vision of the Garden of the Gods Club into being. Their plans for the sixteen-hundred-acre tract included a clubhouse, luxury accommodations, a golf course, and a residential community — continuing, on a more deliberate scale, the legacy of tourism and wellness on which the city itself had been founded.

A BOLD VISION FOR THE MESA

It was in the stirring period after the Second World War that the Hills made their decisive move. In May 1949, the local newspapers announced that they were buying the Mesa — the high tableland just northwest of downtown Colorado Springs through which Mesa Road already ran. The Mesa lay technically outside the city limits then, and a long way from the bustling commerce, politics, and society of the downtown core. Hill had been coming west to vacation at the Broadmoor in the 1940s; in the dawn hours he would drive out alone to the Mesa and stand a while, looking.

It is said that Al Hill at first intended to buy only enough land to build “a world class country club, one befitting of the grand scenery.” When Henry Willie of Seven Falls, acting as Hill’s agent, approached the landowners, he discovered that as much as sixteen hundred acres were for sale. The Gazette Telegraph reported on May 4, 1949, that “the entire mesa between Colorado

Springs and Garden of the Gods has been purchased… for a club and fine homes,” and noted that Hill had been in town on the Tuesday in connection with the deal. The transaction, the paper observed cautiously, was “still pending in some particulars.”

In the Club’s twenty-fifth anniversary memoir, Hill set down his reasons for the purchase in his own words. Whatever rumors had attended the deal, his vision was both more sophisticated and more specific than the gossip allowed.

BUILDING THE DREAM

The view from atop the Mesa has always been magnificent, but it took a particular couple to make an institution of it. The Hills threw themselves into the project; their dedication produced a place so durable in its appeal that the second and third generations of early members continue to belong. The Club, for the Hills, was a family project and a family legacy from the start.

Plans called for construction in “California architecture,” and Alfred Truesdell “Hap” Gilman of Los Angeles was retained as project architect. Gilman’s greatgranddaughter, Paige Thompson, has since catalogued his work and described his architectural legacy plainly: “His work is heavy with strong lines, large windows, and unique shapes… nature is prominent within his work in wood beams, stone fireplaces, and even a few indoor trees.” A protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright, Gilman was remembered for blending styles and for producing several notable Southern California residences, among them the Mariposa House (1955) in Malibu.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

R. E. Alderson of Colorado Springs was chosen as general contractor; all four subcontractors were also drawn from the Springs. Some observers, surveying the rising development on the Mesa, called it a second Palm Springs. They had no idea how nearly true that was.

In September 1950, in a small ceremony, the Hills and friends from Colorado and Texas sank a copper time

capsule into the lobby fireplace wall. Among the items placed inside were a piece of bubble gum, a bottle of Dr. Pepper, a bottle of Coke, a Bill Boyd Western, a plat of the survey, current magazines and newspapers, brochures from Seven Falls, Jacoby’s book on Canasta, and — by accident, in the seconds before sealing — a chameleon that had chosen the wrong moment to investigate.

The Hills were intimately involved at every phase of the three-year planning and construction. No detail was too small. Al insisted that the clubhouse be oriented thirtyseven degrees south of due west, to capitalize on the view and to ensure, as he put it, “enjoyment of and minimum annoyance from the sun.” Fireplaces, furnishings, murals, planters, and flower beds were “fitted together, piece by piece,” with nothing overlooked.

By May 1950, the local papers were running an artist’s rendering of the Garden of the Gods Club that bore an uncanny resemblance to the building that would shortly rise. Al Hill liked to tell the story of how the project’s architect had been so taken with the setting on the Mesa that he had nearly forgotten to “paint the buildings in.”

The two or three years of planning and construction were, by every later account, the most exciting period of Al and Margaret Hill’s time in Colorado Springs. At Dallas dinner parties they could speak of little else. When friends visited Colorado, the Hills would carry them up onto the Mesa for picnics at the precise spot where the clubhouse would stand. “Al would pace off where the clubhouse would be and the tennis courts,” a friend remembered, “and his eyes would grow wide with excitement and anticipation.”

“MY FATHER HAD AN INVESTMENT IN SHADOW MOUNTAIN CLUB IN PALM SPRINGS, CA. HAD THE GENERAL PARTNER NOT GOTTEN DRUNK AND SOLD THE CALIFORNIA CLUB AGAINST THE WISHES OF THE OTHER TWO PARTNERS, GARDEN OF THE GODS CLUB MIGHT NEVER HAVE EXISTED.” — AL HILL JR.

DESIGNING THEIR DREAM

The original Club consisted of a lobby bar, a dining room, the Garden Room, twenty-two bedrooms and two suites north of the lobby, three suites and four bedrooms on the second floor, and a swimming pool on the bluff facing the Garden of the Gods. While Al concentrated on the buildings, Margaret oversaw the interior design, the room décor, and the landscaping. Each fireplace, each flower bed, each mural, and each piece of furniture was “fitted together, piece by piece”; nothing was treated as ornament.

A May 1951 article in the Colorado Springs Free Press described how “outside construction is in keeping with the rugged and colorful setting. Its roof is of heavy cedar shakes and the sides are of board and batten. The outside of the building is of asphaltum finish which mellows and increases in naturalness of color with age. From the moment one approaches the club he is aware of the successful attempt in the use of colors and textures to produce a retreat that is in complete harmony with the native stone and timber of the Garden of the Gods region.”

Inside, the main lounge was breathtaking — a thirty-twoby-twenty-six-foot west window framing an unobstructed view of the Garden and Pikes Peak. The lobby floor was Vermont grayish-blue slate. A giant fireplace rose from Colorado pink stone; the custom furniture included a twenty-six-foot couch; a twenty-six-by-thirty-two-foot mural by Reece Bools of Denver took up nearly half the south wall, depicting prehistoric cave dwellings, horse, bison, antelope, and the abstracted forms of rock and erosion that defined the country around it.

The decorators Marshall Morin and Harry E. Francis, of Dallas and Colorado Springs respectively, were retained to furnish and adorn the Club, and by every account they did spectacular work. Every detail was prepared with

patient artistry. The ceiling paper in the main lounge was a custom-designed fresco-type copper in gray-green, drawn to pick up the colors of the floor. The west draperies, weighing more than three hundred pounds, were hung on professional stage-curtain tracks; the cloth itself was designed and handwoven by Maria Kipp of Los Angeles, the colors of the main lobby gathered at the bottom and dissolving to eggshell at the top. An old cypress tree stood in the curve of the “California staircase.”

The cocktail lounge, called the Kissing Camels Room, was given a Garden of the Gods–themed wallpaper in terra cotta, brown, and white, designed by Bernie Woolsley Benshneider of Colorado Springs. The ceiling was painted a smoky brown. A great fireplace and a curly birch bar with a heavily antiqued mirror completed the room. Harry Francis and Paul Hill of Colorado Springs designed and built much of the Club’s modern, one-of-akind furniture themselves.

Membership was divided evenly between Dallas oilmen and prominent citizens of Colorado Springs and Denver. Invitations were sent to about four hundred people; by June 1951 the Club’s rolls held two hundred and fifty members. Originally incorporated as a Colorado nonprofit, the founding board included Sam H. Boren, Barney Feagin, Jr., John A. Gillin, Robert K. Howse, E. J. Hudson, William B. Rubey, and Al G. Hill — and, from Colorado Springs, David P. Strickler and Paul M. Borchert. The bylaws declared, plainly and as a matter of principle, that the membership roll would never be published.

Before the official opening, the Club hosted a special sneak-peek viewing to benefit the Junior League of Colorado Springs. The fifty-cent admission supported the League’s daycare programs, healthcare initiatives, and the long-running Colorado Springs Nutrition Camp — a small philanthropy at the threshold of a much larger one.

OPENING DAY(S) OF THE DREAM

Four days before opening, the Gazette Telegraph reported a full crew working around the clock on last-minute details. Members and guests, the paper promised, would have access to the ninety-thousand-gallon heated and lighted swimming pool, and “every indication now is that the two cement tennis courts will be ready to play by opening day.”

“WE’LL BE READY TO PRESENT ONE OF THE FINEST OPENINGS EVER!” — GARDEN OF THE GODS CLUB MANAGER B. H. KING AND AL G. HILL

In 1951, the Garden of the Gods Club could accommodate seventy overnight guests at a time across its seven suites and twenty-four patio suites. The members-only opening was therefore spread over three days, so that as many members as possible could attend. From Thursday, June 14, through Saturday, June 16, the Club ran at capacity for each of the three nights.

The newspapers of Colorado Springs, Denver, and Dallas all gave the gala unstinting coverage. Texas oilmen and Colorado business leaders mingled with the city’s prominent families; reporters described a Club “designed and constructed to fit in with the natural beauty and surroundings of the Mesa and the Garden of the Gods.”

“A

COLLABORATION OF MAN AND NATURE, OF TEXAS AND COLORADO SPRINGS SOCIETY, OF RECREATION AND RELAXATION, OF RUGGED BEAUTY AND REFINED AMBIENCE, CUISINE, AND ENTERTAINMENT.”

The Dallas Morning News described the new club as “nestled on the mesa,” its construction “in keeping with the rugged and beautiful setting.” Everyone agreed that the setting itself was inspirational. Fittingly, the Texas Suite was the largest at the Club — with its enormous fireplace, its master bedroom, and its broad view of the Garden and the Peak. The Oklahoma Suite was widely admitted to be a close second; but never first.

“FROM THE MOMENT ONE APPROACHES THE CLUB, HE IS AWARE OF THE SUCCESSFUL USE OF COLORS AND TEXTURES TO PRODUCE A RETREAT THAT IS IN COMPLETE HARMONY WITH THE NATIVE STONE AND TIMBER IN THE REGION.”

Many of the early members — and many of the reporters — wanted to know about the food. The Hills had insisted from the outset that at the Club “the food will be the greatest… even if we have to go to Paris to get a chef.”

A longtime associate later wondered aloud why Al and Margaret would want to go into the restaurant business at all. Al told friends, “Margaret and I travel all over the country — all over the world really — and we’re always looking for something great we can bring back to Colorado Springs.”

The chef Henri Kechid arrived a few days before the opening, along with the maître d’ Vincent Pallos. Diners on opening night chose from a menu that began with croustade of lobster and shrimp mushrooms Paulette, or supreme of fresh fruit cocktail; crème of chicken à la Reine or consommé Monte Carlo; and went on to stuffed Colorado mountain trout aux amandes, roast Long Island duckling bigarade à l’orange, broiled Lake Superior whitefish Doria, breast of capon under bell glass Eugenie, broiled U.S. choice sirloin steak with sauce Bordelaise, and roast prime rib of beef au jus. Dessert was a choice of fresh strawberry shortcake or pear Belle Hélène — ice cream with pear, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream. The last alone needed to be explained to the public; a sophisticated palate among the Club’s membership was assumed.

The Gazette Telegraph printed the menu in its entirety, alongside a full page of photographs and editorial that concluded the new institution had become a “mecca of fine taste and splendor.” The Garden of the Gods Club,

the paper wrote, had launched itself onto the map, “establishing the standards of elegance and opulence that would be its trademark and legacy in the decades ahead.”

For many guests, the high point of the opening weekend was Rudy Vallée. The famous radio crooner, a friend of Al and Margaret, serenaded the Club’s members and their guests on three successive nights, singing the favorites and chatting easily with the audience between numbers. The local reporter Hazel Bunker interviewed him during the weekend and came away impressed. She described his “sly, gentle humor, one that appeals to the average audience through his sympathetic approach rather than the lambasting type of entertainer who browbeats his audience… His is the sophisticated night club type of humor.” She noted that he was less interested in television than in radio and live performance. She also coaxed him, somehow, into admitting that he was “over forty.”

The opening weekend of the Garden of the Gods Club, from June 14 through June 16, 1951, was a triumph. Newspapers across the state carried full accounts of how the Hills, their family, their friends, and their new members had enjoyed the special events in grand style. It was a time of joy, comradery, and optimism — for a future of happy times and many memories made, all of them, in this special place on the Mesa.

DREAMS COME TO LIFE

1951-2013

THE FABULOUS 1950S

“From it (the Mesa) the sun is seen rising over Austin Bluffs and setting behind Pikes Peak, and at night the lights of Colorado Springs sparkle like a field of diamonds down below.”

There is a stretch of high ground above Colorado Springs where, on a clear evening, the lights of the city below seem suspended in the dark like a field of scattered diamonds, and the last sun of the day burns red behind the silhouette of Pikes Peak. It is from this mesa, and from the conviction that such a place deserved to be celebrated rather than merely admired, that the Garden of the Gods Club was born.

When the Club opened its doors in June 1951, it gathered to itself a kind of company the West had rarely entertained in one room: movie stars and military commanders, oil men and authors, accomplished athletes and society’s brightest bonvivants. On any given evening one might watch the chandeliers light the formal wear of guests just arrived from California, from Texas, from points still farther east, while beyond the windows the city itself shone like its own constellation. The dance floor was rarely still. The dining tables were rarely quiet. The air, by every account that survives, was charged with the particular excitement of a place that knew it was being made.

“I REMEMBER THE BEAUTIFUL OPENING AND CLOSING PARTIES WITH THE GORGEOUS CLOTHES, ETC. AL HILL ALWAYS SET THE PACE FOR DRESSING WITH FLAIR.”

— ZOYA MILLER

Margaret Hill saw to it that the Club’s elegance was not Al’s burden alone to bear. She had a gift for invention, a sense that style was something to be played with rather than guarded, and she set trends as easily as some women set the table. Her daughter Lyda would later recall an evening when, dressed in white organdy with a pink sash, her mother appeared in the family room holding one white shoe and one pink one, asking the teenagers which to wear. She forgot, in the end, to choose. The Hills arrived at the Club with mismatched shoes, the children mortified. “Not to worry,” Margaret said — it would become a fashion. The next night, two other women appeared in mismatched shoes of their own.

“MANY OF THE ENTRIES WERE PREPARED AT TABLE SIDE. ON ONE PARTICULAR OCCASION, MRS. HILL HAD ON A BEAUTIFUL WHITE ORGANDY AND PAINTED DRESS AND HER SLEEVE BECAME CAUGHT IN THE FLAME. THE MAÎTRE D’, CHARLES, QUICKLY AND EFFICIENTLY EXTINGUISHED THE FLAME. THE EVENT CAUSED LOTS OF EXCITEMENT AND CONVERSATION, BUT MRS. HILL WAS NOT HURT IN ANY WAY. THE MAÎTRE D’ BECAME KNOWN AS “FLAMING CHARLES.”

— MARGARET HILL

“WE SPEND PART OF EACH WINTER AT PALM SPRINGS, WHERE WE MEET MANY PEOPLE WHO SPEND THEIR SUMMERS HERE, INCLUDING MR. AND MRS. AL HILL, SO WE HAVE HEARD SO MUCH ABOUT COLORADO SPRINGS.”

— MR. AND MRS. WALT DISNEY

That same year, the Pikes Peak region became, briefly, Korea. Producers of One Minute Before Zero — originally titled The Korean Story — chose Camp Carson for terrain they thought resembled the country then at war. Soldiers from the 148th Field Artillery served as extras; more than a hundred cast and crew lodged at the Alamo Hotel on Tejon Street. Robert Mitchum and Claudette Colbert, however, were given rooms at the Garden of the Gods Club. They were not the last stars to stay.

While the Club gathered the famous, the city itself was hunting larger game. Congress had passed the National Security Act of 1947, making the Air Force an independent branch of the military, and the question soon arose of where to plant its academy — an institution to stand beside West Point and Annapolis. A site-selection committee convened in 1949. When word of the search reached Colorado Springs, a local businessman seized the chance; the Chamber of Commerce stood up a Citizens’ Committee, and the campaign began.

The boosters of that era worked from a familiar formula: abundant land, proximity to Denver, a healthy climate, sound transportation, and — most importantly — a community willing to court the military with both arms. When skeptics worried that the region’s altitude would hamper flight training, committee member Charles Lindbergh rented a plane and went up himself. He returned satisfied with both the air and the view. The competition narrowed to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin; Alton, Illinois; and Colorado Springs. The Springs welcomed harder than the others, and won.

“(WHILE SUPERINTENDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE ACADEMY) I HAD A GUEST MEMBERSHIP AT THE GARDEN OF THE GODS CLUB… WHEN I WAS ACTIVE DUTY, VISITORS (TO USAFA) WANTED TO PLAY GOLF… AND EVERYONE WANTED TO GO OVER TO THE GARDEN OF THE GODS BECAUSE OF THE SETTING WITH THE MAGNIFICENT VIEW.”

— LT. GEN. (RET.) ALBERT P. CLARK

From its first year, the Club was a place where men in uniform crossed paths with men in business suits, where conversations between generals and bankers and civic leaders proceeded easily over coffee and continued past midnight on the dance floor. Whatever was happening at Fort Carson, Peterson Field, or the rising Air Force Academy was, sooner or later, discussed at the Garden of the Gods Club — beneath the watching peak, against the red rock of the Garden itself. It was a form of discreet diplomacy. The scenery did half the work.

In the summer of 1956, Walt and Lillian Disney came west from Marceline, Missouri, headed home to California by way of a place they had heard described for years. It was their first visit to the state. The Gazette Telegraph photographed Disney perched on a rock with a map in his hand and the canyon falling away behind him; he intended, he said, to ride the Cog Railway to the top of Pikes Peak. While at the Club, he was reading the script of a film about the American Revolution then titled Why We Fight, built around a speech by James Otis.

“THE CLUB ATTRACTED COLORFUL CHARACTERS AND CELEBRITIES, WHICH MADE FOR GOOD STORIES! I ESPECIALLY REMEMBER ONE ABOUT JOHN WAYNE. ONE NIGHT, JERRY BROWN, OUR ACCOMPLISHED BANDLEADER, GOT “INTO IT” WITH THE DUKE. “I NEVER LIKED ANYTHING YOU DID,” SAID JERRY, “BUT MY MOTHER THINKS YOU’RE THE BEST EVER.” “WELL, LET’S CALL HER UP!” SAID JOHN WAYNE, AND THEY DID, TALKING FOR TWENTY MINUTES WITH JERRY’S MOM. (AT 3:00 A.M.!!)”

— JANE NORRIS

“Any

word short of fabulous would not be adequate in describing the lushness and completeness of this club.”

— THE GAZETTE TELEGRAPH

In April 1952, the Denver Post’s glossy Empire Magazine sent its assistant editor, William J. Barker, south with instructions to capture a city imbued, as he would put it, with “a regal past, a vigorous present, and a future planned with confidence.” Barker confessed at the outset that an article could scarcely contain Colorado Springs — that “a book would be required to include all of the outstanding men, women, and achievements” of the place. The town, he wrote, “grew on a tradition of independence, little caring what the rest of the state thought of it… That tradition has been inherited by the typical Springs gogetter today.”

“DAVE STRICKLER WAS A LOCAL LAWYER AND FRIEND OF MR. HILL’S AT THE START OF THE CLUB. WHEN HE HEARD AL HAD PURCHASED THE MESA FROM FRANK DENT, HE TOLD AL HE MAY HAVE MADE A MISTAKE BECAUSE IT IS SO WINDY ON THE MESA. AL RESPONDED, “SO WHAT’S A LITTLE WIND TO A TEXAN?””

— BOB BARTLETT

Few features of the early Club drew more notice than its pool — ninety feet by thirty-five, freeform in shape, holding ninety thousand gallons of heated water and ringed by four thousand square feet of flagstone. The papers approved of its sloping floor, “graded for swimmers of all heights and abilities,” and approved equally of its color: the sides were finished in such a way that the water caught the blue of the sky and threw it back, with a touch of blue tint in the water itself to deepen the effect. To sunbathe poolside in the “dry, invigorating mountain air” was, in the language of the early advertisements, an experience equal to swimming. Bathers tended to agree.

The Free Press, for its part, devoted an entire column to the Club’s electrical features — its electric coffee makers and waffle-bakers and toasters, and a sophisticated sound system capable of transmitting “radio broadcasts, music on any speed of records, or any form of entertainment originating in the Club.” Television, the column noted, had not yet arrived in Colorado Springs, but the wiring was ready when it did. Less successful was Al Hill’s notion of using the speakers to deliver a 6:30 a.m. wake-up call to every guest, so that no one would miss the eastern sunrise. The idea was abandoned almost as soon as it was proposed.

Not everything went as the founders planned. When grass seed sown on the freshly graded western edge of the clubhouse refused to root, and sod could not be bought locally, George Vradenburg of Upton Gardens was asked, in effect, to perform a miracle. He performed it by pulling up the grass from his own yard and laying it around the pool deck of the Club. To everyone’s delight — except his wife Bee’s — it took. “What,” she wondered, “are the neighbors going to think?” George, by all accounts, was more troubled by what Al Hill would think.

“MY HUSBAND MAX AND I SPENT PART OF OUR HONEYMOON AT THE GARDEN OF THE GODS CLUB. WE WERE THERE IN AUGUST OF 1964, COURTESY OF MR. AND MRS. JOHN MONTGOMERY FROM JUNCTION CITY, KANSAS. WE REMEMBER THINKING WHAT A BEAUTIFUL AND SPECIAL PLACE IT WAS — AND REMAINS TODAY! THE SWIMMING POOL AT THAT TIME WAS WHERE THE POND IS NOW. WE HAVE MEMORIES OF DINING AND DANCING AT THE CLUB, NOT REALIZING WE WOULD EVENTUALLY BECOME MEMBERS.”

— PENNY

MOSS

“HE (AL) TOLD ME OF HIS MARVELOUS PLANS TO PRESERVE THIS UNIQUE AMERICAN HERITAGE. I COULD NEITHER COMPREHEND NOR ENVISAGE IT THEN. HALF A CENTURY LATER… I’VE LIVED IN IT.”

— DAVIS A. WITTS

By the close of the decade, the Gazette Telegraph reached for a word that could carry the freight: any term short of fabulous, the paper wrote, would be inadequate to describe the lushness and completeness of the Club and its sixtythree acres. But Al and Margaret Hill were not finished. They were, to put it more precisely, scarcely begun. They believed in detail, in correction, in renovation as a form of fidelity. As early as 1957, the lobby was transformed into a Japanese garden in time for opening weekend. Their friend Davis Witts once recalled meeting Al just after the war, when Hill produced a folder and asked if he’d like to see some pictures — Witts had hoped for Betty Grable. Inside the folder were photographs of the Mesa, the Kissing Camels in the distance. The priorities of a lifetime, set down in a single image.

THE SIXTIES BRING CHANGE

If tennis was the founding sport of the Garden of the Gods Club, golf was its long-deferred ambition. From the moment Al and Margaret Hill purchased the Mesa in 1949, golf was in the plan — though, as friends liked to claim, Al, a phenomenal tennis player, had to be “talked into” it. He intended, in any case, that whatever he built should be the very best, and to design it he hired one of the great American golf architects of the era, J. “Press” Maxwell.

Maxwell had flown eighty-one combat missions with the 15th Air Force in the Second World War. His father, Perry Maxwell, was a legendary course architect; after Perry’s death in 1952, the son emerged, in the language of the profession, “as one of golf course design’s brightest stars.” He came to Colorado in 1958, served as president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects in 1960, and was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 1996.

His design for Kissing Camels called for eighteen holes over seven thousand yards, laid out in a star-shaped pattern that returned the player to the new clubhouse four separate times. More than two hundred acres of Bentgrass and Kentucky Bluegrass were sown, and trees were planted in numbers great enough to put real interest into a rocky tract. On the advice of a Denver member, only a few of those trees were deciduous; in autumn, the golfer would still be able to find his ball. Today, thousands of mature trees stand on a site that began as bare ground.

The clubhouse itself was the work of two Colorado Springs architects, Edward L. Bunts and F. Lamar Kelsey. Bunts was prolific — among his works were First Christian Church, the building now known as Palmer High School, First United Methodist Church, and the 1973 El Paso County Judicial Building. He was also a member of the

Club he was now designing for. Kelsey, born and raised in Colorado Springs, practiced architecture in the state for more than four decades; together the partners designed Slocum Hall at Colorado College and Westfall Hall at Colorado State.

The interiors were given to Harry Francis, who turned to a lavishly Moroccan theme: timber and stone, a dining room and terrace styled as the “nineteenth hole,” and, in the bar, a miniature model of the golf course set under glass — designed to encourage play-by-play storytelling of the day’s exploits. Upstairs sat the glass-enclosed Oasis Bar, “a sort of greenhouse in the sky.” Outside it ran a wraparound widow’s walk, from which “golf widows” could keep watch for their husbands’ return. The pro shop and locker rooms were complete; the pretensions, in their way, were entirely earned.

The Free Press, on opening, called Kissing Camels “a tribute to one man’s vision,” and described Hill himself as “a dedicated man whose dreams and devotion to an idea brought this region a golf course of magnificent beauty — undoubtedly, one of the finest courses in America.” To mark the occasion, two camels were imported from Indio, California; they were meant to caddy, but had other ideas, and ended their day’s work as photo subjects. In the Denver Post, the journalist Henry Farrar pronounced the course beautiful but tricky — “even the rough was beautiful,” he wrote — though putting, he warned, required “a topographical map, an engineer’s transit, and a courageous touch.”

Ken Card, a former Marine and three-year city manager of Colorado Springs, became the first manager of the Kissing Camels Golf Club. Bill Lawe, the first golf pro, was recruited from the Thunderbird Golf Club in Palm Springs; Herb Lockwood was hired as the first course superintendent. Lawe arrived intending, he said, to “try on the job for size.” He stayed thirty-eight years. The job fit.

“GENERAL AND MRS. PARTRIDGE WERE APPROACHING THE GREEN ON #4 OF THE SOUTH COURSE, AND A FOURSOME WAITING TO TEE OFF ON #1 OF THE SAME COURSE, WHEN A PLAYER REMARKED TO HER HUSBAND, “THERE GO THE PARTRIDGES.” A THIRD PERSON IN THE FOURSOME ASKED, “HOW DO YOU TELL THE PARTRIDGES FROM THE QUAIL?” ANSWER: “THEY’RE THE ONES DRIVING THE CART!””

— ANONYMOUS

Among the early hazards of play was the occasional cow — cattle grazed close to the fairways in those years — but a call to Lockwood usually settled the matter. Herb was a problem-solver of the rare, durable kind. When he retired in 1977, the Club mounted a plaque honoring his service on the one boulder he had never managed to move, at the South 5th tee. “I could never move that rock,” he said, “and now I’m glad of it.”

The name Kissing Camels invited a long and cheerful run of Arabian nonsense — in tournament names, in winners’ camel pins, in the last-place “camel’s tail” award, in the coveted Best Dressed prize, and in the figure of Bill Lawe presiding over the prize ceremony in a sheikh’s robe.

While the course took shape, Hill turned to the longer plan. In 1959 he hired the Welton-Becket Company of Los Angeles to design a comprehensive vision for the hundreds of Mesa acres east of the Club. The southwestern corner was leased for the Villa Sierra condominiums, the proceeds flowing through the Hill Foundation to charities of various kinds. A small parcel at the northeast and a strip across Fillmore were sold; a one-hundred-fifty-acre industrial belt along the south side of Garden of the Gods Road went the same way. What remained was developed under the banner of “the smartest vacation or year-round address in Colorado,” with Mesa life described not as residence but as a “Way of Life.” The first phase produced one hundred seventeen half-acre lots priced from seven to sixteen thousand dollars. Buyers became Club members; members earned golfing privileges. The Kissing Camels Estates were laced together by private roads leading from a private entrance off Mesa Road.

In July 1966, the Colorado Springs Gazette announced a family-friendly addition to the Estates — a recreation center for what it called “young people,” designed by Walter White and scheduled to open August 10. White had come to Colorado Springs in 1948 as a designer and contractor; he earned his architecture license in 1967 and made his reputation, in the manner of Frank Lloyd Wright, with steel-and-glass methods that maximized light and space. White would go on to design eighteen guest cottages for Kissing Camels and many private residences in the Estates.

The new youth center was to offer dancing, fashion shows, movies, and special events — a complete program. Around it the demographics of the Estates were shifting: a new junior high school had been proposed at Mesa Road and Fillmore. When westside residents complained that their children carried “the undue burden” of inferior school facilities, land on the Mesa offered a solution. The Hills sold large parcels to School District 11 at well below market price. Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior High School — now Holmes Middle School — opened in 1968, Coronado High School in 1970.

Through all of it, what the Hills built they built toward a single end: a sanctuary of elegance, of service, of cuisine and amenity, framed by the most extraordinary scenery within reach. Members did not merely visit; they kept time at the Club, marking decades by the engagements and weddings and graduations and anniversaries gathered there. To say that family histories grew up entwined with the Club is to understate what actually happened.

“ONE DAY SHORTLY AFTER WE MOVED INTO THE HOUSE IN 1962, DANNY, OUR HUNGARIAN POINTER, WALKED ACROSS THE STREET TO THE FRONT DOOR OF THE CLUB. AL WAS THERE AND SAID TO HIM (AL WAS CONCERNED THAT HE WOULD BE RUN OVER ON MESA ROAD), “DANNY REYNOLDS, YOU ARE NOT A MEMBER AND MAY NOT COME INTO THE CLUB.” DANNY CAME HOME AND NEVER CROSSED THE STREET AGAIN!”

— WILEY R. REYNOLDS

“FOR A LUAU AT THE CLUB, GUESTS WERE TOLD THAT THEY WOULD RECEIVE A LEI FLOWN IN FROM HAWAII. THE STAFF WAS ALERTED — PUT THE LEIS IN THE REFRIGERATOR AS SOON AS THEY ARRIVED. UNFORTUNATELY, THE LAYS POTATO CHIPS ARRIVED FIRST, AND WERE IMMEDIATELY REFRIGERATED, WHILE THE HAWAIIAN LEIS WERE LEFT OUT TO WILT.”

— DONNA CURRY

“WHILE MY WIFE JUDY AND I HAVE SPENT MANY FUN TIMES AT THE CLUB OVER THE YEARS, PERHAPS THE MOST MEMORABLE WAS ON JULY 21, 1969. WE WENT THERE FOR DINNER, I’M NOT SURE WHICH NIGHT OF THE WEEK IT WAS, PROBABLY A SATURDAY, BUT I DO KNOW IT WAS THE NIGHT THE FIRST MAN LANDED ON THE MOON. MR. HILL HAD ARRANGED TO HAVE TELEVISION SETS ALL AROUND THE CLUB AND WE WERE HAVING DINNER IN ONE OF THE SMALL ROOMS OFF THE END OF THE MAIN DINING ROOM AS WE WATCHED THE EAGLE LAND AND NEIL ARMSTRONG STEP ONTO THE SURFACE OF THE MOON. I WILL NEVER FORGET THE EXCITEMENT OF THE MOMENT AND THAT WE WERE FORTUNATELY HAVING A WONDERFUL DINNER AT THE GARDEN OF THE GODS CLUB AS WE WATCHED THE EVENT.”

— GEORGE A. DISHMAN, JR.

THE SEVENTIES: CELEBRATING 25 YEARS

Al Hill loved tennis; he loved sharing it more. He had played for Colorado College as captain of the team in his sophomore year, and tennis was, in the Hill household, a family affair.

His daughters Lyda and Alinda were accomplished players. His son, Al Jr., was recruited to play at Trinity College in San Antonio, where he served as captain in his final year and was later elected to the Hall of Fame. His teammate Butch Newman remembered him as “one of the most distinguished alumni we have ever had.” After graduating with a business degree, Al Jr. cofounded World Championship Tennis with his uncle Lamar Hunt — then owner of the Kansas City Chiefs — and grew into the entrepreneur and philanthropist who, in 2011, helped restore Trinity’s Tennis Center and Varsity Courts.

“BACK WHEN I WAS LINDA PRICE, AL JUNIOR AND I WERE DOUBLES PARTNERS AT A POW WOW TOURNEY. ON THE COURT NEXT TO US WAS LAMAR’S (HUNT’S) WIFE, WHO HAD REALLY BIG TEXAS HAIR AT THE TIME. ANYWAY, HAIRPINS WERE FALLING EVERYWHERE AND ALL OF A SUDDEN, HER HAIRPIECE FALLS OFF. SHE NEVER BLINKED AN EYE BUT ESCAPED THROUGH A SMALL WOODEN “BALL BOY DOOR” … HALF THE ONLOOKERS NEVER NOTICED, AND SHE CAME BACK AND RESUMED PLAY.”

— MRS. CARL

D. HARE

Tennis had long been the city’s sport. The first official club had been organized in 1888, when women still played in floor-length dresses; in the seven decades since,

the game and its costumes had changed almost beyond recognition. By the seventies, tennis was central to the Garden of the Gods Club. Two outdoor courts had opened in 1951; the rising membership and the surging national interest demanded more. In 1974, an indoor facility was built and sunk half a story into the ground, so that the courts would not interrupt the view.

“YOU COULD SET YOUR CLOCK BY THE GAMBLES, A TRUE SOUTHERN COUPLE FROM MOBILE, ALABAMA. THEY ARRIVED LIKE CLOCKWORK EVERY SUMMER FOR MANY YEARS. MR. GAMBLE, AN AVID TENNIS FAN, COULD BE FOUND ALMOST DAILY AT THE COURTS, CHEERING ON THE PLAYERS IN THAT WIDE-BRIMMED STRAW HAT OF HIS. EACH EVENING, HE AND MRS. GAMBLE DINED AT THE SAME TABLE, DANCING IN A SUBDUED AND STATELY MANNER.”

— LYDA HILL

Club records of the period describe the changes of the decade as “deliberate acts of improvement” — a phrase worth remembering, because it captures something essential about how the Hills ran their Club. The pool and tennis and golf went on. Themed opening nights came and went. Card games, social clubs, dance and etiquette classes filled the calendar. The Hills set a standard of service their staff inherited; the standard, in turn, set the tone.

Beyond the Mesa, the Estates filled in. Lawns thickened, hedges matured, families and retirees built homes amid the new landscape. The constants — golf and tennis, swimming and dining, old friends from near and far — held.

“IN THE EARLY YEARS OF THE TENNIS TOURNAMENTS, THERE WOULD ALWAYS BE A DOZEN PRIVATE JETS THAT FLEW IN HERE FOR THE COMPETITIONS.”

— ALINDA WIKERT

The seventies, however, were a decade of significant change in the country itself, and the country did not always leave the Mesa untouched. In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed a law admitting women to the military service academies. The Air Force Academy enrolled its first female cadets in 1976; four years later, one hundred fifty-seven women graduated in the class of 1980.

And 1976 was the Bicentennial. It was also the Centennial of Colorado’s statehood, and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Garden of the Gods Club. The city, the region, and the state spent that year in parades and rodeos, in fireworks and concerts and museum exhibits that honored both the long American past and whatever future the country could be persuaded to imagine.

From the eastern edge of the Mesa, that future appeared chiefly in the form of new suburbs creeping toward the horizon. Colorado Springs was growing. And the boosters who had pursued the Air Force Academy in the fifties were, in the seventies, hunting a different prize: the United States Olympic Committee, whose New York lease was up. The Committee was being courted by other cities, but the Springs had its formula — climate, recreation, land, and a community eager to welcome it. The city won again. What is now the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, with its Training Center and museum, found its home in a place founded on the values of health and wellness, which proved, at last, to be the right values for the times.

“MY WIFE AND I FIRST VISITED THE CLUB IN THE LATE SEVENTIES. ONE OF THE WARMEST MEMORIES I HAVE IS WALKING WITH HER FROM THE SOUTH PATIO TO DINNER AT SUNSET UNDER THE COVERED WALKWAY. THE VIEW AND THE AMBIENCE WERE MAGICAL. AFTER A SUMPTUOUS DINNER AND DRINKS, I ALSO APPRECIATED THAT THE WALK BACK WAS… DOWNHILL.”

— KENY (KENYON) WHITRIGHT

“JUNE 10, 1978 WAS MY SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY, AND WE HAD PLANNED A POOL PARTY, NOT THAT WE WERE OLD ENOUGH TO USE THE POOL. IMAGINE MY CHAGRIN TO FIND FOUR INCHES OF SNOW ON THE GROUND WHEN I WOKE UP THAT MORNING! THE NEXT EVENT, I SCHEDULED INDOORS, JUST TO BE SAFE, GETTING MARRIED DECEMBER 31, 1992 AT THE CLUB.”

— KELLY CHAPMAN MEYER

MOVING FROM ONE CENTURY TO THE NEXT

In the 1980s, the northern reaches of the Mesa joined a new economy. Colorado Springs was working to diversify its base, courting aerospace, defense, and semiconductor firms; the courtship paid, and within a few years NCR, Ford Aerospace, TRW, Rockwell, Texas Instruments, Honeywell, and Simtek had each set up shop, many of them along Garden of the Gods Boulevard. The city briefly nicknamed itself Silicon Mountain — a name less enduring than the Silicon Valley it imitated, but no less ambitious for that.

The University of Colorado, Colorado Springs was very much a product of this moment. David Packard, the Hewlett Packard cofounder, had grown up in Pueblo, and he worked with Governor John Love to transfer the former Cragmor Sanatorium property to the University of Colorado, expanding public higher education in the Springs to serve the workforce that HP and its peers needed. Love, the state’s thirty-sixth governor and a Colorado Springs native, was a frequent presence at the Garden of the Gods Club.

“ON AUGUST 7, 1989, WE HAD A SEVERE HAILSTORM WHICH COMPLETELY COVERED THE TEES AND GREENS WITH HAIL. THAT WAS SOMETHING TO SEE. ELEVEN DAYS LATER, MY SON, ROSS EASTMAN, MADE A HOLE-IN-ONE ON NUMBER SEVEN. I HAD GONE DOWN TO WATCH THE GROUP TEE OFF, THUS I WAS ABLE TO GET A PICTURE OF ROSS AS HE REMOVED HIS BALL FROM THE CUP.”

— FRANK A. EASTMAN

From September 29 through October 1, 1982, Kissing Camels hosted the United States Golf Association’s Senior Women’s Amateur Championship — a public relations coup that Lyda Hill had been instrumental in securing. Wanda “Virginia” Polumbus, a member of the U.S. Senior Women’s Golf Association Committee, served as local chairman. One hundred seven competitors entered, several of them past champions; the field carried handicaps of eleven and under. The weather did not cooperate.

“It was so cold that the residents from Kissing Camels Estates came to the course with heavy coats and jackets for the contestants who had not come prepared for the unexpected cold of Colorado in the fall.”

Both locker rooms were pressed into service; Donna Curry, the locker-room chairman, brought a sense of humor to the conversion and filled the men’s urinals with pinecones, for the comfort of the ladies. Mrs. Robert (Adena) Ihlanfeldt of Seattle won with rounds of 77, 80, and 75.

“DESPITE THE INCLEMENT WEATHER, EVERYONE HAD A WONDERFUL TIME JUST BEING AT KISSING CAMELS AND RECEIVING THE WARM WELCOME AND HOSPITALITY THAT WAS EXTENDED THEM BY MEMBERS OF THE CLUB.”

— VIRGINIA POLUMBUS

As the Club matured, so did its members; the Golden Camels Tournament was added for couples “at least fifty years young.” In 1987, the beloved Smoochers and Camel Drivers tournaments marked their twenty-fifth anniversaries. The children who had grown up at the Club — celebrating birthdays and graduations in its rooms — were by then marrying in its gardens, and were becoming members in their own right. The histories of many families had grown inseparable from the history of the place, and remain so today.

In 1988, Al Hill died following a hip replacement that he had hoped would return him to the tennis court. Family, friends, business associates, employees, and members were stunned and grieved; the Club’s flags flew at halfmast through that summer day. The dream for the Mesa passed to the next generation. While Al Jr. and Alinda remained active in Club affairs and offered counsel, the eldest daughter, Lyda Hill, assumed leadership and carried the institution from one century into the next.

“THE YEAR WE WERE CHAIRMEN OF GOLDEN CAMELS — IN THE LATE EIGHTIES, I THINK — WE HAD THE WORST SEPTEMBER WEATHER EVER! THE DAY OF THE PRACTICE ROUND WAS RAINY, COLD AND WINDY. NOT MANY VENTURED ONTO THE GOLF COURSE. WE QUICKLY ORGANIZED BRIDGE AND OTHER INDOOR ACTIVITIES. THAT EVENING, AS WE ARRIVED AT MARGARET’S (HILL’S) HOME, THERE WERE SNOWFLAKES IN THE AIR! SLADE KEPT CALLING PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE FOR THE WEATHER FORECAST. THE WEATHER CLEARED SLIGHTLY. WE MET WITH BILL LAWE AND ANDY POLLOCK AND DECIDED WE COULD EXTEND PLAY AN EXTRA DAY, KEEP THE PARTY SCHEDULE, AND STILL AWARD THE PRIZES AT LUNCHEON IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LAST DAY’S PLAY. WE CAN’T REMEMBER WINNERS OR LOSERS, BUT WE WON’T FORGET THE WEATHER!”

— MIKE AND SLADE NASH

“JEANNE AND I HAVE BEEN MEMBERS FOR SEVERAL YEARS, AND MY IN-LAWS, MR. AND MRS. W.C. TYRELL, JR. (ALSO OF BEAUMONT) HAVE BEEN MEMBERS FOR PERHAPS FORTY YEARS. STARTING IN 1988, WE HAVE CONDUCTED AN ANNUAL GATHERING FOR MRS. AND MRS. TYRELL’S CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN AT THE CLUB. THIS GROUP HAS A FARM OPERATION IN IOWA AND ILLINOIS UNDER THE NAME “BELTEX FARMS.” SO, AS PART OF OUR ANNUAL GATHERING, WE PLAY “THE BELTEX OPEN.” WE USUALLY HAVE EIGHT PLAYERS, AND OUR SPOUSES INDULGE IN TENNIS, BRIDGE, SWIMMING, AND CONVERSATION. IT’S AN EVENT OF THE GREATEST IMPORTANCE TO ALL CONCERNED, AND YOUR GOLF STAFF HAVE BEEN VERY HELPFUL TO US. OF COURSE, THEY ARE UNABLE TO CURTAIL THE INEVITABLE EXAGGERATED CONVERSATIONS RELATING TO EACH PLAYER’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS. SUFFICE IT TO SAY THAT EACH OF US HAS SHOT ROUNDS IN THE VERY LOW 60’S… AFTER A FEW COCKTAILS.”

— ANONYMOUS

“LOU AND I SPENT OUR HONEYMOON AT THE GARDEN OF THE GODS CLUB IN SEPTEMBER 1953 AND WE HAVE BEEN MEMBERS EVER SINCE. FOR ALL THESE YEARS, THE GARDEN OF THE GODS CLUB HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE IN THE WORLD. THE ACCOMMODATIONS, THE FOOD AND, OF COURSE, THE AWESOME SETTING. THERE IS NO PLACE WE WOULD RATHER BE! THE SMALL INTIMATE CLUB HAS GROWN, BUT WE THINK THE REBUILDING YOU DID IS MAGNIFICENT. THE LANDSCAPING IS LOVELY, AND THE ROOMS AND CLUB BUILDING ARE OF THE HIGHEST QUALITY. BEAUTIFULLY DONE! WE WANT YOU TO KNOW HOW MUCH WE APPRECIATE THE PLANNING AND TIME IT MUST HAVE TAKEN. WE ARE GRATEFUL THAT WE HAVE BEEN PRIVILEGED TO BELONG TO THE CLUB FOR NEARLY 48 YEARS.”

— CHARLENE CLINTON

The 1990s in Colorado Springs were occupied, perhaps above all, with the question of growth — how to invite it, how to shape it, how to refuse what could not be assimilated. The conversation produced more questions than answers, and continues to do so today. Inside the Mesa’s gates, however, a different kind of change was coming: a thorough modernization of the Club, undertaken in fidelity to a legacy still very much in living memory.

The Al Hill Memorial Tournament was established in 1993 — a fitting tribute to a man whose stroke had carried so much of the Club’s early identity. A short verse was written in his honor: “Once there was a gentle man, patriarch of the Hill Clan; he was strong as an oak, he had a super tennis stroke; in his honor we will compete, at our annual tennis meet…” The Annual Club Tennis Championships were thereafter the Al Hill Memorial Tournament.

After the 1994 season, the original clubhouse closed. Under the direction of the architect David Lake — a partner in the San Antonio firm Lake Flato and a recipient of the American Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal — it was razed and rebuilt: larger, more luxurious, but still answerable to its predecessor. Lake’s national reputation rests on designs that “draw on cultural and architectural traditions that adapt to the effects of climate and fit gently into the landscape.” The new building did exactly that.

A Gazette Telegraph photograph from October 29, 1994, shows a heavy machine working at a pile of rubble where the old facility had stood: “The facility at 3320 Mesa Road, was built in 1950 and has been a secluded hideaway for some of the nation’s wealthiest people. The Hill family will spend the next 1½ years rebuilding and expanding the complex.” The new structure carried modern amenities, but it also paid homage to the old one, weaving Colorado timber and boulders into a setting that earned its place in

At Margaret Hill’s personal request, the original Colorado quarry reopened and supplied the same stone that had been used in 1949. The effect from old to new is seamless. Few members realize that only one boulder from the original building survives within the new — the mantel and hearth of the bar fireplace. The time capsule placed in the first Club was retrieved, its contents now archived in the offices of the Garden of the Gods Resort and Club.

“MANY OF YOU WILL REMEMBER FRANKIE CHAVEZ, THE GOLF CLUB’S THIRD STARTER. ONE TIME, A MEMBER WAS GOLFING IN SCOTLAND, WEARING A SWEATER FROM THE CLUB, WHEN A LOCAL MAN RECOGNIZED THE LOGO AND ASKED IF HE WAS A MEMBER. THE ANSWER WAS YES. THE NEXT QUESTION: “IS THAT RASCAL FRANKIE STILL THERE?””

— BILL LAWE

In 1998, the golf architect Mark Rathert added nine holes to Kissing Camels and reoriented the course, so that all twenty-seven holes — now arranged as three nines — began at the clubhouse and matched one another in length and difficulty. The course remains as beautiful, and as tricky, as it has ever been. The end of the decade

brought losses of a different kind: in 1999, Bill Lawe, the sole golf pro the Club had ever known, retired after nearly four decades; the next year, the superintendent Pete Martinez, who had worked with Herb Lockwood on the original eighteen and grown in the new nine, retired as well.

In 2007, Margaret Hunt Hill died at ninety-one. A local tribute observed simply that “she left big boots to fill.” She had been a businesswoman, a civic leader, a philanthropist, and a gardener whose touch reached well beyond the Mesa: she designed the landscaping at Falcon Stadium at the Air Force Academy and founded the Kissing Camels Garden Club. Asked what Margaret had meant to her city, the former Colorado Springs mayor Mary Lou Makepeace answered, “both she and Al Sr. cared very much for their community; that generosity is continuing through their children.”

“In loving memory of Margaret and Al Hill for their vision and dedication in founding the Garden of the Gods Club.”

A fountain stands today in the north garden overlooking the Mesa, carrying those words to anyone who pauses there. After fifty-five years of Hill family ownership, a joint venture led by the California developer Sunrise Co. purchased the Garden of the Gods Club and Kissing Camels in 2007 from the Dallas-based Hill Development Corp. The plan was to build out the remaining Mesa land and to manage the existing Kissing Camels Homeowners Association of more than five hundred fifty residences. Then the global economy turned sharply downward, and what had been a confident plan became a difficult one.

And so, in 2013, two visionary Colorado Springs businesswomen — Brenda Smith and Judy Mackey — stepped forward to realize a dream of their own: to build upon what the Hills had created, to honor the legacy without freezing it, and to bring new imagination and a serious commitment to health and wellness to the Mesa. Their guiding phrase was “Enriching by Nature.” It was, and remains, a fitting motto for a place whose first virtue has always been its setting.

ENRICHING BY NATURE

2013-2026

“Our standard of excellence is rooted in a servant’s heart; we lead with humility, prioritize the needs and dignity of each person, and measure success by the well-being and growth of those we serve.”

JUDY MACKEY AND BRENDA SMITH

ENRICHING BY NATURE

When the Garden of the Gods Club came onto the market in 2013, Brenda Smith and Judy Mackey were ready for it. They had the vision, the energy, and — what may matter most in a project of this kind — the patience to keep faith with a dream they had not invented but had inherited. Colorado Springs had been a healthcare destination since its founding in 1871; for more than a century and a half, people had come to the Pikes Peak region in search of wellness, drawn by fresh air, mountain sunshine, and the kind of view that quiets a restless mind.

The Hills had given the city, sixty-two years earlier, the Mesa’s most ambitious answer to that draw — a clubhouse, a course, a neighborhood, a culture of hospitality. Yet one part of the founders’ original vision remained unbuilt: a wellness spa. What Smith and Mackey saw in 2013 was the opportunity not only to acquire a beloved institution but to finish what the Hills had begun.

Smith and Mackey were old friends and longtime business associates; the easy trust between them, after years of working alongside each other, was the kind no contract can manufacture. Both women are entrepreneurial, hardworking, and — to use a phrase they both reach for — they lead with a servant’s heart. The newly renamed Garden of the Gods Resort and Club builds on what was cherished into something further: an institution still rooted in legacy, but reaching, now, for a future enriched by nature.

“OUR STANDARD OF EXCELLENCE IS ROOTED IN A SERVANT’S HEART; WE LEAD WITH HUMILITY, PRIORITIZE THE NEEDS AND DIGNITY OF EACH PERSON, AND MEASURE SUCCESS BY THE WELL-BEING AND GROWTH OF THOSE WE SERVE.”

— JUDY AND BRENDA

“WE ALWAYS WANT TO RESPECT THE HISTORY AND ALL THE HILL FAMILY DID TO DEVELOP THE PROPERTY AND CULTURE. IT’S A SPECIAL PLACE. WE LOOK AT IT AS IF WE’RE STEWARDS, AS NO ONE COULD REALLY EVER OWN THE PROPERTY.”

— BRENDA SMITH

That the Club returned, in 2013, to local hands was not incidental. Both women have deep Colorado roots. Brenda Smith was born in Colby, Kansas, and moved with her mother and six older brothers to Colorado Springs when she was two. Her father died suddenly of a heart attack. Her mother went to work cleaning houses, supporting seven children with long hours and an austere set of values. “She was an amazing lady,” Smith remembered, “and had really high standards. We were her world.”

A fiercely independent child, Smith was the only member of her immediate family to attend college. Seeing how hard her mother worked, she wanted something different — she wanted, as she puts it, to be successful. She took her first job at the Social Security Administration while still in high school. Her supervisor, a Mr. Feldhauser, told her plainly that she “couldn’t’t stay there. You’re better than this. You have to go someplace else.”

She did. At UCCS she found her next mentor, an accounting professor named Dr. Wilcox who, in the manner of the best teachers, “believed in her.” She borrowed her tuition from the bank,worked full-time at the CPA firm of Strait, Kushinsky & Company, and graduated with an accounting degree. After graduation she interviewed at a “big eight” firm — and discovered, in the process, that she was already working for the company she wanted to stay at. She rose to managing partner and, after the 1993 merger with BKD, remained in an executive role. She is a proud UCCS graduate and a mentor to many; her service to the campus, on committees, on scholarships, on budget and administration, has been steady for decades.

In 2007, Smith felt called to leave BKD — a firm she loved — to become Chief Operating Officer of the five-

thousand-member First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs. Soon after, seven pastors from the denomination felt led to form a new one, today known as ECO, A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians; since First Presbyterian was among the seven, Smith became, in effect, the new denomination’s administrative spine. She faced the unenviable task of building health and welfare plans for an organization with no precedent for them. For that, she called in an old friend.

“OUR

CORE VALUES INCLUDE CARING, INTEGRITY, LOYALTY, PASSION, RESPECT, TEAMWORK, TRUST, AND ACCOUNTABILITY.”

— BRENDA SMITH AND JUDY MACKEY

Judy Mackey grew up in Pueblo, Colorado, where her father worked for the federal government and her mother stayed home raising six children. “She was very, very kind,” Judy recalled of her mother, “and lovely — the kind of mom you’d always want. She was a beautiful person.” Mackey attended CU Boulder, but came home when her older sister fell seriously ill. Her sister did not recover, and Mackey made the harder choice — staying near her mother, enrolling in school in Pueblo to study radiology. It was not the path she had planned. Looking back, she counts it among the right ones, not least for what it would mean for her future in health and wellness.

“CONTINUOUS LEARNING AND HUMBLE ACCOUNTABILITY ENSURE EVERY DECISION HONORS COMMUNITY, NURTURES TRUST AND CULTIVATES LASTING BENEFIT FOR INDIVIDUALS AND THE BROADER COMMUNITY.”

— JUDY MACKEY

“WE DELIVER HOSPITALITY FROM THE HEART THAT EMBRACES MEANINGFUL DISCOVERY AND AWAKENS A SENSE OF HARMONY TO RESTORE THE ESSENTIAL BALANCE OF MIND, BODY, AND SPIRIT FOR ALL WHO PASS THROUGH OUR DOORS.”

— JUDY MACKEY

Moving into entrepreneurship was a natural next step. With her sister and a physician partner, Mackey founded a third-party administrative company that was eventually sold to Blue Cross Blue Shield. She remained with the larger organization for two years before growing restless inside an institution slow to change. A self-described “dreamer and a doer,” she started a technology company next, and then a consulting firm; her entrepreneurial résumé has continued to lengthen ever since. She was founder, President, and CEO of Benefit ServicesGroup Inc., a Colorado Springs–based employee benefits consultancy, and of HealthYou, its wellness-program division. Throughout that work, a single conviction held: that holistic healthcare, and the sustained personal and professional growth that real wellness requires, ought to be the heart of any enterprise worth building.

“MY LEGACY IS BUILT ON LOVE, COMPASSION, AND AN UNWAVERING COMMITMENT TO WELLBEING — GUIDED BY A DEEP REVERENCE FOR THE NATURAL BEAUTY OF GARDEN OF THE GODS RESORT AND CLUB. TO STEWARD THIS PLACE WITH CARE, PROTECTING ITS LANDSCAPES, WILDLIFE, AND SCENIC VIEWS WHILE NURTURING A CULTURE OF KINDNESS AND INCLUSION FOR MEMBERS, GUESTS, AND STAFF.”

— JUDY MACKEY

Mackey’s own health is part of the story. As a young adult she was diagnosed with a chronic illness; a physician recommended medication that would have remained part of her life indefinitely. A friend introduced her, instead, to Eastern medicine and a different vocabulary of healing. Trained in radiology, comfortable in conventional hospitals, Mackey was at first skeptical. She chose, in the end, to explore.

She consulted chiropractors who practiced applied kinesiology, followed their protocols, and within two weeks was symptom-free. The experience, she has said, “was like someone turning the light on; everything seemed brighter.” More important was the obligation she felt afterward: “After having been given the blessing of a holistic healthcare approach, I was determined to take it forward.” If she had been spared by the existence of an alternative few patients ever hear about, how many others were waiting, undiagnosed and underinformed, for someone to tell them there was another option? She felt called, she said, to build a holistic wellness center, and her dream location for it was the Garden of the Gods Club.

When Mackey solved the daunting puzzle of the ECO benefits plan through her own business, Smith felt she owed her friend a debt. Judy confided her wellness-center dream — not yet specified, “in my heart, but I just don’t know what it’s going to look like yet.” She had been talking with Dr. Mike Barber, whom she’d met through community philanthropy; though he practiced traditional medicine, the two were perfectly aligned on the question of how to reimagine “overall employee protocols, wellbeing, treatment plans, and how we deliver healthcare.” Smith did more than encourage her; she helped write the business plan. “Judy and I are both entrepreneurial,” Smith would say later. “Judy’s always wanted an integrated wellness center to help improve the quality of life, and I’ve helped her with that along with Dr. Mike Barber.”

She asked Mackey where the dream spa belonged. Mackey said: the Garden of the Gods Club. Soon afterward, they learned the Club was about to go on the market.

After consulting their husbands, the partners submitted their bid. They were not alone; multiple parties were in the running for the property. In the end, Smith and Mackey were chosen to guide the institution into a new era. Their vision was clear, their local connections were robust, their plan was bold, and the result, in time, has been the realization of the Club’s ultimate potential — a place of health and wellness where, as the new tagline insists, anyone can be enriched by nature.

Their partnership is built on the kind of complementarity that experience teaches and only trust permits. “Judy has many gifts that I do not have,” Smith observed, “such as interior design and the ability to oversee construction projects. And then her passion for wellness expands into the spa, membership, food and beverage. I focus more on numbers and contracts — behind the scenes.” Thirty-six years in a CPA firm had given her, she added, the rare advantage of having watched dozens of businesses across the seasons of their growth. Between them, the two leaders had developed deep ties across the city’s financial, technical, hospitality, educational, philanthropic, and faith communities — the kinds of friendships and partnerships that both steady the work and reward it.

The renovations began at once, thoughtfully and to a high standard: guest rooms, dining areas, lounges, the lobby, meeting rooms, recreation spaces — all upgraded for luxury, comfort, aesthetics, and function. With that work complete, the larger ambition came into view: a 31,000-square-foot health and wellness center to make the holistic vision real.

“GARDEN OF THE GODS RESORT AND CLUB IS A TIMELESS MID-20TH CENTURY LEGACY WITH MID-MOD (MID-CENTURYMODERN) BONES, BLENDING GENERATIONAL TRADITIONS WITH BESPOKE CULTURE THAT CELEBRATES LIFE WELL-LIVED…”

—LINDSEY B. KING AND SPENCER CAMPBELL, 5280 MAGAZINE

“I CAN TELL YOU FROM A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, AND THAT OF MY FAMILY, INTEGRATED MEDICINE HAS MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD. TO FEEL GREAT AND HAVE THE ENERGY TO DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO IS A GIFT.”

— BRENDA SMITH

“We bridge ancient wisdom and modern science to make wellbeing practical, sustainable, and meaningful for individuals and communities.”

-JUDY MACKEY

Designed by the local firm CSNA Architects and built by G.E. Johnson Construction, the new center spans three floors and a balanced program: a 10,000-square-foot medical center, a 10,000-square-foot spa, and an 11,000-square-foot event center for fitness, cooking demonstrations, lectures, and gatherings. Under its roof, the Strata Integrated Wellness Center and Spa pursues a single aim — to transform lives and to build community — through three integrated disciplines: Strata Med, for health and wellness; Strata Spa, for spa and salon; and Strata Fit, for fitness and performance.

The name STRATA was drawn from the iron-rich layers of red rock that give the Garden of the Gods its character. Those formations are hundreds of millions of years old and tell, in stripe after stripe, the story of how this land — this region, and the cultural landscape grown atop it — came to be. The metaphor was deliberate. To practice holistic healthcare is to read the body in the same way, attending to its many layers and to the interdependence of its systems.

Strata’s clinical philosophy combines Eastern and Western approaches, traditional practice and complementary methods, in service of individualized plans, employer-based programs, and population-level initiatives that produce measurable improvements in health and wellness. “Wellness needs to change,” Mackey says. “The system is broken. We believe that we all need to take responsibility for our health and be proactive to avoid major problems with a renewed focus on diet, exercise, and integrated health.”

In the twenty-first century, holistic wellness matters precisely because modern life makes simultaneous demands on body, mind, and spirit. The integration of Eastern philosophies — mindfulness, breathwork, naturopathic medicine, the balance principles of traditional Chinese medicine — with evidencebased Western medicine and behavioral science creates a more complete model of health: one that addresses symptoms, restores underlying balance, and builds the resilience that prevents the next crisis. It emphasizes personalized prevention through sleep, movement, nutrition, and stress regulation; it depends on coordinated care teams and community-centered programs; it reduces chronic disease, improves mental health, and produces the sustained wellbeing that ordinary medicine, fragmented as it has become, too rarely achieves.

The Resort and Club around the Strata building applies the same philosophy to hospitality. The luxury boutique accommodations and unrivaled amenities were developed not as ornaments to status but as instruments of restoration — a retreat from the pace of modern life. By offering world-class amenities in a healthy natural environment, the Resort has cultivated a culture of wellness and an active lifestyle for decades — long before such ideals became the broader American aspiration they are today.

Under Smith and Mackey’s leadership, more than sixty million dollars have been invested in bringing the property to its highest standard, and in finding new uses for its historic spaces — the Strata building above all, with its wellness, spa, event, and pool functions. The new Vermillion residential development — villas, casitas, and

cottages — adds sixty guest rooms and suites, opening the Mesa’s amenities to still more members and guests. As the Colorado Springs Gazette reported, the twenty new cottages and casitas offer “a residential style of living people are craving with gas fireplaces, outdoor seating, and many other amenities. They are perfect for corporate meetings, family reunions… and many other groups.”

“THROUGH THOUGHTFUL CONSERVATION OF THE LANDSCAPE AND VISTAS, HOLISTIC WELLNESS PROGRAMMING, AND SERVICE ROOTED IN EMPATHY, THE GARDEN OF THE GODS RESORT AND CLUB HONORS THE LAND AND THE COMMUNITY THAT SUSTAINS IT.”

— BRENDA AND

JUDY

“JUST AS WE OFFER AN INTEGRATED MEDICINE APPROACH TO OUR MEMBERS, GUESTS, AND STAFF, WE SEEK TO BE A HOLISTIC ORGANIZATION, WHERE EACH ASPECT COMPLEMENTS THE OTHERS.”

— BRENDA SMITH

“WE WANT THE GARDEN OF THE GODS RESORT AND CLUB TO BE A THIRD PLACE, WHERE YOU WANT TO BE AND ARE KNOWN. WE WANT TO BUILD A REAL SENSE OF COMMUNITY, WHERE PEOPLE BELONG AND MAKE MEANINGFUL AND LASTING CONNECTIONS.”

— BRENDA SMITH

The food and service have grown with everything else. The culinary team sources farm-to-table ingredients from local growers and works closely with the Strata dietitians and nutritionists; the menu is healthful by design, and the Lunch and Learn series carries the wellness philosophy into the dining room itself. During the renovations, the Grand View dining room was completely reimagined as a contemporary, eclectic neighborhood restaurant — globally inspired in menu, alluring in atmosphere, and bordered floor-to-ceiling by windows that admit the same view the founders had first seen seventy-five years before. Members and guests dine there; so does the public. The team takes evident pleasure in sharing inspired food with a broader community, against what is by common assent the most extraordinary view in the city.

Everyone who passes through the Mesa understands they are somewhere unusual. Members, guests, and employees alike are touched by the spirit of awe and gratitude the place engenders. Authenticity, kindness, and warmth are values Smith and Mackey hire for. Some of their employees have been with the Club for decades and feel a deep ownership of its character; newer staff are coached, instead, into a culture defined by eight core values — caring, integrity, loyalty, passion, respect, teamwork, trust, and accountability. Both founders embody those values. “I have a deep sense of connecting and truly care about others,” Mackey said. “I’ve been successful in many businesses and helped develop many others to carry on. It’s our responsibility to build succession to ensure the legacy continues.”

“MY PHILOSOPHY OF LEADERSHIP IS TO SET THE VISION, HIRE THE BEST, AND GIVE THEM THE SUPPORT THEY NEEDED ALONG WITH THE AUTHORITY AND RESPONSIBILITY TO MOVE THE PROPERTY FORWARD.”

— JUDY MACKEY

For members, the sense of belonging is the heart of the affiliation. Memberships at the Garden of the Gods Resort and Club are often intergenerational, running through several decades from grandparents to grandchildren. The Club’s offerings — pools and golf and tennis and lessons of every kind — are organized so that families can move through them together; children are welcomed at every age, and the professionals on staff are practiced at meeting them where they are.

“SOME OF MY EARLIEST AND HAPPIEST MEMORIES WERE MADE AT GARDEN OF THE GODS CLUB. MY FATHER, DR. HAMILTON — THE FOUNDER OF EMERGICARE URGENT CARE CLINICS IN 1980 — WAS A PROUD MEMBER, AND SUNDAY BRUNCH AT THE CLUB WAS OUR FAMILY’S FAVORITE TRADITION. IT WASN’T JUST A MEAL; IT WAS OUR TIME TOGETHER.”

— LIZ KNIES, M.D.

The grounds and facilities are a stage for the rituals of personal and professional life — engagements, weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, promotions, and the larger family celebrations that punctuate any long affiliation with a place. The Resort has also become a sought-after destination for high-level business meetings, executive retreats, and top-producer incentive trips; the spectacular setting, with the red rock of the park below and Pikes Peak beyond, is one reason. The way it makes people feel — connected to one another, anchored in memory — is the other.

Smith and Mackey speak of the renewed energy now palpable across the Club. “People enjoy being here and want to bring their friends to a place they are proud of,” they say. “It is a special place, and we want to see it thrive. We’ve been able to build many new friends and impact lives.” The Garden of the Gods Resort and Club is, by any honest accounting, much more than a country club or a resort. It is an exceptional destination that has, over seventy-five years, grown into a welcoming community of members and guests in search of shared social experience, recreation, and wellness in equal parts. The 31,000-square-foot Strata Spa and Wellness Center is already among its principal achievements — a destination for personalized, holistic wellbeing tailored by physicians and therapists to produce optimal physical, spiritual, and mental health. The aim is to provide holistic hospitality for the next seventy-five years and beyond.

“BRENDA SMITH AND JUDY MACKEY HAVE ELEVATED THE GLORIOUS GARDEN OF THE GODS CLUB BY FOCUSING ON THE WELL-BEING OF THE CLUB MEMBERS, RESORT GUESTS, EMPLOYEES, AND THOSE LOOKING TO OPTIMIZE THEIR HEALTH.”

— AVID GOLFER

Asked what has been the most rewarding part of leading the Resort and Club into its next chapter, both Smith and Mackey gave the same answer: the people. “We’ve been blessed to take this property to another level,” Mackey reflected, “but the gratification is really all about the people. With Strata, our benefits are a self-funded plan. Our employees all use the wellness center, and we’ve set it up where the treatment is very affordable. We’ve changed so many lives. Our housekeepers — we make them feel as though they’re loved, and they’re welcomed here. I love seeing their health change, and they’re vibrant and energetic again, and they really feel like they’re part of a family. We’re really taking care of them. That to me is why we’re here.” Smith concurred. “It’s the people,” she said. “The employees, the guests, and the members. When you can impact and change people’s lives, it’s amazing.”

“OUR LEGACY WILL BE THAT THE CLUB HAS GENERATION AFTER GENERATION THAT LOOK FORWARD TO BEING PART OF THE CLUB, BUILDING ENERGY AND LIFE IN ALL AREAS. THIS IS THE PLACE THEY WANT TO BE, AND TO BE KNOWN.”

— BRENDA SMITH

“Because that is what I remember most. Not just the place, but the people.”

-LIZ KNIES, M.D.

Reflecting on the seventy-fifth anniversary, Smith and Mackey speak in the voice of stewards rather than owners — a voice the Hills would have recognized. “We respect our environment in all that we do,” they say. “As we write the next chapter in the legacy of this spectacular and singularly special place, we do so in a spirit of stewardship, balancing a vaunted respect for the past with an equally ambitious view of the future. Today, we are no longer an exclusive club but rather an inclusive destination for discovery. And, as we evolve, we remain committed to Hill’s original vision to share and celebrate the Garden of the Gods Resort and Club experience, welcoming all who seek to restore their spirits and satisfy their souls. In 2026, we’re thrilled to celebrate the Resort’s 75th anniversary this June. As proud stewards of the Garden of the Gods Club legacy, we cherish the magic of nature and the vital role of our member community and the broader Colorado Springs community — blessed by their support and excited to create many more special memories together.”

“TODAY, I LIVE RIGHT NEXT TO THE PROPERTY, AND I HAVE MY OWN MEMBERSHIP. WATCHING MY CHILDREN SWIM IN THE POOLS, GRAB SNACKS AFTER A LONG AFTERNOON, AND SPEND SLOW, UNHURRIED TIME WITH FAMILY IS THE SWEETEST KIND OF FULL CIRCLE. BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT I REMEMBER MOST — NOT JUST THE PLACE, BUT THE PEOPLE. THE CLUB HAS ALWAYS BEEN WHERE MY FAMILY COMES TOGETHER, AND NOW IT IS WHERE THE NEXT GENERATION IS MAKING THEIR OWN MEMORIES.”

— LIZ KNIES, M.D.

“As the Club builds on its historic legacy and exciting future to deepen its roots in the community...

There is one more coincidence worth noting. In 2013, the year Smith and Mackey took the reins, the City of Colorado Springs unveiled a new image, logo, and marketing identity of its own. Reaching back to its founding promise of health, recreation, and rejuvenation — and grounded in its standing as home to the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, its Training Center, and the new U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum — the city became, officially, Olympic City U.S.A. The two rebrandings happened simultaneously, and they reinforced

the same long truth: since 1871, Colorado Springs has been a place where people live well, where health and wellness are central, and where the beauty of the Garden of the Gods and the watchful mass of Pikes Peak frame an everyday life that other places work hard to imitate. Health, wellness, and recreation are written into the community’s DNA, and into the Garden of the Gods Resort and Club’s mission as well. From its founding era to the present, the Club has tended the social, physical, and spiritual health of body and mind.

...it also moves forward into becoming a global wellness destination where members, guests, and the community are all enriched by nature.”

The dream is, today, renewed — with new purpose, new passion, and a holistic approach to wellness that the twenty-first century requires. As the nation prepares to mark its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, as Colorado prepares for one hundred and fifty years of statehood, the Garden of the Gods Resort and Club marks seventy-five. It does so by deepening its roots in the community and reaching, beyond them, toward becoming a global wellness destination — a place, at last, where members, guests, and the city itself are all ENRICHED BY NATURE.

WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO

The Hill Family

The Pioneer Museum

Sydney Brewer Photography | pg.58 & 75