Aspen [is] the perfect setting for music, art, education—all the things that make life worth living. —Elizabeth Paepcke
ZEGNA NEGOZIO211
S GALENA ST, ASPEN
Summer in Aspen marks a time for renewal and exploration. This year, The Little Nell celebrates The Summer of Nellness, inspired by the “Aspen Idea,” a holistic lifestyle philosophy that celebrates the lifeaffirming pleasure of active adventures, the feel-good effects of Mother Nature, and the integration of mind, body, and spirit. Here, in our special city, intellectual, physical, and spiritual pursuits are interconnected—and we aim to share these values with all those who visit us, with the hope that they will apply them to their lives long after they have returned home.
Aspen is a year-round outdoor playground offering countless exploits in summer and fall: Discover local gravel- and road-cycling routes through elite athlete Chris Davenport, who calls Old Snowmass home; embark on Off-Road Adventures with knowledgeable guides who transport you high up into the sky along Rocky Mountain ridges; and journey inward with local yogis who guide their students en plein air atop Aspen Mountain, as well as in-studio.
Appreciation for fine food and wine—feeding the soul as well as the body—is another long-held core value here. The Little Nell’s Executive Chef Keith Theodore shows how seasonal sourcing connects diners to the best of Colorado ingredients at Element 47, while Cédric and Ochi Vongerichten take diners on a culinary journey at Wayan, their new French–Indonesian restaurant. Chef Mawa McQueen’s star continues to rise with a stable of dining establishments that come from her heart—and her storied past—and legendary distillery Stranahan’s makes its long-awaited return to the Roaring Fork Valley.
Aspen’s intellectual side is just as vibrant, especially during summertime, as art and music take center stage with Aspen Art Week—punctuated by ArtCrush honoring Glenn Ligon this August—and the Aspen Music Festival, which welcomes soprano and actor Renée Fleming in her debut directorial role.
Finally, as we close out our 35th anniversary, we reflect on the origins of The Little Nell’s Luxury Suites, each of which is named after a famed Aspen family. The story behind their creation is a fascinating walk through time, highlighting the shared values upon which modern-day Aspen was founded, honoring our past, celebrating the present, and looking ahead to the future—especially as Aspen Snowmass embarks on an exciting $80 million on-mountain improvement project, due for completion in time for the 2026-27 winter season.
We look forward to welcoming you to revel in a summer of renewal and life at its best, and we are here to nourish every moment along the way.
Cheers,
Henning Rahm General Manager
The Little Nell
Welcome to Aspen
Mawa’s Kitchen
Photography by Trevor Triano
50
All Hail the Queen
The force behind Mawa’s Kitchen and other beloved Aspen restaurants, chef Mawa McQueen found success by listening to her heart.
62
A Spirited Homecoming
Twenty years after its founding, Stranahan’s returns to the Roaring Fork Valley.
80
Changes in Latitude
There’s a new culinary power couple in town: Cédric and Ochi Vongerichten broaden Aspen’s flavor profile with a dazzling fusion of flavors at Wayan.
106 Bauhaus and Beyond
Aspen’s 20th-century ascent from sleepy mining town to cultural icon was the result of an ambitious—and utopic— vision that lives on today.
116 Aspen’s Zen Masters
Meet the local yogis bringing wellness—of mind, body, and spirit—to every student.
126
Quantum Beauty
ISUN Skincare doesn’t just make people look good. It makes them feel good.
132
28
Easy Rider
Gravel cycling may not be for the faint of heart, but with an athlete like Chris Davenport by your side, the road less taken always leads to a good time.
38
Prodigal Diva
This summer, world-renowned soprano—and Aspen Music Festival and School alumna— Renée Fleming takes on her next big role: director.
44
Get Out of Town
With The Little Nell’s Off-Road Adventures, all it takes is a few hours to be transported into the vast and wild beauty of the legendary Rocky Mountains.
90
A Chef for All Seasons
Executive Chef Keith Theodore of Element 47 constantly updates menu staples with hyper-local seasonal twists.
94
America Abstracted
This year, Glenn Ligon’s poignant works—which speak to America’s past, present, and future—play a starring role at ArtCrush and the Aspen Art Museum.
Luxury Knows Thy Name
The true story of how Aspen’s legendary families inspired The Little Nell’s illustrious Luxury Suites.
142
Concierge’s Corner
Amanda Taylor, a Les Clefs d’Or-certified concierge and 16-year veteran of The Little Nell, has mastered the art of tailoring dream itineraries for guests of all ages. Here, she shares the perfect way to spend a family-friendly summer or fall day in Aspen.
144
The Last Word
Get to know Jeff Toscano, CEO of Aspen Hospitality.
About The Cover: Sunset seen from Richmond Ridge, on a tour with The Little Nell’s Off-Road Adventures. Photography by Steven Goff
A Sprited Homecoming
Go behind the scenes and learn more about the stories in this issue, including the making of Stranahan’s cult whiskies.
For more from Volume 7 of Après, tune in to Channel 1 in-room at The Little Nell, and be on the lookout for stories brought to life in video format on Après TV.
Claudia Silver VP Global Partnerships claudia@nmgnetwork.com
Marly Graubard Global Brand Partnerships marly@nmgnetwork.com
PUBLISHED BY:
Masthead
NMG Network 2025 by NMG Network, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted without the written consent of the publisher. Opinions are solely those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by NMG Network.
Volume 7 May 2025
Chris Davenport hits the gravel on a two-wheel adventure.
Photography by Scott Markewitz
Gravel cycling may not be for the faint of heart, but with an athlete like Chris Davenport by your side, the road less taken always leads to a good time.
Jen Murphy
A canopy of emerald aspen leaves shimmers in the sun like sequins above our peloton of cyclists. It’s a warm summer day in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley and our Lycra-clad group of riders has left the buzz of downtown Aspen behind, furiously pedaling along a dusty country road hugging bucolic ranchlands.
We’re part of Clip-In, The Little Nell’s signature cycling trip hosted by Christian Vande Velde. The retired pro is at the head of the pack and unbeknownst to me, he isn’t the only rider with an award-winning athletic résumé.
An Aspen local, clearly acclimated to the high altitude, has been effortlessly chatting with me during the last few miles, as we snake through a tight canyon. At nearly 8,000 feet above sea level, I struggle to politely choke out one-word answers to his queries as our route climbs upward. When we reach the historic mining community of Lenado—today, just a handful of dilapidated log cabins—we break for water and snacks. My new friend takes off his oversized shades, high-fives me, and introduces himself as Dav. 28
Chris Davenport has cycled around the world—including in the Italian Alps—but nothing compares to the gravel riding at home in Aspen.
Two-time extreme skiing world champion
Easy Rider By
Photography by Scott Markewitz
Davenport (shown leading the pack above and opposite) may be one of the world’s most accomplished big-mountain skiers, but gravel riding is his off-season passion.
“Like the skier?” I blurt out. He nods with a boyish grin. Not like the skier, I realize, but the Chris Davenport, one of the greatest freeskiers ever. A two-time world champion, he was the first person to ski all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks in less than one year. “You’re a really good cyclist,” I tell him. He lets out a laugh, and we get back in the saddle.
As we ascend Larkspur Mountain Road, the views distract me from my aching legs. Dav points out the red-hued Maroon Bells and 14ers like Capitol and Pyramid Peak in the distance. My tennis shoes are a dead giveaway that I’m a novice cyclist, and he kindly gives me pointers. “Try to relax your shoulders and elbows and keep a light grip on the handlebars,” he advises, noticing my white-knuckle clutch. On our return to Aspen, we detour off the paved Rio Grande Trail to Woody Creek Tavern, writer Hunter S. Thompson’s storied watering hole, for beers and nachos. Dav and I clink glasses, then he confides, “I could have gone pro.”
That evening, I do some Googling from the much-needed comfort of my bed at The Little Nell and discover that Dav grew up skiing and mountain biking in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. He was on the national junior cycling team with Olympian Tyler Hamilton. Over coffee with him the next day, I learn that part of the reason he decided to attend college at the University of
Colorado Boulder was the access to awesome mountain and road biking. “I ultimately pursued skiing, but I’ve always been a cycling nut,” he says. “When I’m skiing deep powder in Japan in the heart of winter, I’m going to be dreaming of spring bike trips.”
His latest obsession, gravel cycling, which blends elements of road and mountain biking, is quickly gaining popularity in the U.S. Gravel bikes have drop bars, like road bikes, but thicker tires that can handle a variety of terrain, from dirt roads to root-webbed single track. The appeal, he says, is being able to get away from vehicle traffic without having to hone the technical skills needed for mountain biking. “Road cycling is like skiing the groomers at a resort, and mountain biking is like going off-piste,” he explains. “Gravel combines elements of both: You get the adventure of mountain biking with the fitness aspects of road cycling.”
After the Clip-In event, I remain in Aspen for three more days, and Dav kindly offers to show me more of his favorite gravel rides, including several in the Roaring Fork Valley—itself a gravel-riding mecca. (He loves sharing his outdoor passions and offers cycling and skiing guiding services through his website, chrisdavenport.com.)
“We are surrounded by national forest with beautifully maintained forest service roads and trails,” he says. “It provides an incredible opportunity to
LET’S RIDE Saddle up for a summer adventure with The Little Nell. This year’s Clip-In Cycling Camp promises an epic road-riding experience, taking place from August 17 to 21. Or join one of three Ride + Dine events (July 16, July 29, and August 12) on a two-wheel journey to the ghost town of Ashcroft. For more information and to reserve your spot, contact The Little Nell’s concierge desk.
avoid cars and go deep into nature. It’s truly a gravel-cyclist playground.”
On my final day, we tackle what he describes as an “epic.” From Aspen, we hop on the Rio Grande bike path and pedal northwest at a mellow pace for around 20 miles to the town of Basalt. From there, we leave civilization behind as we connect onto Frying Pan Road—named for the gold-medal fishing waters it parallels—and begin our 14-mile ride past crimson rock outcrops, vast meadows, and aspen forests toward Ruedi Reservoir. By now, I’ve finally acclimated enough that I can hear the babble of the river above my breathing and hold a conversation with Dav. His pointers, like shifting my weight forward on the ascents and pumping my brakes on the descents so I don’t skid out, are invaluable.
Finally, the reservoir appears like a sparkling turquoise mirage, surrounded by dense pines. I’m so sweaty I’m tempted to hop off my bike and dive in. Instead, Dav navigates me to a small log cabin that houses the Meredith General Store. I guzzle my Gatorade as he rattles off options: We could continue up to Hagerman Pass, a high-mountain pass that connects to Leadville, America’s highest town, or ride Crooked Creek Pass to Sylvan Lake.
Saddle sore, I confide, I’ve had my gravel fix for the day, but I’ll certainly be coming back for more. Maybe by next year I’ll even be clipping in.
A Perfect Ride
Chris Davenport shares his top spots—pre-, post-, and during a ride—for an epic day on gravel.
Gear Check
For top-of-the-line rentals, Dav suggests Basalt Bike and Ski (basaltbikeandski.com), which has locations throughout the Roaring Fork Valley, including Aspen. In-house technicians help with everything from tune-ups to changing a flat.
Nestled right below the gondola, Aspen Collection (aspencollection.com) rents the latest carbon-frame gravel and road bikes, including electric models like the Ventum ES1-G. There’s also an on-site café for pre- and post-ride espresso and pastries.
Favorite Routes
East Sopris Creek Road begins on the outskirts of Basalt and provides a great introduction to gravel riding. “When you’re ready for more, you can connect to Old Snowmass and the town of Emma, known for its old schoolhouse,” Dav says. “The entire loop is around 15 miles, with some rolling terrain that hugs ranchland and provides awesome views of Mount Sopris and Capitol Peak.”
Another top spot, Snowmass Creek Road in Old Snowmass, is practically a secret. “I rarely see more than two cars,” Dav says of the half-pavement, half-dirt route. “You can ride it up to the ski area, which is a pretty big climb, or turn around where the climb starts.”
Mid-ride Boost
“Having spent time riding in Europe, I’m a huge fan of the espresso stop,” Dav says. If he’s riding through Basalt, he pops into family-run CCs Café (@ccscafebasalt). In Aspen, he gets his caffeine fix at Unravel Coffee + Bar (unravel.coffee).
Post-ride Eats
“My wife, Jesse, is also a big cyclist and we often end up at Clark’s [clarksoysterbar.com] for aprèsbiking small bites, or Silverpeak Grill [silverpeakgrillcatering.com], which is known for its burgers and tacos.” The Big Wrap (970.544.1700) is another go-to spot when Dav’s famished and craving something quick and easy.
Intersect Aspen Art + Design Fair returns to the Ice Garden this summer, offering opportunities for dialogue, engagement, and inspiration through its cultural partnerships, programming, and curatorial vision.
This summer, world-renowned soprano—and Aspen Music Festival and School alumna—Renée Fleming takes on her next big role: director.
At home on a private island off the coast of Maine, Alan Fletcher’s phone rang unexpectedly in the fall of 2018. Fletcher, president and chief executive of the renowned Aspen Music Festival and School, answered to the voice of one of the world’s most famous sopranos, Renée Fleming.
Fleming explained that she was pursuing her third act, so to speak, as she expected to wind down performing in her 60s. In addition to her work at the intersections of music, neuroscience, and wellness, she wished to teach. She had been in talks with another summer music festival, but her heart was in Aspen, where she had studied in the 1980s with then-director of opera, the late Edward Berkeley.
“My entire career, my escape fantasy when I was feeling under pressure was to go to Aspen and become a masseuse,” Fleming says.
The Aspen Music Festival is among the world’s most prestigious summer music events—alongside those in Verbier, Switzerland, and Salzburg, Austria. It’s a place where students come to perform and learn from world greats, as well as bike and hike in the mountains, as Fleming once did.
Renée Fleming joined the Aspen Music Festival and School as the co–artistic director in 2019.
Fletcher eagerly arranged a teaching role, which was announced the following August as Fleming began serving as the festival’s co-artistic director. She quickly raised the caliber of students vying to enroll, Fletcher says, and ensured that the 14-or-so Renée Fleming scholars can attend with their costs fully covered. This summer, she will also make her directorial debut at the Aspen Music Festival, when she will helm performances of Mozart’s raucous, sometimes raunchy opera Così fan tutte
Fletcher, it’s worth noting, says he is so perplexed and intrigued by Fleming’s choice for her directorial opera debut that he is planning to attend her rehearsals to get a glimpse of her plan. “Così is one of the most difficult operas to stage,” he says. “It’s full of misogyny. You have to have a gimmick to let the audience off the hook. The music is so beautiful, and the story is so sordid.”
This audience may wish to hold on to their seats. The opera, written in 1789, centers on two engaged couples whose disguises and infidelities lead to a tragic end, with the “fair sex” taking the blame. Così fan tutti translates to “So Do They All” using the feminine plural, indicating that it’s generalizing about women.
Fleming is taking the tale into the 1980s and the advent of World Wrestling Entertainment. “I’m thinking of it as a coming-of-age story,” she says. “Wrestling is opera. It’s also fake.”
Why that era for this story? “In 1980, people weren’t as enlightened as they are now,” Fleming says politely.
Now known as the “people’s diva,” Fleming has performed with Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli as well as Sting, Lou Reed, and Michael Bolton. She has won five Grammy Awards, a National Medal of Arts, and France’s Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. She also sang the national anthem at the 2014 Super Bowl.
Fleming raised two daughters as a single mother after a divorce in 2000. A male writer who interviewed her for British newspaper The Observer in 2010 wrote that “her career makes any other permanent relationship unlikely: few men are willing to dwindle into a consort, smiling from the sidelines as the diva is mobbed by worshippers.”
Despite this cynical (and sexist) presumption, Fleming married a successful Washington, D.C., corporate attorney, Timothy Jessell, the following year. He shows no signs of “dwindling,” but he is, she notes, looking forward to spending more time with her someday.
She’s prevailed over misogynists, yet today’s world hasn’t evolved as Fleming anticipated. “We’re still living in a sexist world,” she said in January. “I just came back from the World Economic Forum in Davos. It was a sea of men in black suits. I thought in my lifetime there would be more women.”
Top: Fleming takes a bow with pianist Inon Barnatan after a Harris Concert Hall recital during the 2023 festival. Bottom: Fleming works with the young artists of the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS program during a Saturday morning Opera Encounters.
Operatic parts do dwindle for sopranos when they reach middle age. “Once you’re not the ingenue anymore, there are very few roles,” Fleming says. Yet, at 66, she continues to perform at a grueling pace, scheduled for years out. “I’m doing too many jobs, now,” she says. What would she cut? “I don’t know.”
That’s because she has adventurous musical appetites—and because composers are eager to write parts for her, though they must avoid strenuous high C and B notes and lengthy passaggios. When she and Fletcher considered working together, she suggested a concerto built around Appalachian folk music. “I sent him 40 songs,” she says, for inspiration. She performed it this winter at Lincoln Center in New York City on her birthday, Valentine’s Day, with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
“I’ve been very fortunate to be singing this long,” she says. “I didn’t expect it.”
Fleming begins each Aspen season in August with student auditions for the following summer. “The teaching is very, very charismatic,” says Fletcher, who is down to earth in describing her own performance travails and how she solved them. That includes costuming: When a student arrived to perform an aria in “terrifying” high heels, Fletcher recalls, “Renée told her to take them off.”
“Once in a while I’ll make a comment on someone wearing spike heels,” Fleming
says. “I’ll say, you look like you’re perched up there.”
Fleming’s return to Aspen in 2021, the first in-person season after COVID, reunited her with her former director, Edward Berkeley, to produce The Magic Flute nearly 40 years after they met. “His first summer teaching was my first summer at Aspen,” Fleming says. “That’s how long he had been there—the duration of my career.”
Berkeley died at home of a heart attack shortly before curtain time in 2021. With 2,000 ticket holders making their way to the theater, it was Fleming who gathered the production in a room, thinking more like a director than a diva, and displaying what she can offer a new generation.
“Someone said, ‘well, we can’t go on,’” Fletcher says, “and Renée said, ‘no that is exactly what we will do. We will give this show our all. That is what Ed would want, and that’s what the world expects from us.’”
Fleming insists the decision to proceed was made with the festival’s leadership, but acknowledges she felt it was the only course of action. “‘The show must go on’ is a real thing,” she says, “and we have the capacity for putting on blinders and doing what we need to do.”
“Everybody who was there,” Fletcher recalls, “says it was one of the great performance moments they ever saw.”
With The Little Nell’s Off-Road Adventures, all it takes is a few hours to be transported into the vast and wild beauty of the legendary Rocky Mountains.
The allure of downtown Aspen is hard to ignore. In fact, so absorbing is the 3.66-mile hub of art, culture, shopping, and dining that, for some, it can overshadow the natural beauty that’s just beyond its doorstep. But that world of adventure is a lot closer than many realize: Just two hours with The Little Nell’s Off-Road Adventures is all you need to see a completely different side of this mountain town.
“There’s no better way to connect with nature,” says Steven Goff, an adventure concierge at The Little Nell. “The glitz of downtown can make people forget they’re in the Rocky Mountains, but when they join us for a tour up the mountain, they’re transported to the real heart of Aspen.”
Goff estimates he’s led more than 600 tours since The Little Nell launched its Off-Road Adventures in 2013. Part safari, part nature tour, the experience never fails to wow guests. “The oohs and aahs start before we even reach the summit,” Goff says. As the vehicle starts to climb up Castle Creek Road, cell service disappears, and guests are immersed in breathtaking scenery. Goff shares some of the area’s mining history as the vehicle passes remnants of old homesteads, all the while keeping his eyes peeled for brown bears and elk.
At the 11,212-foot summit of Aspen Mountain, Goff turns off the engine and sets up a picnic prepared by The Little Nell culinary team while his guests ogle 360-degree views of the Maroon Bells–Snowmass Wilderness out to the Continental Divide. From late May through August, the landscape is carpeted in purple lupin and columbine, fiery Indian paintbrush, and dozens more types of Technicolor wildflowers. Come September and October, the treetops shimmer a brilliant gold.
Daytime tours begin as early as 7 a.m. and are accompanied by homemade pastries, fruit, and coffee. Coolers of wine and beer and artisanal charcuterie boards can be arranged for sunset tours, which are the most popular experience, according to Goff. “I never tire of watching the sun set over the Roaring Fork Valley,” he says. “Below, the town starts to glow. The sky turns sherbet colors. It is truly magic hour in Aspen. People come back again and again and always say this is their favorite thing they did on vacation.”
By Jen Murphy
Photography by Steven Goff
Jess Graber, co-founder of Stranahan’s, Colorado’s first licensed distillery since Prohibition.
The force behind Mawa’s Kitchen and other beloved Aspen restaurants, chef Mawa McQueen found success by listening to her heart.
By Amanda M. Faison
Everyone has an Aspen origin story. Most folks find their way to town for a ski trip or a ski season. Others discover the magic of an Aspen summer and never leave. Mawa McQueen’s introduction was different.
She first learned of Aspen as a young girl living in an impoverished Paris neighborhood, while watching an episode of The Young and the Restless in which the ruthless villain Victor Newman flew his glamorous girlfriend to the mountain town for a getaway. McQueen filed away the idea of Aspen—presumably under “fabulous faraway places I’ll never go”—and largely forgot about it.
McQueen’s international menu is autobiographical— inspired by her own roots, as well as those of her multicultural neighbors during her upbringing in Paris.
Photography by Trevor Triano
That is, until one summer when she was waiting tables at a Relais & Châteaux resort in Kennebunkport, Maine. As the season came to a close, her manager asked where she would like to go for the winter season. “As a joke, I said I wanted to go to Aspen—to be like the rich people,” she says with a laugh. The next day, her manager called The Little Nell (also a Relais & Châteaux property) and arranged for McQueen to work at the hotel’s restaurant.
For the next five years, McQueen spent summers in Maine and winters in Aspen, until one fateful year, as ski season came to a close, she decided, like so many before her, to stay for good. The bold move was spurred by a budding local catering business—and a rekindled desire for culinary greatness.
McQueen was already a trained chef. A culinary education had been her ticket out of the rundown Paris neighborhood where her family had settled after emigrating from the Ivory Coast when she was 13. “What I realized is that no one was coming to save me,” she says. “I had 20 brothers and sisters, I barely spoke French, and at 17, I realized I was ‘illegal’ in France.”
America was the place to be, she decided after watching countless episodes of popular TV shows from across the Atlantic. She attended culinary school at École Hôtelière de Saint-Quentin en Yvelines, then arrived stateside determined to make her mark.
That she finally found this success in Aspen felt like destiny—something written in the stars, if not a soap opera script.
In 2012, she opened her first restaurant, Mawa’s Kitchen, in the Aspen Airport Business Center. It was a risky endeavor—“trying to get people past the roundabout is impossible,” she says—and for a while, it didn’t pay off. That is, until 2020, when, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, she resolved to pivot from New American cuisine to her own native flavors.
“I asked myself ‘Mawa, what do you want to eat? What is your comfort? Who are you?’” McQueen says. “I wasn’t being true to myself. You couldn’t see my French influence or my African or Middle Eastern influences.” Old menus were abandoned, and new dishes—ones that spoke to the true Mawa—were created, inspired by her native Ivory Coast and Paris, as well as the multicultural neighbors from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and the Middle East that she grew up with. The result: an international menu where dishes like tagine and West African peanut curry live alongside oxtail bourguignon and potato mousseline.
Her new menu didn’t just lure diners past the roundabout; in 2022, it earned her a James Beard Award nomination for Best Chef: Mountain. She was grocery shopping when she got the news and dissolved into tears, she says.
Opposite: Mawa’s Kitchen’s roasted beet salad with whipped feta and pistachio curry vinaigrette. Previous, from left: The bar at Mawa’s Kitchen; vegetable maafé, a West African peanut curry with roasted acorn squash and forbidden Rice.
Above: The cheerful dining room at Mawa’s Kitchen. Opposite: Berbere-spiced gambas made with grilled red Argentinian prawns, pickled carrots, and friseé salad.
The West African gumbo—made with rotisserie chicken, Andouille sausage, shrimp, fried okra, and served with foufou—is inspired by McQueen’s native Ivory Coast.
The nomination was more than a reward for her hard-scrabble efforts; it was also a launchpad for a burgeoning culinary empire. Within months, she had opened Mawita in Snowmass, a restaurant that explores the complementary flavors of African and Latin American cuisines. “It’s the same ingredients— plantain, corn, yucca, onion, rice,” she says. “We are more alike than you think, especially when it comes to food.”
Next, she opened her fast-casual restaurant The Crepe Shack, an homage to her Parisian upbringing. “Having a crepe is like seeing someone you like for the first time,” she says. “It’s like bubbles inside of you.” She has also recently self-published a cookbook, Mawa’s Way, and a motivational selfhelp book, Unstoppable Ambition
It was the latter, coupled with a documentary about her life that aired last year on French television, that recently took her back to Paris. There, she visited the neighborhood where she had grown up feeling aimless and invisible. But this time, she saw it with new hope, through the eyes of someone who now knows that dreams aren’t just for The Young and the Restless . “I went there to empower the youth,” she says of those growing up in her former home, many who no doubt reminded her of a young Mawa. “They don’t see success for themselves—they think it’s never going to happen. But I say it can happen.”
The dining room at Mawa’s Kitchen is a vibrant reflection of McQueen’s exuberant personality and culinary style.
Twenty years after its founding, Stranahan’s returns to the Roaring Fork Valley.
Daliah Singer
Photography by Trevor Triano & Courtesy Stranahan’s
Denver was built on the idea of a good drink. Or, at the very least, a strong one.
Founded in 1858, the city began at the confluence of the South Platte and Cherry Creek rivers. Prospectors camped in the area before continuing west and were sold hooch by “enterprising individuals,” says Jake Norris, a Denverbased craft distillery consultant. “The first businesses in Colorado were bars.”
Saloons sprouted up across the soon-to-be state (Colorado was officially designated in 1876), serving miners who made their way here seeking silver and gold. In fact, the world’s largest silver nugget was harvested from Aspen’s Smuggler Mine.
Clockwise, from left: Stranahan’s Whiskey Lodge in Aspen; Jess Graber; the Whiskey Lodge is known for its creative whiskey cocktails.
Above: Stranahan’s Smoked Old Fashioned, made with Luxardo cherries, demerara syrup, bitters, orange peel, and cherry wood smoke. Opposite: Max Ben-Hamoo, the Whiskey Lodge’s general manager.
So, when Jess Graber began distilling whiskey as a hobby in Woody Creek in the 1970s, he was tapping into a long history of booze experimentation. What the contractor initially made would probably qualify more as moonshine than a true spirit, but he read and practiced, and friends seemed to like the end product. “I would give it out as Christmas presents,” Graber recalls. “It was better than giving them cookies.”
When people started requesting bottles, Graber realized his hobby had the potential to turn into a real business. Then fate intervened: In 1998, Graber, a volunteer firefighter, was called out to George Stranahan’s property about three miles away for a barn fire. After helping extinguish it, Graber got to talking with the founder of the Flying Dog Brewpub. He asked if he could use one of the still-standing barns for distilling. Stranahan agreed.
They didn’t know it yet, but this was the beginning of a beautiful whiskey story.
A year or so later, Graber had a eureka moment. While working in Stranahan’s barns, he used some leftover kegs during the distillation phase, creating a beer mash. It was something no other distiller was doing at the time, and when Graber filtered the resulting liquid, he discovered that he could create a purer, smoother, more flavorful product. He kept experimenting until he had a recipe that was solid:
a single malt whiskey made in small batches from malted barley, yeast, and Rocky Mountain water.
He approached Stranahan with a proposition to open a distillery next door to Flying Dog (which by then had moved to Denver). The brewer wasn’t convinced, but Graber had an ace up his sleeve: The new distillery would be called Stranahan’s.
And so, just a few years later, Stranahan’s was founded, becoming Colorado’s first licensed distillery since Prohibition. It was a bittersweet accomplishment—and an homage of sorts—as George Stranahan passed away in May 2001. It surely would have made its namesake proud: The Denver distillery has amassed a massive fan base and numerous awards, including gold in the 2021 World Whiskies Awards.
And now, more than two decades after its founding, Stranahan’s has finally returned to the Roaring Fork Valley with Stranahan’s Whiskey Lodge. “George Stranahan was a legend—we all grew up knowing who he was,” says the lodge’s general manager Max Ben-Hamoo, a born and raised Aspenite. (His father, Shlomo, once operated an eponymous deli at the base of Aspen Mountain and, later, in restaurant spaces at The Little Nell and the Residences at The Little Nell.) With the Whiskey Lodge, Stranahan’s “really wanted to go back to their roots,” Ben-Hamoo says.
Stranahan’s Blackberry Whiskey Sour, made with Stranahan’s Sherry Cask whiskey, blackberry liqueur, lemon juice, and egg white.
Clockwise, from bottom left: Framed photos of co-founder George Stranahan; another portrait of George Stranahan, whose spirit remains part of the company; an early photo of Jess Graber, who began distilling whiskey as a hobby; the Whiskey Lodge’s Alexander Hamilton cocktail, made with a blend of Stranahan’s Sherry Cask with rosemary-fig syrup, lemon, and mint; Graber sips Stranahan’s.
Guests at the downtown venue step into a dark wood saloon, with pickaxes hanging above the door, to taste Colorado’s whiskey in drams, flights, or classic and seasonal cocktails. A few offerings are even unique to this mountain location, including the Alexander Hamilton (a blend of Stranahan’s Sherry Cask finished with rosemary-fig syrup, lemon, and mint) and the Rita Likes Whiskey (a spicy whiskey margarita).
“Whiskey has for a long time been pigeonholed into you drink it either on the rocks or neat or maybe with a little bit of water,” Ben-Hamoo says. “We take that on as a challenge. What are all the different ways that we can express whiskey in a cocktail?”
Food is similarly creative. The elevated pub bites not only complement the available spirits, but the ingredients are often cooked with them, too. Chef Nick Ragazzo makes a whiskey-smoked Colorado Wagyu brisket and single malt mustard for the pretzel hot pocket. There’s also rigatoni alla whiskey and apple-butter dipping sauce—made with the Aspen Exclusive whiskey—to accompany the apple cider beignets.
The lodge also presents an opportunity to try Stranahan’s American single malt, a unique offering that was so unheard of in its early days that the company referred to it as Colorado whiskey to help explain why it tasted
different from others on the market. In December, the government officially— finally—recognized the American single malt whiskey as its own category. In order to qualify, the spirit must, among other things, be made in the United States from 100 percent malted barley and matured in oak casks. Stranahan’s is aged for a minimum of four years.
“Stranahan’s blazed a trail in the category of American single malt; it blazed a trail in craft distilling period,” says Justin Aden, the distillery’s current head blender. “It’s a style of American whiskey that’s a little different than anything else. We set out to make a reflection of what our people in Colorado know how to do and reflect our place.”
Aden sees their product as a reflection of Colorado itself too: “We can grow and malt barley here really well—it was only a matter of time until a maverick, a pioneer came along and said, ‘Let’s make whiskey out of it.’”
Stranahan’s American single malt recipe is the same one Graber perfected all those years ago. Volunteers still help bottle the whiskey multiple times a month alongside Stranahan’s staff. The experience is so popular that the distillery randomly draws names for each shift from a waitlist of around 25,000 people. The tin caps on top of the bottles—a nod to what Colorado miners once drank from—and sloped labels haven’t changed much over the years either.
Stranahan’s takes a base spirit and finishes it in barrels from around the world to create a variety of different expressions.
Volunteers
help bottle the whiskey multiple times a month, alongside Stranahan’s staff.
Stranahan’s head blender Justin Aden tests the whiskey.
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But that’s not to say that Stranahan’s hasn’t evolved.
By taking its base spirit and finishing it in barrels from around the globe, Stranahan’s has developed a variety of different expressions. The most recent Diamond Peak release was aged in Caribbean rum casks, for example, and the Aspen Exclusive— which, as the name suggests, is only available in the mountain town—was aged in Calvados French apple brandy casks. (A portion of the sales of Aspen Exclusive bottles benefits the Aspen Fire Protection District in honor of Graber.)
And every December, hundreds of people line up outside the Denver distillery hoping to get one of the limited-edition Snowflake releases that blends a variety of finishes into a single bottle. It sells out within hours.
“The creativity behind it is what the spirit of Stranahan’s is all about,” says Graber, now 74. “It wasn’t supposed to be your grandpa’s bourbon. It was supposed to be something from Colorado. It’s a rugged state, and a cool state.” All it needed was a really great whiskey.
At the Whiskey Lodge, chef Nick Ragazzo serves elevated pub bites that are often cooked with spirits.
A NEW BEAT IN THE HEART OF ASPEN
2nd floor above the Historic Red Onion
OPENING IN 2025
CLUB for Listening
CLASSROOM for Learning
EVENT SPACE for Gathering
STUDIO for Recording & Broadcasting
By Amanda M. Faison
by Shawn O’Connor & Noah Fecks
There’s a new culinary power couple in town: Cédric and Ochi Vongerichten broaden Aspen’s flavor profile with a dazzling fusion of flavors at Wayan.
When husband-and-wife team Cédric and Ochi Vongerichten opened Wayan, an Indonesian restaurant with modern French flair, in Aspen in December, it was a long time coming. Cédric, son of legendary French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, has been coming to the valley to ski for decades. Over the years, he’s also collaborated with The Little Nell for a series of chef pop-ups, the first of which was with his father.
Last year, he and Ochi, who is from Indonesia, partnered with The Little Nell to host a traditional liwetan dinner. Guests dined in the Balinese style and ate Indonesian dishes served on banana leaves. It was a trial run, an incubator of sorts, for a bigger mission: to bring Wayan, their acclaimed Manhattan restaurant, to the Aspen dining scene. The dinner was a hit, and the rest is culinary history. Wayan is a tribute to Ochi’s homeland, both visually and gastronomically. Woven
Photography
Wayan brings the flavors—and style— of Bali to the heart of Aspen.
Wayan dishes like corn fritters (left) and crispy pandan French toast (above) combine classic Indonesian flavors with Cédric Vongerichten’s French technique.
basket lanterns hang from the ceilings, and transformative textures play out in stone, wood, and ample greenery. “If you’ve traveled to Indonesia, it feels right,” Cédric says. Texture was also a vital component of the menu, which is a dynamic blend of the traditional foods Ochi grew up with and the French sensibilities and elevated techniques Cédric mastered at the Culinary Institute of America and his father’s Michelin-starred kitchens. It’s all brought to life by bold ingredients like fried garlic chips and shallots, shredded coconut meat, finely grated ginger and turmeric, and bright citrus like makrut lime leaf and calamansi.
Cédric found the careful balance of tradition and technique to be a delightful challenge. Take, for instance, Wayan’s bakwan jagung, a beloved Balinese street food akin to corn fritters. The batter was a bit of a guessing game, requiring a careful deconstruction of the recipe, then an entirely new creation using ingredients found in the U.S. The result is a golden fritter studded with corn that Cédric describes as “almost a landscape—some parts are chewy,
some are crunchy, and drizzling it with kecap manis brings out the corn and umami.” Add a dash of the housemade sambal, and it’s a perfect dish.
That sambal has its own backstory. “There are thousands of different sambals in Indonesia. Every village and region has its own condiment,” Cédric says. “When we opened our restaurant in Jakarta, everyone was asking for it, so we made our own, and everyone called it sambal bule, which means ‘foreigner.’” It was, the chef says, a term of endearment (so much so that his restaurant staff also calls him Bule) and a veritable seal of approval. When Wayan opened in New York, bottles of the chili sauce were laid out on every table—so too in Aspen. A couple of drops kicks up the flavor of any dish, adding a touch of heat without going overboard.
Cédric took liberties with some dishes, adding little doses of French flair—with Ochi’s blessing. The rendang is an exquisite example. The traditional Indonesian meat dish is braised in coconut milk and spices, but at Wayan,
Wayan’s lobster noodles, prepared with a modern take on classic Indonesian instant noodles, plus black pepper butter and Thai basil.
the chef uses the sauce to cook and flavor escargot. The result is both recognizable and wholly new, and the side of toasted brioche ensures that not a drop of it goes to waste.
Still other flavor combinations Cédric felt obliged to interpret almost entirely unaltered. For anyone who has traveled to Indonesia, Wayan’s chocolate ganache dessert pairing of chocolate, coffee, and avocado is instantly recognizable as the trio of flavors that forms the backbone of Bali’s classic jus alpukat milkshake, a favorite for sipping on hot days. “If you’ve never had it before, it’s a great dessert,” Cédric says. “And if you have had it, you’ll know instantly: It’s an homage to Bali.”
Above: Cédric and Ochi Vongerichten at their Wayan Aspen dining room. Previous: Wayan Aspen’s interiors channel Bali with woven lanterns, natural materials, and ample greenery.
Executive Chef Keith Theodore of Element 47 constantly updates menu staples with hyper-local seasonal twists.
At Element 47, The Little Nell’s flagship restaurant, seasonality fuels everything Executive Chef Keith Theodore cooks. In summer, he sources elderberries, sorrel, and vibrant cherries to pair with a duck breast and leg he’s aged for 30 days. Slices of pickled rhubarb along with green rhubarb, juiced and reduced, balance the richness of Wagyu beef, while Colorado peaches, apples, tomatoes, and corn round out other savory dishes.
Theodore found his calling at the age of 10, when his first foray into cooking—a cappellini pomodoro made with his father—was a success. “I had no hesitation about my career after that moment,” he says. After high school, he became an apprentice in the awardwinning kitchen at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. But it took just one visit to Aspen, in 2009, for him to fall in love with the mesmerizing wilderness and food scene of the Roaring Fork Valley.
Theodore seeks out purveyors who are as passionate about quality as he is. “I feel incredibly lucky to have access to great local suppliers and also to have the luxury to buy from top suppliers all over the world,” he says. “We support our local community and also realize that our clientele at The Little Nell is part of a global community.”
Staples of the menu at Element 47 include Colorado-raised, Wagyu beef from Cross Creek Ranch; Rohan duck, supplied by D’Artagnan and bred on a small family farm in upstate New York; and Pennsylvania-raised Golden Chicken, sourced through acclaimed purveyor Regalis. “I look carefully for the absolute best flavor,” Theodore says. “Our Wagyu beef is 100 percent genetically pure and undiluted—and that shows in its taste.”
These proteins are constantly transformed throughout the year. “The seasons are different on the Western Slope, about 50 days behind the Front Range,” Theodore says. “We know it’s spring when we get our peas in about the third week of June, and when the peppers and tomatoes arrive, summer is over.” Thanks to Theodore’s passion for preserving, Element 47’s menu can hold on to summer well past the time the leaves turn gold. Tasty condiments like concentrated tomato conserva, tart preserved rhubarb, and smooth apple butter allow him to add a hint of summer to his cooking in the fall and winter months. “I like to surprise guests with a taste of summer when they least expect it.”
A
By Andra Zeppelin
Kaleidoscreen, designed by Herbert Bayer in 1957.
Photography by Trevor Triano
This year, Glenn Ligon’s poignant works—which speak to America’s past, present, and future—play a starring role at ArtCrush and the Aspen Art Museum.
Glenn Ligon is the recipient of the 2025 Lewis Family Art Award at the Aspen Art Museum.
Photography by Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Above: Notes on the Margin of the Black Book, 1991-93
“The root function of language is to control the universe by describing it,” James Baldwin wrote in his 1953 essay, “Stranger in the Village.” In the essay, which serves as one of the pillars of artist Glenn Ligon’s decades-long practice, Baldwin meditates on the self-deception required to believe in and enact white supremacy, and how, “by means of what the white man imagines the black man to be, the black man is enabled to know who the white man is.”
Baldwin’s incisive observations and gorgeous language at first seem at odds: How can you read about the profound evil enacted by racists and somehow enjoy the experience? But read enough of his work and you come to understand that he could not have made his points so effectively without his deft handling of the English language.
Like Baldwin, Ligon employs dueling factors to create seamless, focused art. His text paintings, which he’s made since the late 1980s, directly quote Richard Pryor, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and, naturally, Baldwin, with Ligon repainting each letter from left to right using coal dust, ink, and stencils until each word is all but obscured.
“My work has always, in some ways, been about the struggle to communicate,” he says. “My paintings are hard to read—and that is kind of the point. Those texts [I refer to] are dealing with difficult, weighty subject matter, so looking at them should be difficult and complicated.” You could argue that this painterly approach, which forces the observer to squint to decipher the message, is Ligon’s own bid for control.
Gifted since he first started forming words, Ligon’s kindergarten teacher in the South Bronx begrudgingly accepted that he far surpassed his peers, telling his mother, “Your kids might be smart here, but they will be average at a real school,” Ligon recalls. Undeterred, his mother placed him at Walden School in New
York’s Upper West Side, where he thrived. After-school drawing classes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and pottery classes in Greenwich Village refined the young Ligon’s eye and hand; four years at Wesleyan University continued the process. But it was in 1989, when the National Endowment for the Arts gave Ligon a grant to pursue drawing, that he first began to see himself as an artist with a capital A. “I thought, the government thinks I’m an artist, so I guess I can say I’m an artist now,” Ligon says. The next decade was one of immense creative and intellectual growth.
With text-based paintings, Ligon has demanded raw, honest contemplation— from both himself and his audience. “My work is a conversation,” he says. His demeanor, like his practice, appears initially gentle. The intensity of his works is revealed bit by bit the longer you look and the harder you squint.
The man himself is straightforward, simply dressed, often in black and white—the colors that dominate his work. He sets certain rules for himself so that he can break others, thinking Untitled (I Am
Study for Negro Sunshine (Red) #72, 2024 Oil stick, coal dust, and acrylic on paper 12 x 9 inches (30.5 x 22.9 cm)
often about the legal and social structures that limit large swathes of Americans’ freedoms. “Rules give me a starting place and structure that I then break,” he says. “Once rules become too strict and codified, you stop allowing things to happen. The work I’m most interested in is what comes out of mistakes.”
In December 2025, Ligon’s masterly mistakes will fill the galleries of the Aspen Art Museum in the artist’s first solo exhibition with the institution. “It’s hard to believe that America , Glenn’s mid-career survey at the Whitney, was presented nearly 15 years ago,” says Daniel Merritt, Aspen Art Museum’s chief curator. “He is an artist whose influence and reach upon younger generations is just beginning to be understood. There remains so much to unearth in Glenn’s work, and Aspen Art Museum is thrilled to bring these new considerations to light.” Indeed, the survey will be the artist’s first institutional solo show of this scale since that landmark exhibition opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2011.
During ArtCrush week this summer, Ligon will receive the Lewis Family Art Award, which will be presented alongside programming at the Aspen Art Museum that focuses on his work and its topics. “Glenn is one of the most important artists in America today,” Merritt says. “He has built a deep, influential legacy and has emerged as a north star for subsequent generations of artists.”
Ligon’s practice has spanned many mediums, from sculpture to sound to curation itself. His two-person show at 52 Walker in Manhattan earlier this year paired his neon sculptures with a score by the late composer Julius Eastman, and he took part in organizing Okwui Enwezor’s Grief and Grievance at New York City’s New Museum in 2021. His exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum will focus on his works on paper, along with his prints and multiples.
“Glenn possesses a remarkable openness to the world,” Merritt says. “Culture flows through him. There is an alertness, but also a wry amusement to the ways in which he sees the work. Artists
with a wicked sense of humor, like Glenn, tend to make very potent art.”
As serious as he is funny, Ligon avoids attention, preferring any honors he may receive to funnel back into his work or to serve society in some way. He is reserved in public, observing everything around him, taking mental notes, and later highlighting the lessons that still need to be learned. “Glenn is an artist who is skilled at processing turbulence and tumult, and in these very unsteady times, there is power in turning to the past,” Merritt says. “Glenn can identify the poetics in that.”
The power of a word is generally in its ability to be understood. Somehow, Ligon has inverted that power, allowing for a word to hold value in its indecipherability. He is a soothsayer, with a preternatural understanding of what will come, informed by his thorough knowledge of what has come before. And, with that knowledge, he catalyzes the contemporary landscape of the art world—and American society at large. “As Baldwin said,” Ligon notes, “artists are disturbers of the peace.”
At F/LIST, we create interiors inspired by the beauty of nature. Crafted with experienced hands, infused with technologies of tomorrow, and perfected to last. Since 1950.
Bauhaus and Beyond
Aspen’s 20th-century ascent from sleepy mining town to cultural icon was the result of an ambitious— and utopic—vision that lives on today.
By Maura Egan
When most people think of the cultural life of Aspen, they think of Hollywood A-listers like Jennifer Lopez and Justin Bieber flying in for a winter ski holiday or the late journalist and resident Hunter S. Thompson and his various gonzo antics around town. But behind all the glitz and glamour, this small mountain resort possesses a cultural gravitas that has lured world leaders, intellectuals, authors, and other rarefied minds since World War II.
“It’s all because of Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke,” says Lissa Ballinger, executive director of the Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies, which is located on the campus of the Aspen Institute. Walter was a third-generation German intellectual and Chicago-based industrialist. He was a man with heady ideas who socialized with academics and artists, and an aesthete and early champion of the Bauhaus school who welcomed European designers like Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius and artist László Moholy-Nagy when they came to America to escape the rise of Nazism in the 1930s.
Photography by Trevor Triano
Marble Garden, created in 1955 by
Bauhaus artist Herbert Bayer, at the Aspen Institute campus.
Elizabeth was equally cultured and curious, and after she visited Aspen during a skiing expedition, she became smitten with the beauty of the town’s pristine landscape. “This was after all the silver mines had closed and essentially it was just potato farmers, cattle ranchers, and some remaining miners,” says Ballinger. Elizabeth was determined to bring her husband to Aspen because she believed this tiny mountain resort would be the ideal place for the couple to establish a sort of “cultural utopia,” Ballinger says.
They made the trip west in 1945, and Walter came up with a blueprint for the “Aspen Idea.” He envisioned a place where one could nourish “their body, mind, and spirit” through art, music, education, and discussion, as well as physical activities like hiking and skiing. “The idea was to foster all aspects of a more actualized self,” says Ballinger. The Paepckes wanted it to be a place where business leaders, intellectuals, politicians, and artists could come to discuss the issues of the day (think: the World Economic Forum in Davos but with more idealistic goals).
The following year, the Paepckes enlisted graphic designer Herbert Bayer, a Bauhaus disciple and German native who was planning to move back to Europe after the war. Walter convinced him to relocate instead to Aspen, luring
him with vivid descriptions of the Colorado Rockies—or what he pegged as the American version of the Alps. Bayer was soon hooked and would go on to make some of the town’s first ski ads, which remain iconic visuals to this day.
Walter, along with a group of scholars, tested out the Aspen Idea for the first time in 1949, by staging a three-week bicentennial celebration of Goethe—the famed German poet, novelist, and playwright—in Aspen. He theorized that celebrating Goethe, who espoused emotionalism and humanism in his work, “could help heal the wounds of World War II,” according to Ballinger—and also bring Germany back into the cultural conversation. They invited other intellectuals and creatives of the day and commissioned architect Eero Saarinen to design the canvas tent where talks, panels, and musical concerts were held. The event was a success, drawing more than 2,000 visitors.
Reeling from their first event’s positive response, the Paepckes were ready to put Aspen on the map as both a cultural hub and a ski resort. They would go on to establish the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies (known today as the Aspen Institute), the Aspen Music Festival, and, along with the Austrian ski racer Friedl Pfeifer, the Aspen Ski Corp. (now the Aspen Skiing Company).
Elizabeth Paepcke in Aspen in 1975.
From 1953 to 1973, Bayer designed dozens of Bauhaus structures around town: seminar rooms, lecture halls, a health club, guest quarters, and residences across the Aspen Institute’s 40-acre campus. In keeping with Bauhaus principles, the buildings were pared down and modest, made with simple materials like concrete and steel, and featuring plenty of floor-to-ceiling windows to showcase the magnificent landscapes that surrounded the property. Another Bauhaus principle— that thoughtful design could affect social change—led to the design of contemplative spaces where guests could discuss big ideas in the morning, commune with spectacular nature in the afternoon, and then attend a concert in the evening, perhaps followed by more serious discussions late into the night, under the towering aspen trees.
Opposite, clockwise from top: Herbert Bayer at his home on Red Mountain, 1965; Herbert Bayer’s Chromatic Gates at the Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies; a pair of posters designed by Bayer during the 1950s and 1960s.
Right, from top: A Herbert Bayer design on display at Aspen Meadows; a sgraffito wall made by Bayer in 1953 on the David H. Koch Seminar Building at the Aspen Institute.
It was the idealistic manifestation of the Paepckes’ intellectual utopia. “Aspen became a model of what the Bauhaus goal of integration of all the arts and design could accomplish,” says Gwen Chanzit, a curator at the Denver Art Museum and author of From Bauhaus to Aspen: Herbert Bayer and Modernist Design in America
The Aspen Institute grew in popularity and attracted luminaries from all over the world. In 1951, it sponsored a photography conference attended by Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange. In 1962, it held one of the first conferences on the effects of global warming. And over the years, the institute and its various conferences have hosted everyone from Bill Clinton to Jane Goodall to Toni Morrison.
Bayer saw the campus as his Gesamtkunstwerk , a “total work of art,” but the designer also made an impact beyond the campus. He helped restore older buildings in town, like the Wheeler Opera House. When tasked with building something new, he set out in a more modern direction, a vision that established Aspen as an outlier among American ski resorts, becoming a contemporary mecca among the many faux Swiss chalet mountain towns.
In recent decades, that style has been embraced by more architects, whose modern glass, timber, and steel buildings are easily identifiable as Bauhaus-inspired: Studio B’s curving, stone Christ Episcopal Church; Charles Cunniffe’s Theatre Aspen, with its design-forward tent of a polycarbonate panels; and Shigeru Ban’s Aspen Art Museum, defined by striking wood cladding that envelops the building.
The legacy of the Paepckes, the Bauhaus movement, and the Aspen Idea live on today in the physical presence of these modern landmarks, in the original works of Bayer and his contemporaries, and the ideas they represented. This goes beyond the brick-and-mortar to the town’s busy cultural events calendar, year-round programming at the Aspen Music Festival and School, the Aspen Art Museum, and the Aspen Ideas Festival. Every summer, brilliant minds from around the globe gather to continue to shape the future—from progressive politicians, climate change experts, and scientists, such as John Kerry and Bill Nye, to actors and celebrities with their own passion issues, including Selma Blair and Brian Cox.
Modern Aspen’s founding mother and father would surely approve.
Bauhaus Landmarks
Take a tour of the iconic structures that embody— and are inspired by—the Paepckes’ utopic vision.
Aspen Art Museum
637 E. Hyman Avenue
The Aspen Institute
1000 N. 3rd Street
Christ Episcopal Church
536 W. North Street
Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies
610 Gillespie Avenue
Theatre Aspen
110 E. Hallam Street
From top: Christ Episcopal Church; Aspen Art Museum.
Meet the local yogis bringing wellness— of mind, body, and spirit—to every student.
The word yoga is derived from the Sanskrit term for “unite.” That concept was the driving force behind the Aspen Idea: Modern-day founders Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke conceived the mountain town as a place that enhanced the mind, body, and spirit—and that attracted those seeking personal growth and social betterment. These three yoga teachers are carrying on that vision.
By Jen Murphy
Photography by Spencer Miller & Trevor Triano
A Mountaintop Yoga summer session on The Little Nell’s Wedding Deck, where tree poses meet towering aspens and peaks.
The Fundamentalist
Marco “Coco” Rojas roots his practice in what he calls yoga fundamentals: breath, alignment, and basic postures. But don’t think for a second that his classes are easy. “Even advanced students have to practice the fundamentals,” he says. Indeed, Rojas knows how to make deceptively simple postures incredibly challenging. Walk into one of his classes at O2 Aspen or True Nature Healing Arts in Carbondale and you’ll see students trembling as they try to hold a yoga block above their head … while keeping their shoulders back and down … elbows locked … and arms straight.
A native of Venezuela, Rojas spent 18 years teaching in New York City. After the pandemic forced him to close his studio, a teaching opportunity arose in Aspen. “People say Aspen is a place of privilege, but locals know the true privilege is to live in a place of such natural beauty,” he says. “I’ve never met a more disciplined community. In the winter it can be –8°F, and there will be a waitlist for my class. Locals show up ready to work. They trust that I will lead them on a journey to become the best version of themselves.”
Rojas focuses his classes at O2 Aspen on the fundamentals of yoga so he can reach a greater community.
The Queen of Shakti
Like most people, Jayne Gottlieb first started coming to Aspen for the winters. The California native grew up skiing with her family in Snowmass—but the slopes weren’t what lured her back. It was the captivating performances she witnessed at the Crystal Palace. After studying theater, Gottlieb nabbed a job at the nowdefunct historic dinner theater on Hyman Avenue and soon after launched her own children’s production company. As a side hustle, she’d teach yoga at the Sundeck at Aspen Mountain. “So many people told me they needed more of my energy,” she says.
Inspired, she launched her own studio, Aspen Shakti, in 2014, with classes modeled after author Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey. She also leads Mountaintop Yoga on The Little Nell’s Wedding Deck during the summer months. “To get people to come back to class, you have to hook them,” she says. “Through my sequences, I awaken the soul and help people find a triumphant moment. They want to return to feel transformed.” Gottlieb acknowledges that the journey inward isn’t always beautiful—“but this environment in Aspen is, and it holds people in a way that they feel nurtured.”
Jayne Gottlieb’s energetic yoga style has many inspirations, including Aspen’s natural beauty.
Above: Gottlieb teaches Mountaintop Yoga on The Little Nell’s scenic Wedding Deck.
The Music Man
A Vinyasa class taught by Aaron King doubles as a jam session, where warrior flows are carefully choreographed to a soundtrack of Phish and the Grateful Dead. As he walks among his students, he bobs his head and alternates between cueing poses and lip-syncing lyrics.
King discovered yoga while working in the music industry in Los Angeles in the 1990s. A class with power yoga pioneer Bryan Kest changed his life. “Yoga isn’t about a physical pose,” King says. “It’s about mental and physical well-being, looking inward, and using your breath to stay calm and present.”
After operating his own Aspen studio, King Yoga, for nearly 14 years, he now teaches at O2 Aspen and hosts classes on Ajax Mountain and in Paepcke Park during the summer. “Everyone is so extreme with their outdoor activities here, and yoga is an amazing complement to that,” he says. “My class is challenging, but I also weave in a little spirituality to remind people that it’s a gift to live here.”
Aaron King’s yoga flows are influenced by music, including favorite bands like Phish and the Grateful Dead.
ISUN Skincare doesn’t just make people look good. It makes them feel good.
“Our products treat the skin, but also the mind, body, and spirit,” says Tracey Drabløes, director of ISUN Skincare, the boutique organic beauty brand that has garnered a cult following for nearly 20 years. Its holistic approach creates what Drabløes calls a “quantum healing effect” that leaves skin glowing, while also fostering a deeper sense of well-being. That effect is achieved through wild ingredients that are rich in life-force energy—plant extracts, natural oils—but it also comes from what she calls “making products with positive intentions.”
It may sound a little woo-woo, but ISUN’s serums, oils, and cleansers are rooted in science— and the idea that we are all made up of energy. Bunnie Gulick, the brand’s founder, has spent a lifetime studying Ayurveda, and even developed a skincare line for the Dalai Lama. In 2006, she launched ISUN out of a small lab in Ridgway, Colorado. There, a team of scientists continues to formulate new products through energetics. “We might play mantras as we blend an oil, and we use a lot of crystals and gemstones,” Drabløes says.
Many of the ingredients are sourced from the surrounding San Juan Mountains. “We hike to 9,600 feet to collect natural spring water,” she says. The water there contains ormus, an atom in the platinum family that stimulates energy conductivity and is the star ingredient in the brand’s popular Ormus Myst Face and Body Mist.
The brand’s best-selling Phyto-Infusion Facial Serum is a prime example of its ethos, containing more than 50 ingredients, including herbal extracts like edelweiss, potent antioxidants, as well as vegan stem cells that boost collagen production and encourage cell growth. Everything is cold pressed to preserve the “aliveness” of the ingredients, Drabløes says.
Conscious craftsmanship extends to how the products are packaged and distributed too. Miron biophotonic violet glass prolongs potency, and local artisans handcraft the brand’s cosmetic tools. The resulting collection is found only at a handful of select spas worldwide, including The Spa at The Little Nell, where ISUN works closely with therapists to develop unique treatments that beautify the skin—and beyond. “A facial is not just a facial,” Drabløes says. “Our products have been designed to take guests on a total health and wellness journey.”
By Jen Murphy
Located along the 7th fairway of Kohanaiki’s famed Rees Jones golf course, Hale ‘Alani residences are positioned to welcome warm sunrise views of Hualālai and Mauna Loa on those extra clear Kona mornings. All residences are four bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms with a gourmet kitchen and bar seating, Wolf & Sub-Zero appliances, great room with vaulted ceilings, sliding pocket doors, and approximately 592 square-feet of covered lānai to enjoy the indoor/outdoor living that Kona is so well known for.
STARTING AT $5,350,000
KOHANAIKI REALTY LLC
Fly-fishing at T-Lazy-7 Ranch with The Little Nell Adventure Center.
Photography by Oliver Sutro
The true story of how Aspen’s legendary families inspired The Little Nell’s illustrious Luxury Suites.
By Suzanne Davis
Every megawatt hotelier knows how vital it is to stand apart from the pack. That’s especially true in a town like Aspen, which has been luring the cognoscenti for decades. To that end, the people behind The Little Nell— founded in 1989—decided to do things differently from the very beginning.
“I was inspired to make several changes after visiting Hotel Post Lech am Arlberg in Lech, Austria, a small, family-owned hotel that’s famous throughout the world for being simple yet extraordinary, with incredible service,” recalls The Little Nell’s first general manager, Eric Calderon. Calderon’s biggest change to the originally planned course: rechristening the suites. “I decided to name the presidential suite The Little Nell Suite. And then I thought, why don’t we try to name all the big suites after people that contributed in one form or another to Aspen?”
Opposite: Friedl Pfeifer and Walter Paepcke with Herbert Bayer at the Four Seasons Club in Aspen, circa 1955. Below, from top: The Paepcke Suite; the Pfeifer Suite.
Left: Austrian ski racer and Aspen Ski School founder Friedl Pfeifer was one of the five prominent Aspenites honored with eponymous suites at The Little Nell.
Above: Eric Calderon’s letter to Pfeifer in 1989.
Calderon and his team looked to some of the town’s most notable people and families for inspiration—and reached out by letter to get their blessings. Included among those honored with a namesake suite: Fritz Benedict, a protégée of starchitect Frank Lloyd Wright who designed more than 200 modernist buildings in Aspen, including the 1956 Bank of Aspen building (now home to Wells Fargo and every bit a nod to Wright); Fred Iselin, a Swiss expat turned skiing instructor who pioneered the sport in his 40-year reign over Aspen and Snowmass ski schools; and Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke, the Chicago couple who spearheaded Aspen’s cultural revival, founding everything from the Aspen Music Festival to the International Design Conference in Aspen.
Given the prestige of each of these families, Calderon knew he had his work cut out for him—the Paepcke name was a bit thorny to secure— but he never gave up. And in many cases, he had to look no further than his own lobby to seal the deal.
“Elizabeth Paepcke was alive—in her 90s—but she had no interest in letting me use her name,” Calderon says. However, like skinning up a mountain to ski back down, Calderon’s persistence paid off. “I had to work on
her. She would come to lunch at the hotel, and I would spend time chatting with her. She loved our bread. And so, for about a year, I sent bread to her home once a week. And, finally, she wrote me a note and said, ‘Eric, I will, but only because of the bread.’”
By comparison, Friedl Pfeifer, a former Austrian ski racer who co-founded the Aspen Ski Corp. (now the Aspen Skiing Company) with the Paepckes, took almost no convincing at all. “He had stopped skiing because of his age, but he liked to hang out in The Little Nell’s lobby every morning in a ski suit, just to be part of the scene,” Calderon says. “He would engage in conversation with our guests, with really anybody that would walk by. It was the highlight of his day, I think. And he graciously let us use his name on one of our large suites.”
More than 35 years later, The Little Nell has been revamped—and continues to wow. Interiors of the hotel’s six Luxury Suites have been reborn again and again, with ultra-luxe amenities that range from Fili D’Oro down comforters to 2,000-square-foot floor plans and slopeside balconies ideal for après-ski. With every new iteration, the suites’ original monikers have held up, an especially fitting detail in a hotel whose very history is rooted in the lore of Aspen itself.
Legendary Aspen ski instructor and author of 1958’s Invitation to Skiing Fred Iselin agreed to lend his name to the Iselin Suite (shown at right).
Swiss mountaineer André Roch laid out the first ski trail on Aspen Mountain. The Roch Suite (opposite) honors him with furnishings by design greats like Markus Jehs and Jürgen Laub, custom artwork by Charles Andresen, and two log-burning fireplaces.
Fritz Benedict, who apprenticed under the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, was the founding father of Aspen’s 10th Mountain Hut and Trail System. The Benedict Suite at The Little Nell is a refined reflection of its namesake, with custom artwork by Walter Niedermayr and John Riepenhoff and a Chamont chandelier by Jonathan Browning.
“A name is so meaningful to me—I think it stems from my European background,” says Henning Rahm, The Little Nell’s current general manager— and only the fifth general manager in the hotel’s 35 years. The names are a conversation starter for guests, he says. “There are guests who are extremely interested in coming to Aspen and learning more about its history and understanding how it originated,” he says. “For us, here in the hotel world, that’s where my storytelling starts. I have the opportunity to relate back to our suites and tell the story of what Aspen was, what it has become, and why—and that creates an even more meaningful sense of place.”
Lugano, known for its one-of-a-kind jewelry designs and commitment to the community, has called Aspen home for the past eight years.
Located just steps from the Residences at The Little Nell, the Lugano salon offers a tranquil retreat into a world of luxury and craftsmanship. Designed to evoke the feel of an inviting living room, the space is enveloped in soft blue-gray tones, reminiscent of Aspen’s stunning mountain surroundings.
The salon serves as a sanctuary for those seeking unique jewelry pieces, with rare gemstones expertly paired with eye-catching materials like ebony, rubber, and titanium. Each design is a testament to fine artistry, meticulously crafted to embody both elegance and innovation.
“Aspen is one of those special places that takes your breath away with its year-round natural beauty and wonderful community,” shares Moti Ferder, CEO and Co-Founder of Lugano. “It’s a true source of inspiration.”
A big piece of the heart of Aspen’s vibrant village, Lugano has flourished as an integral part of the area for the past eight years. The salon has become a destination for both locals and visitors, offering an unparalleled experience of refined and distinctive style. Beyond the salon, Lugano’s ongoing dedication to supporting various local organizations has left a lasting, positive impact on both the town and the place they proudly consider home.
By Jen Murphy
Amanda Taylor, a Les Clefs d’Or–certified concierge and 16-year veteran of The Little Nell, has mastered the art of tailoring dream itineraries for guests of all ages. Here, she shares the perfect way to spend a familyfriendly summer or fall day in Aspen.
Start the day with breakfast at Element 47. The lemon souffle pancakes and house-made pop tarts are always hits with kids. If it’s a Saturday, I recommend checking out the farmers market. In addition to local artisans and vendors, it has a small petting zoo, and the animal shelter brings puppies in need of homes.
Fly-fishing is another family-favorite activity. We have a partnership with T-Lazy-7 Ranch, and our guides from The Little Nell Adventure Center will take guests up to the ranch’s pond stocked with rainbow, brown, cutthroat, and rare gold and palomino trout. Hooking a fish is nearly guaranteed, and the guides are pros at taking photos of the anglers with their catch.
For a land-based activity, a visit to the Maroon Bells is a must. In summer the peaks are awash in colorful wildflowers, and in fall they glow with the golden aspens. You can take a shuttle, but I recommend renting e-bikes from Aspen Collection. The ride isn’t strenuous—fit grandparents or kids 8 and over will enjoy it. From the welcome center, you can follow a 1.5-mile nature loop or hike a three-mile round-trip trail to Crater Lake.
For dinner, Ajax Tavern is one of the most family-friendly restaurants in Aspen. It has a dedicated kid’s menu, and adults will find everything from Wagyu Bolognese to cauliflower gratin. When the weather is warm, you can dine on the patio and look up at Aspen Mountain.
Get to know Jeff Toscano, CEO of Aspen Hospitality.
Tell us about your career path in hospitality that led you to your current role
From a very early age, I was bitten by the hospitality bug. My first “official” job at 16 was as a restaurant busser and housekeeping houseman. While interacting with my managers and senior hotel leadership, I realized that this was the career I wanted to pursue. After graduation, I started in a management training role, then joined Westin Hotels/Starwood, which became a pivotal moment in my career. Over my eight-year tenure, I spent more than half of that time involved in the ground-up openings of hotels.
Since then, my entire career has revolved around hotel development projects—whether ground-up construction, renovations and repositioning, or independent hotel brand creation. Through this journey, I acquired a deep understanding of how to develop memorable experiences that lead to emotional guest connections, which drive customer loyalty and retention. These experiences have shaped the full cycle of my professional passion.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
My incredible family! My wife, Ruztique, and daughters Payton, Izabella, and Sophia. And our dog, Vita, too.
What is your most treasured possession?
My Michael Jordan, Fleer 1986, Rookie basketball card.
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
As a child, I was deeply interested in American history, particularly the Civil War era. I always admired Abraham Lincoln for his ability to navigate an incredibly turbulent time—managing a civil war, handling a volatile political environment, and balancing it all with a strong moral compass.
What excites you about Aspen Hospitality?
What excites me most about working with the Crown family and Aspen One is the opportunity to build upon the incredible foundation and reputation of Aspen Hospitality. My goal is to develop a world-class hospitality team and organization that will evolve this business with the same passion and care for people that initially sparked this amazing journey. This is an incredible responsibility we’ve been given, and nothing excites me more about our growth than to deliver on that.
