Dunton Hot Springs

How a Ghost Town Transformed Into a Two Key Luxury Hotel

"Set in isolated southwestern Colorado an hour from the nearest town, this resurrected mining settlement turns 13 cabins and period buildings into a luxury resort without letting its Old West spirit curdle into kitsch. As you approach, the structures look as if the last miner just left; step into the saloon, still in its original spot and scrawled with names that include Butch Cassidy, and you’re inclined to believe the staff when they say it’s authentic. The illusion never tries to be a museum piece: the old saloon serves contemporary cuisine, the Pony Express building holds a spa and yoga studio, the former general store is now a luxury accommodation, and the bathhouse pool is transcendent. In the 1990s, the new owners painstakingly disassembled and catalogued the cabins log by log, reassembling them closer together around the saloon and deliberately marking new additions with vertical siding so you can read what’s original and what’s not; some elements were sourced from elsewhere, like the Pony Express from Colorado Springs and the Tipping Cabin from Parachute. The result is an homage informed by a colorful past—from 1950s stays for around five dollars a night in floorless cabins (less if you brought your own sheet) to hippie-era naked volleyball and biker mayhem—and a present-day aesthetic that mixes true artifacts (an early-20th-century lasso, a copper tub from the brothel) with eclectic finds (a Rajasthani wedding bed, Western film memorabilia), plus rainforest showers and heated floors. Call it a casual fidelity to history paired with modern luxuries; outside, it looks about the same, but step inside a cabin and it’s a little different in here." - Mitchell Friedman