The Broadmoor
Opened 1918 By Spencer Penrose On A Cripple Creek Gold And Utah Copper Fortune, Designed By The Architects Of Grand Central Terminal. It Has Held A Five Star Rating Every Year Since The Ratings Began In 1960 The Longest Unbroken Run Of Any Hotel In The World. · Colorado Springs, Colorado
The Broadmoor was built with Cripple Creek gold. Spencer Penrose made a fortune in the mines and in Utah copper, and in 1918 spent a large part of it on an Italian Renaissance hotel beside a lake at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain, hiring Warren and Wetmore, the architects of Grand Central Terminal, to design it. It has held a five-star rating every single year since the ratings were invented in 1960, which is the longest unbroken run of any hotel anywhere. Penrose was not finished: he also built the Pikes Peak Highway, founded the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo above the hotel, and had himself buried in a stone tower on the mountainside. The golf course, laid out by Donald Ross, is where a twenty-year-old Jack Nicklaus won the 1959 US Amateur. The grounds, the lake path and the public spaces can be walked by anyone, which makes an hour at dusk beside the lake one of the better free things in Colorado Springs and the cheapest way to see what Cripple Creek gold actually bought.
1 Lake Avenue, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80906, United States
Open year-round as a working hotel. The grounds, the lake path, the shops and the public rooms are open to non-residents and cost nothing to walk through; restaurants take outside bookings. Golf, the spa, the tennis courts and the Wilderness Experience properties - Cloud Camp, the Ranch at Emerald Valley and Fly Fishing Camp - are for guests or by arrangement, and the mountain properties are seasonal. Seven Falls, which the resort operates, has its own admission and shuttle.