The Eagle River Inn is back. The hotel that was first built in the late 1800s has been a staple of Minturn on the north side of the Eagle River, across from the historic Minturn Saloon for over a century. The new life that has been put back into this lodge is courtesy of some local investors and Tierney and Joe Delude, two Chicago transplants who met years ago in Aspen after graduating college.
“I had just graduated from Cornell and Joe graduated from Villanova and we met in Aspen during the winter of 1987-88 and we fell in love with Colorado. But then we moved to Chicago to get “real jobs” and raised five kids and as the last one was going off to college, we knew we wanted to get back to Colorado and this opportunity came up,” Tierney Delude said.
Joe Delude and his childhood friend, Rob Hahn, grew up in Ramsey, New Jersey. Joe had talked Hahn into coming out to work in Aspen after college and unlike Joe, Hahn never left Colorado and eventually got into real estate development.
“We would come out to Eagle County often to visit and one time I told Rob, ‘Look, I got you out to Colorado years ago, now you’ve got to get me back,'” Joe Delude said, and eventually, Hahn told the Delude’s about this opportunity in Minturn.
The Eagle River Inn was purchased from longtime owner, Richard Galloway, also known by his nickname, Old Dog, around town. There is a collage of photos on the wall of the hotel showing the original property. One photo shows what the hotel looked like in 1892, another photo lets you compare what the original roof line looked like compared to the new the roof line in the late 1920s, another photo shows the property in 1984 and then several photos record the big remodel in 1986. In 2000, the inn stopped renting out the 12 rooms on a nightly basis and instead became a place where the whole property was rented as one unit and that continued for several years.
Support Local Journalism
When the property changed hands, the name stayed but many things behind the scenes got an upgrade such as the boilers, heaters and the electrical system. Then, it was time to gut the place and redo all the rooms, floors, walls, shower pans, toilets, vanities, sinks, mirrors and more.
“Everything needed to be redone. Luckily, one of our managing partners in the property is Ted Leach with Vail Custom Builders and he was a big help in getting the contractors to do the work,” Joe Delude said.
The style inside of the Eagle River Inn was created by Amy Casey and her team at Casey & Co. Interior Design, a design firm based out of Vail and Denver.
“We wanted it to have a modern, clean and fresh new feel, while still keeping the old charm and a nod to the Southwest flavor it used to have,” Tierney Delude said. “It was important that we keep some of the original features, like the hand-craftsmanship of the front doors and the coyote brass handles, those must have been custom-made.”
One major change is the exterior color of the building, which was painted white.
“Everyone seems to like it. We’ve had a lot of Eagle County residents and people from the town of Minturn stop in. We even had the mayor of Minturn and his wife stop by, she used to work here as the manager for about four or five years before they closed,” Joe Delude said.
In addition to the 12 rooms and a two-bedroom suite with a small kitchen and living room, there is a nice lounge area and space for dining on the lobby level. The rooms come with continental breakfast, and you can also order drinks like beer, wine and non-alcoholic options and sit on the deck near the hot tub or at one of the new fire pits along the Eagle River in the grassy and spacious backyard.
“We had a group come in after they had been to the Minturn Market and just order drinks and enjoy the property,” Tierney Delude said. “We welcome hikers or bikers in, there are so many great trails around here, so stop in afterwards.”
The Delude’s are studying up on Minturn’s history so they can pass along the stories of this quaint railroad and mining town to their guests. They have been reading “Minturn, A Memoir” by Bill Burnett. Burnett, who was a lifelong resident of Minturn who is now deceased, spent 10 years writing the book, offering up anecdotes and historical photos of the people and industries that shaped the town.
“We just devoured the information in that book and love sharing stories we are learning about Minturn with our guests,” Tierney Delude said. “We even have two employees that grew up in Minturn, so we like to embrace that and we’ve been able to get to know a lot of the people in town.”
The Delude’s are personally involved in the operation of the Eagle River Inn. They live right on the property and although Joe still works from home full time for a company in Chicago, they are both very hands-on and are excited to be a part of the community and love the local feel of everything. “We hope that Minturn adopts us because we have adopted them,” Tierney Delude said.
