Old-timers Break Ground on New Columbia Luxury Hotel

Jim Lincoln and the Campbell’s, as in Marty and Jeff, Broke Ground yesterday morning on the Columbia Hotel, billed as Telluride's "first full service luxury hotel."

The $3.8 million project, to be built by Shaw Construction, Co., will be located across from the Oak Street ski lift (No. 8) and the in town gondola site. It was designed by Telluride's Jim Burleigh.



The owners will operate the hotel, which will include 21 rooms with fireplaces and steam baths, including two penthouse suites; a full-service bar and fine dining room; concierge and full room service; a conference facility; library; exercise room with roof-top Jacuzzi; media room (fax, computer, ect.); and two employee apartments.

It is scheduled to open in December, 1995... if, that is, Lincoln was really joking when, as his financier, Tricia Maxon, vice president of Telluride First National Bank, came sprinting down South Aspen Street, only a tad late for the show.
"Now, we're behind," Lincoln said. "We can't open on time."
That was the mood, at the site just behind the Ore Station condominiums. When the group moved to actually break ground with ceremonial shovels, it was frozen. That, too, brought a laugh.
"It has taken us two years to get to this point," Lincoln said. "Last year's building moratorium held us up for a year. But we're glad to get going."

Lincoln, Campbell and Burleigh all hit town about the same time, 21 years ago. Lincoln came from New Jersey, Burleigh from California, and Campbell arrived with, he said, "all the other guys up on the mountain."
Campbell was a member of the first ski patrol, and is still on that team, as have been through the years some of the old-timers he came in with, from Steamboat, where they had first gathered after moving to Colorado from all over the country.
"We're talking about Jim Drew, Scotty McIntyre, Greg Henzie, and the rest," Campbell said. "The whole crew."
Friends came for the occasion. Mary Duffy, standing by the fence surrounding the site, kidded them, and told a reporter that "unfortunately, they were the first people I met when I got here. That was my downfall."