ROARING FORK BROADCASTING COMPANY
The Mountain Chalet shut its doors on May 3 as it began extensive renovations under new ownership, marking the end of an era in Aspen. The inn opened its doors on Christmas Eve 1954 and provided a direct connection to the laid back, rootsy nature of Aspen in the years surrounding the creation of the ski area.
The 70-year history of the storied inn comes alive in the new coffee table book, “The Mountain Chalet: The Story of the Mountain Chalet told by Ralph Melville” by Marcia Hartigan.
“There's not a lot left over from the Aspen of the 1950s,” Hartigan said from her home in Illinois. “To me, the Mountain Chalet feels like it has the same historical significance as The Wheeler Opera House and The Hotel Jerome. It represents its own era in the same kind of way.”
Hartigan first came to Aspen in 1982 and started staying at the Mountain Chalet in 1988. She struck up a friendship with Ralph and Marian Melville, the owners of the historic inn.
Hartigan owned an ice cream shop in Illinois and Melville would give her advice on running a business.
“Ralph became quite a mentor for me,” Hartigan said. “We had a lot of things in common and I really enjoyed listening to him talk about running the Mountain Chalet. He gave me lots of advice on working with other people and we shared a common opinion that money did not make you successful, so that also made me gravitate even closer to him.”
In 1994, Hartigan approached Melville about the idea of putting together some of the history of the lodge. She gathered pictures from Melville’s personal collection and asked guests to send in photos. That one album in 1994 became seven over the years. For the 60th anniversary of the lodge in the 2014-15 season, Hartigan made a video in which she took photos from the seven albums and set them to music.
The Mountain Chalet held a weekly event called the Glühwein Party where guests and locals came to the Mountain Chalet for free fondue and a cash bar. The Melvilles would screen the video at the Glühwein while Ralph would talk over the music and tell stories about the Mountain Chalet.
“The guests just loved listening to Ralph talk for an hour and I recorded his narration of several of those screenings,” Hartigan said. “And thankfully I did. Ralph passed away the next year in 2016 on Feb. 15. It wasn't completely unexpected. He was 90. He had been fighting a type of leukemia and he had stopped blood transfusions. I had made a hard copy photo album for him which I gave to him just days before he died. And it was really quite an emotional moment because he knew that he was dying in a matter of days.”
Hartigan recalls Melville’s last Glühwein party vividly.
“Ralph died on a Monday, but the previous Monday he came to the Glühwein for the last time,” she said. “The guests who were staying at the lodge at that time knew it would be his last Glühwein ever. Ralph was a person who didn't like attention. He didn't like to be told, ‘Oh, you're so wonderful for what you've done.’ But that night he accepted everyone's praise with open arms and as he left the building he was even waving and blowing kisses. It was so out of character for him. I was just sobbing because I was so happy that in this final moment he was just taking it all in. It was so wonderful.”
For Marian’s birthday in 2022, Hartigan made a coffee table book that used the text from the recordings of Ralph’s voice from the Glühwein video screenings in 2016 and married it to photos.
Hartigan produced three copies of the book — one for the family, one for herself and one for Marian, who died a year later in March 2023. That gift became the prototype for the book that has now been published as “The Mountain Chalet: The Story of the Mountain Chalet told by Ralph Melville.”
Hartigan said that Ralph and Marian’s legacy is as important as the legacy of the inn itself and she takes pride that her book will stand as a testimony to their life’s work.
“I'm excited that my book is going to keep Ralph and Marian's legacy alive forever,” Hartigan said. “They did a lot that went unnoticed. They did a lot of work at the jail helping people and so much more for the community. It's not just that Ralph built this great lodge. The history of him and Marian and the lodge and everything about him is such an important legacy.
“Ralph was an incredible human being. He was like Jimmy Stewart in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Hartigan said. “If he had never been born we wouldn't have had any of this history. He brought so much joy to so many people.”
The Mountain Chalet closed in May as new ownership — who purchased the property in March 2021 — began a final, intensive renovation stage. The plan is to reduce lodge units to 59 rooms, adding about 2,300 square feet of commercial space for two new restaurants and a reconstruction of the east wing. The building will keep its Chalet appearance, developers said, but it's the first time since its construction all those decades ago that it won’t be under the lead of the Melville family. The total closure of the building is expected to last around roughly two years.
The book was made available to guests of the Mountain Chalet in 2023 and hit local shelves this spring. It is currently available at Explore Booksellers, Carl’s Pharmacy and the Aspen Historical Society, Hartigan said.