Broadmoor Hotel
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The Broadmoor Hotel is a 5-star/5-diamond luxury hotel and resort located in southwestern Colorado Springs, Colorado, in the United States. Built in the early 20th century as the "Grand Dame of the Rockies", it was one of the finest resort destinations along the Rocky Mountains during the age of railroads. It continues to be a popular conference destination for businessmen and government officials. It also offers a tennis facility rated #3 by Tennis Magazine.
The resort dates from 1891, when it began as a small hotel and casino. The current resort was built in 1918 by Spencer Penrose, a Philadelphia entrepreneur whose brother was Senator Boies Penrose. Nicknamed "Spec" for skill at speculation, Spencer Penrose amassed a fortune from mining claims at nearby Cripple Creek, and after a grand tour through Europe's finest hostelries, decided to build one. With no expense spared, he succeeded. The hotel attracted a wealthy clientele in the early 20th century drawn to the beauty of Pikes Peak, as well as to the mountain air which aided recuperation from tuberculosis. Penrose was so pleased with the Broadmoor that in 1937 he added nearby a monument to its creator -- his tomb, taking the rather unique form of an 80-foot hilltop observation tower which overlooks the resort. Persuaded not to name the structure after himself, it is instead called the "Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun," honoring Penrose's friend who had died in 1935.
The Broadmoor resort was formerly the site of the Broadmoor World Arena, a historic ice arena which hosted the World Figure Skating Championships five times between 1957 and 1975. The original home to the Broadmoor Skating Club, for many years the rink was an important international training center for the sport, employing such notable coaches as Carlo Fassi. The rink was demolished in 1994 to make way for a new wing of the hotel. On the hotel grounds, there remains a memorial to the Broadmoor skaters who were members of the United States team killed in a 1961 plane crash.
[edit] Trivia
The hotel's logo is all-uppercase with a small letter A: BROADMOOR. Spencer Penrose and William Jackson Palmer, the founder of Colorado Springs, were locked in a friendly albeit competitive rivalry. Palmer owned the Antlers Hotel, and for that reason, Penrose required the "A" in "Broadmoor" always to be smaller than the other letters.
According to a report in Newsweek magazine (December 11, 2006), President George W. Bush decided to quit drinking after waking up with a hangover in the Broadmoor Hotel one morning in the summer of 1986.
