Stranahan/Courtesy photo
2024 was a significant year for Aspen’s ever-growing arts, entertainment and culture offerings:
Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey celebrated its 20th anniversary by officially opening its doors Stranahan’s Whiskey Lodge at 307 South Mill Street, in the space that formerly housed Aspen Pie Shop. The Lodge marks Stranahan’s return to Aspen.
The story goes that more than 20 years ago, a barn fire brought together two locals: Jess Graber, a volunteer firefighter, and George Stranahan, founder of Woody Creek Tavern, longtime brewery owner and whiskey connoisseur. This meeting and the friendship that followed would transform into the creation of one of the country’s first single malt whiskeys.
Aspen Lodge aims to celebrate these roots while ushering in a new era as the American Single Malt category awaits official whiskey designation.
“We return to Aspen, where I began the adventure of American single malt twenty years ago. Opening the doors to our Stranahan’s Whiskey Lodge is a thank you to our friends, family and fans who helped us get here, but it’s also a long-awaited homecoming,” Graber said in a statement. prepared.
—Sarah Girgis
When photographer Marcia Haritgan arrived in Aspen in 1982, the family-owned Mountain Chalet had already been a community staple for nearly 30 years. She found a community of fellow skiers and friends there, but was especially drawn to founders and owners Marian and Ralph Melville after meeting them in 1988.
“Marian and Ralph loved history. I said to them, probably in the mid-90s, “I love everything you’ve done; we need to create a scrapbook for the lobby so guests can enjoy some of the history,” Hartigan said. “So I did this by going through old photos in their attic, and we even sent letters to guests saying, ‘If you have any photos, send them to me.’ This one album turned into seven.”
Making albums and books about the Mountain Chalet is something that has become a passion and a habit for her. “The Mountain Lodge: The Story of the Mountain Lodge, as told by Ralph Melville” is his latest tribute to a place that has become like a home away from home for many loyal guests since its opening in 1954.
—Sarah Girgis
The Bayer Center’s third exhibition, “Bauhaus Typography at 100,” which opened June 11 and runs through April 25, 2025, explores and celebrates the school’s legacy in graphic design and typography .
A collaboration with the San Francisco-based company Archives of letter shapes, the exhibition features the works of Johannes Itten, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, Joost Schmidt and Herbert Bayer as well as others whose innovative typographic contributions are often overlooked, including women like Friedl Dicker.
Archive of letterforms on display for the first time “Bauhaus typography at 100 years,» in 2019 in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus and published a corresponding book. The exhibition is structured so that each gallery represents a different chapter.
Bauhaus typography emphasized simplicity, functionality, and readability and moved away from the ornate and decorative letterforms of the past. Key figures in the movement, such as Bayer, created new layouts and typographic fonts, including universal typefaces. These fonts were sans serif, considered more readable than serif fonts.
Although the school only lasted 14 years, it had a huge influence on what followed.
—Sarah Girgis
It’s been a decade since the Shigeru Ban designed Aspen Art Museum (AAM) at the corner of South Spring Street and East Hyman Avenue has opened.
After an international search in 2007, the Aspen Art Museum architect selection committee — led by Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, former CEO and director of the Aspen Art Museum — unanimously selected Shigeru Ban Architects (SBA).
The building, however, has become a controversial and controversial topic within the community.
“It was such a difficult project to start,” Ban said. “We designed two buildings – the first for the original site, but the community didn’t want to put a museum there. So we abandoned the first site because the community didn’t agree. I had to redesign the building for the second (and current) location, but it was very small for what they wanted. That’s why it was quite a difficult project.
—Sarah Girgis
After 37 years, beloved Aspen restaurant Mezzaluna closed its doors the first week of October to make way for a new concept, ZigZag, which opened in December.
“It was just time (for me) to play more and travel. Thirty-one years is a long enough time to do anything,” said owner Deryk Cave. “It doesn’t get any easier with competition and…a lot of old restaurants…have closed their doors and big money is starting to come in and buy up all the places.”
Cave purchased Mezzaluna six years after it opened in 1993 from the original owner, Charif Souki, with his then-business partner, Joe Cosniac. Souki also owned the Mezzaluna restaurant in Los Angeles, which became a hotspot for people following the OJ Simpson case since both victims worked at the restaurant, and is where Nicole Brown Simpson had her last meal.
At that time, celebrities such as Hunter S. Thompson and Jimmy Buffett, Jack Nicholson, Bono and even former President Bill Clinton were often seen at 624 E. Cooper Ave.
Twenty years after Cave and Cosniac purchased the restaurant, Cave bought out Cosniac’s portion of the restaurant, and Sutherland – who started as a waiter in 1990 and worked as a manager before the restaurant was sold – became the new partner in Cellar.
—Sarah Girgis
Sarah Girgis is arts and entertainment editor for The Aspen Times. She can be reached at 970-429-9151 or sgirgis@aspentimes.com.