The Aspen City Council voted unanimously June 9 to approve converting one of the city’s most intact Victorian homes into a six-room boutique lodge, a decision that required departing from a 2017 city ordinance setting the minimum room count for boutique lodges at ten. The council also advanced to second reading a contested crawl space expansion request by Councilmember Bill Guth’s wife, approved a routine consent calendar, and heard council members sound the alarm on a historic drought gripping the Roaring Fork Valley.
The boutique lodge decision, on Ordinance 9 for the Smith-Elisha House at 320 West Main Street, drew the largest public comment of the evening, with immediate neighbors opposing the conversion and preservation advocates arguing forcefully in support. Property owner Scott Kay, who purchased the 1886 Queen Anne Victorian in 2021, sought to convert the property from commercial office use to a six-room lodge with designated historic interiors — the first application under the 2017 boutique lodge ordinance.
Sara Adams of BendonAdams, representing Kay, told the council that fitting ten rooms into the building would require gutting the historic interior. Planning Director Daniel Folke confirmed that a ten-room boutique lodge at the property would bypass council entirely and go straight to the Planning and Zoning Commission. The Historic Preservation Commission had previously recommended approval.
Immediate neighbors came out sharply against it. Ben Rose, an attorney representing several adjacent property owners, argued the 2017 council had expressly debated and rejected six-room lodges — specifically to prevent properties from becoming residences in all but name. He said approving the application through a planned development process would allow a single property to undo what the city had declined to do through open public process. The owners of the adjacent carriage house at 314 West Main, speaking both in person and online, described years of disruptions from unauthorized short-term renters — cars blocking the alley for days, guests treating their land as an extension of the rental — and noted the property line sits only 22 inches from the east wall of 320 West Main. With only one non-ADA parking space for six guest rooms, they said the problems could only grow. A neighbor who lives directly across the alley said he was never contacted during the applicant’s outreach despite living there year-round, and described the narrow alley as already nearly impassable in winter.
Supporters countered that the binding management plan Kay proposed — including on-site staffing from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. with obligations running with the property regardless of future ownership — provides more oversight than any commercial use the zoning allows. A former Aspen mayor noted that a bar or restaurant at the same address could be approved by Planning and Zoning alone, with no parking requirement and no management plan. Letters from Elisha family descendants expressed support for the conversion as honoring the home’s legacy.
Council members approved the project with two conditions. After-hours emergency management personnel must be reachable and able to respond within 30 minutes, and a compliance audit must be conducted two years after the certificate of occupancy is issued and every two years afterward to confirm the property is operating as a genuine lodge. Councilmember Bill Guth noted a concern that the boutique lodge structure could eventually serve as a workaround allowing limited residential use in a zone where new market-rate residential is prohibited, and asked staff to monitor the outcome. The vote was five to zero.
The evening’s other contested item involved a conflict of interest. Council heard the first reading of Ordinance 13, a request by Lisa Guth — wife of Councilmember Bill Guth, who was recused and left the chamber — to expand the crawl space beneath their home at 150 North 8th Street into approximately 1,000 additional square feet of livable area. The home is part of a three-unit residential multi-family building where city code caps individual units at 2,000 square feet. The unit currently measures roughly 3,471 square feet, already above that cap — a discrepancy city staff attributed to how floor area was calculated when the building was approved in 2012. Staff said it cannot make the required findings to support a variance, specifically that the property lacks reasonable use, given that the family already occupies more space than zoning allows.
Patrick Raleigh of Raleigh Design Planning, representing the Guths, argued the 2,000-square-foot cap was originally aimed at preventing transferable development rights from diluting multifamily density incentives — not at restricting subgrade space — and raised the possibility of a broader code amendment. Mayor Richards said the council was there to hear the application before it and that a code amendment could be taken up separately. Council members asked staff to address several questions at second reading: whether such a crawl space conversion has been granted before, what protections exist against a sale following approval, how the hardship criteria apply given the unit already exceeds the cap, and what comparable APCHA unit sizes look like. The council advanced Ordinance 13 to second reading unanimously.
Council also unanimously approved Ordinance 12 on first reading, which would establish one transferable development rights certificate for a historic property at 406 West Smuggler Street as part of an already-approved restoration project, with a public hearing set for June 23.
On the consent calendar, a question arose over a unit at 161 Mining Stock Parkway approved for remodel funding after what a council member described as a forced eviction following years of willful damage to the unit and neighboring units. Staff confirmed the former occupant was placed on the APCHA ineligibility list, barring future participation in the city’s affordable housing program, but said the city lacked authority to pursue financial restitution. Council asked staff to explore whether deed-of-sale amendments could create stronger disincentives for future willful damage. The full consent calendar — which also included items covering Wheeler Opera House digital advertising services, an electric circuit replacement, and a recreation center locker contract — passed unanimously.
Council and mayor comments were dominated by drought. Councilmember John Doyle read from a June 4 Roaring Fork Conservancy report: rivers in the watershed are flowing at 21 to 62 percent of normal, the Roaring Fork River in Aspen is at 75 cubic feet per second against a seasonal average of 352, and the Colorado River at Glenwood Springs is at 3,000 cubic feet per second against an average above 10,000. All nine local snow-till sites have no measurable snowpack. Mayor Richards said the Colorado River District has for the first time called the historic user pool into action to cover municipal water contracts, enforcing senior water rights over junior rights across the region. The city is in Stage 3 water restrictions. Councilmember Christine Benedetti said Pitkin County planned to implement Stage 1 fire restrictions the following day while the U.S. Forest Service was not, which she called confusing to the public. The National Interagency Fire Center is forecasting an above-average wildfire season across western Colorado.
Deputy City Manager Tyler Christoff announced the city’s biannual community survey is now open, mailed to randomly selected residents with an online option at aspencommunityvoice.com, and that a free paint drop-off event was scheduled for June 13 at Basalt High School.
During citizens’ comments, a resident asked the council whether Aspen has effectively abandoned the light rail system approved in a 1998 federal Record of Decision, noting that the current transportation re-evaluation by Jacobs Engineering does not include a review of light rail. No council member responded during the public comment period.
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