One-Minute Hotel / The Little Nell, Aspen
Five-star luxury, sky-high mountains, drag skiing and go-go dancers in the snow… Gay Ski Week in Aspen is very much the thing.
So, where are we?
Aspen, Colorado, half in town, half on Aspen Mountain. Just fly into Denver and hop a smaller plane across the Rocky Mountains. Easy!
And where we’re staying...?
The Little Nell, Aspen’s only five-star hotel, which is quite an achievement bearing in mind what a five-star operation they are running in Aspen, a little town dripping in money: big-name design stores, a full-scale contemporary art gallery housed in big-name architecture, millionaires, billionaires, squillionaires by the hundred and, come Gay Ski Week, RuPaul’s Drag Race stars, gay Olympic skiers, parties at the top of the mountain, parties around pools, parties on rooftops as it snows.
What’s the style?
For all its five-star-ness, The Little Nell is keeping the luxury very much under the radar. Yes, those pictures are by internationally-reputed artists but don’t draw attention to it and the wine cellar may have the best selection of 20,000 bottles of wine in the whole state but it’s tucked away downstairs in a funny little cellar with names scrawled on the walls. The atmosphere is of pared-back luxe with open fires and low ceilings and muted colours. Nothing screams. We’ll leave that to the drag queens skiing down Aspen Mountain for charity during Gay Ski Week.
And the rooms?
Nothing is screaming in the rooms either – unless, of course, you get lucky. The regular rooms and junior suites had a recent makeover by a smart New York design company to add an extra layer of loveliness to what was already gorgeous. The suites – huge with open fires and drive-in wardrobes – are by famed Chicago designer Holly Hunt and come in muted creams and blues and chocolates.
Is there a story?
The story of Aspen is a story of money. The whole place used to be a highly successful silver mine so they’ve always had spending power. But more than just money, Aspen has always been a centre for the arts and for spiritual renewal. Oh and Hollywood celebrities and world-class skiing even though there’s plenty to do in summer, when the whole place becomes a trecking wonderland… with a five-star hotel to come back to, maybe a massage in the spa.
And to eat?
Take your pick. The big dinners happen at Element 47, contemporary cuisine that has had five-star/five-diamond ratings since time immemorial, whether you’re after a full-scale wagyu beef dinner or a simple house-made pasta. If you want to take it down a notch, grab a sofa in the Living Room by the fire just around the corner. Or head to Ajax Tavern, the perfect spot for après-ski carb-loading on truffle fries at lunchtime or later with views from the terrace right onto the mountain. For drinks there’s The Wine Bar at The Little Nell with its award-winning sommeliers (they know a thing about sommeliers here: it’s like a training ground for Master Sommeliers). There’s even a Krug Lounge if you really like your wines. Or try your luck getting into The Board Room, a hidden speakeasy you need a password to get into via door behind a bookcase.
So, to sum up...
You don’t acquire legendary status in the hotel world without deserving it. You just don’t. Maybe it’s the mixture of location (the mountain is so here you can obviously ski in/ski out), a town that puts the fun back into luxury, the skiing, which is world class whatever level you are and the high-jinks of Gay Ski Week, the oldest and easily most fun in all of America, but The Little Nell has to take quite a lot of the credit for being at the centre of pretty much everything that ever goes on here, which is quite a lot… oh and for having a pop-up gay bar come GSW.
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