My Development and Real Estate Career (Aspen and Beyond)
The Château Eau Claire.
“When one door closes, buy another one and open it yourself.”
—Anonymous
After being fired from my job at Clipper Manufacturing Company (see “Invention and Innovation” essay), I purchased Gasket Engineering Company.
While the Gasket business was profitable, I hated it. Sales were made by calling on purchasing agents of small companies, taking them to lunch and giving them a bottle of whiskey at Christmas and on their birthdays. It was dull and unchallenging.
Then the phone rang about six months later. It was a Northwestern College friend who proposed that I partner with him on the development of a condominium project in Aspen. Condominiums? In Aspen? I had never been to Aspen and the concept of condominiums was new. I knew nothing about it, but Buddy Wallen had already built two successful condominiums and was looking for someone who would put up half the money and do the on-site work. He planned to concentrate on his very successful insurance business in Chicago. I walked through that door of opportunity.
Bud and I met in Aspen to look for property for our project. He told me that we should buy something close to the base of Little Nell which, in the middle of summer, looked like a barren wasteland. The first property we tried to buy was where the North of Nell Condominiums are today, but Buddy managed to upset the foreign owner to the point where we were told that he would not sell us his property at any price.
We finally were able to make a deal with Mrs. Paepcke to buy her property, which was also close to the base of Little Nell. We hired Jim Otis as the architect and my life changed forever.4
Robbie and I rented our house in Kansas City and moved to Aspen with three young kids, a cat and a huge Newfoundland dog. For the first year we lived in a small three-bedroom apartment in the Château Aspen.
As we were laying out the Château Chaumont and Dumont, Sandy Lunow, our neighbor, who owned the Glory Hole Lodge across the street, told us he thought the building was being laid out incorrectly. Sandy was known to be a little crazy, so we ignored him. A couple of months later when the excavation for the garage was complete and we had started on the first floor, Sandy came back with a surveyor and proved he was right. He wanted us to tear down everything and move the building back 10 feet.
The cost and time delay might have bankrupted the project, so we went before the Board of Adjustment to seek a variance. The variance was granted with the logic that we would never have done this intentionally because it was in our interest to move the buildings as far back from the Glory Hole as possible to give the apartments better views of Aspen Mountain.
Those were remarkable days in the Aspen real estate market. We sold all 48 apartments ourselves without a realtor and with an investment of less than $500 for black and white price lists and floor plans. 100% of our buyers were investing in second homes and wanted things simple. We hired designer Betty Byers to put together a furniture package to go with each of the three colors of shag carpet we were offering. It was touch and go, but we were able to deliver the apartments completely furnished before Christmas of 1967.
By this time I was hooked on the development business. We sold our house in Kansas City and moved into a three-bedroom ground floor apartment in the Château Chaumont. With the addition of a spiral staircase, we converted the basement storage space below the unit into the kids’ bedrooms and playrooms.
Land at the base of the mountain had gotten expensive and scarce so I proposed building on a site that fronted the Roaring Fork River three full blocks from the base of the mountain—the boonies in those days. Again, a survey mistake meant the Riverfront Apartments had balconies that were literally hanging over the river when we had envisioned them being separated by a grassy area. I solved the distance from the ski lift by inventing the Château Mobile, a very decorative trailer pulled by a Jeep that held 10 people and their skis.
Around this time, I went to Chicago to meet with Bud Wallen. However, the first night I was there, Buddy had hockey tickets, so I stayed in the office to work with Stan, our accountant. As soon as Buddy was out the door, Stan started showing me all the ways that I was being cheated. I was paying for downtown Chicago parking for Bud's insurance business, his hockey tickets and a host of other things (see my essay “Trust and Betrayal”).
This led to the breakup of our business and gave me the freedom to go on my own and build the Château Eau Claire with a new and honest partner, George Byers. George and his wife, Betty, had been close friends in Kansas City and I had hired Betty to do the interiors of the first Château. We had a wonderful partnership. Shortly after completing the Château Eau Claire George developed a fatal case of leukemia. We had already purchased the land for a future condominium project, but Betty was uncomfortable moving forward without George, so we sold that land. That was unfortunate because the land we sold is where the Deerbrook Condominiums are today.
During this period, Robbie had succumbed to alcoholism that she could not overcome in spite of stays at three of the best alcohol rehabilitation facilities in the US. It finally got to the point where I had to file for divorce and ended up with custody of all three kids as Robbie moved back to Kansas City. (She married an old mutual friend who was also a recovering alcoholic, but her disease had taken its toll and she died at an early age.)
Realty Business: Coates, Reid & Waldron
I had realized that I was missing a real opportunity by not being in the real estate business. In Colorado you can sell your own property without being licensed, elsewhere you had to have a real estate license. In 1968, I passed the test for a broker's license and started Aspen Château Realty. Later, I took on Brent Waldron as a partner, bought Reid Realty and changed the name to Coates, Reid & Waldron. It was not long before we were the largest real estate firm in the Aspen/Snowmass area.
My personal life also took a major turn as Betty Byers and I became very close through working together. We were married in 1977 (see “A Love Like Friendship: Betty Byers” for the full story.)
The success of these early projects inspired me to continue in the development business and I was fortunate in creating a number of successful projects. I partnered with Fritz and Fabi Benedict (see my essay on Fritz and Fabi Benedict) to build the Snowmass Center and the Ridge Condominiums in Snowmass. On my own, I developed the Aspen Athletic Club building, the Racquet Club Condominiums and several single-family homes and duplexes.
When Betty and I were visiting Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, we discovered a unique piece of beachfront property and built four large, luxury villas that were sold as soon as we finished them, except for the one we kept.
There were challenges to building in Mexico, but we found the lack of regulation and the creativity of the workers made the building experience remarkably challenging and creative. For example, the villa we were building for ourselves was right on the ocean with a wonderful view of the Bay but no view down the coast. We asked the contractor if it would be possible to extend the pool out about six feet so we would have a view down the coast when sitting in the pool. He said no problem and proceeded to build this extension even though it was 25 feet in the air.
One day we realized that the window of the third bedroom was essentially looking into a landscaped wall and suggested that it should be located on another wall to have a better view. We went to lunch with the contractor and by the time we returned the old opening was closed and the new window installed!
Later, we built a 20,000 square-foot beachfront home that had two elevators and was featured in Veranda magazine. We also restored a colonial home in San Miguel de Allende that was featured in Architectural Digest.
Mexico: It All Began at the Oceana Bar
It all began at the Oceana Bar in downtown Puerto Vallarta.
Jean Ingham and I were having a few margaritas and discussing our Colorado development projects. After the third—maybe it was the fourth—margarita we decided it would be fun to join forces and build a development in Puerto Vallarta.
The next day, now that we were sober, we still thought it was a good idea and started to look for land. Jean found a beautiful piece of land high on a hill with a view of the entire crystal-blue bay. I was impressed but insisted that we should look for something on the water because I felt the romance of being right on the water with the mesmeric sound of the surf was what most buyers were looking for in a vacation home.
Our search finally took us to an abandoned project right on the ocean just south of the Camino Real Hotel. The architect for the hotel had started a condo project, but he had run out of money and the land was for sale. We suspected he was stealing his materials from the hotel project and was caught. Jean and I did not like his design, so we decided to tear out his work and build four luxury villas. We were each going to keep one and sell the other two.
Although we hired a local architect/builder, we did most of the design work ourselves. In those days, building in Puerto Vallarta was nearly unregulated. There seemed to be no zoning and getting a building permit just required paying the fee. We hired Tony Santivania as our architect/builder and were underway.
The construction crew proved to be very hard-working and very creative. They took real pride in their work. One day Betty and I went into a bedroom that was almost finished and decided that we had put the window on the wrong wall. In the U. S. this would have meant preparing a change order and a lot of other red tape, but we simply told Tony what we wanted, went to lunch together, and when we came back the crew had bricked up the original window and cut out the opening for the new one.
I was intrigued by the crew’s approach to light switches and outlets. They simply finished all the walls in a room then came back and marked exactly where you wanted the electricity to go. Then they would channel out the grooves for the wiring. It made a lot of sense when your walls were brick and sometimes electrical ideas change when you see the completed room.
The patio of our villa was only 20 feet back from the ocean and about 25 feet above the shoreline. We had an idyllic view straight out at the bay except our view up and down the coast was limited. We remarked how nice it would be if the swimming pool, which stopped at the edge of the patio, could be extended out over the shore to give a view up and down the coast. It sounded impossible as this would mean extending the pool out in space 25 feet above the rocks. The answer we got was the same answer we always got – no problem!
The next day the crew had cut trees to support the steel framework for the pool extension 25 feet above the beach and only a few days later we had our spectacular extended pool that seems to be floating in air.
Paying the workers was also unique. Every Saturday afternoon a Briggs-type armored truck would roll into the driveway and the crew would line up and receive their pay in cash from a window in the truck.
While the house was being built, Betty and I traveled all over Mexico buying antiques and folk art and commissioning custom-made furniture. We rented a small warehouse near the airport to store the purchases until the house was completed.
The only hiccup on the project came when Tony, our architect/builder, was thrown in jail, apparently for a fight with his wife. That's when we learned that you never want to be in a Mexican jail. The food is so bad and so scarce that everyone in the jail had a friend bring their meals. We only had to feed Tony for four days. We surmise that he was able to get his wife to drop the charges.
Betty and I had villa one and our partners, Jean and Carol Ingham, had villa number two. That left villas number three, a three-bedroom three bath home and villa number four a five-bedroom, five-bath villa available for sale.
Shortly after we moved in, we invited Lee and Joanne Lyon down from Aspen and they fell in love with villa number three and bought it. Almost 30 years later their kids still own it. Villa number four was sold to Debbi and Randy Fields and, although they later divorced, they still own it.
Jean Ingham was a man easily bored and he sold his villa after a year and went back to work in Colorado. Betty and I loved the creativity of the business, so we went on to buy, remodel, furnish and sell a number of villas in both Puerto Vallarta and San Miguel de Allende.