Development Plans Fueling Range War

The drive to Telluride is a journey through beauty. The long snaking road climbs through a crack in the angular San Juan Mountains and finally issues out to the valley floor, a 3-mile-long swath of green where cattle graze amid wildflowers.

This is the frontyard to Telluride, a storied mining settlement where ascending tiers of violet-and green-painted Victorian homes cling precariously to the mountainside and the entire town backs into a box canyon.

The only way in and out of town is to cross the narrow valley floor. It may be the most disputed slice of property in Colorado.

Fights over land are hardly new in this region, where such disagreements were once settled with guns. What’s happening now is an updated Western duel in which a wealthy resort town is pitted against a rich absentee landowner, with each party claiming the right of self-determination and each motivated by power and money.

At stake are 860 acres of meadows and wetlands leading into one of the most spectacular settings in the Rockies: a town hemmed by sandstone walls, sheltered under a waterfall, and home to movie stars and corporate honchos.

The valley floor is more than Telluride’s front door, it is a habitat for diverse species of plants and animals, including a squadron of rare butterflies that lured writer Vladimir Nabokov, an avid lepidopterist, to town in the 1950s. The land gives rise to the San Miguel River, one of the last in Colorado that hasn’t been dammed.

The owner of the contested property is Neal Blue, a defense contractor and maker of nuclear reactors. The San Diego multimillionaire wants to build on his parcel, which some have valued at $60 million, if it is developed.

Opposing him is Telluride, a tiny town with outsized power and an abiding aversion to development. After years of wrangling, both sides are entrenched. The town wants control of the land. Blue says it’s not for sale.

This summer, Telluride raised the stakes. In a special election, voters overwhelmingly gave approval for the town to condemn Blue’s property.

Condemnation is seen by some as an audacious maneuver, especially considering the valley floor property lies not in Telluride but in the jurisdiction of San Miguel County and anyway is somewhat larger in area than Telluride.

But this town’s ambitions have never been limited by its size.

A Mid-1800s Theme

Telluride is but a mile long. A jumble of homes and condos radiate from Main Street, maintaining an architectural theme from the mid-1800s. Driving is discouraged: Most people walk or bike. Neither bikes nor homes are locked here.

The entire town is on the National Register of Historic Places and, through restrictive zoning, zealously maintains its quaintness.

But character comes at a cost. The average home price last year in Telluride was more than $800,000. In Mountain Village, the settlement atop Telluride’s ski mountain, the average price for a house is more than $3.4 million.

Visitors flock here in the winter for skiing and the rest of the year for music and cultural festivals. Telluride is also a magnet for those who see the laid-back town as a model of progressive government.

Street corner debates concerning current events are common, with locals emphatically gesturing with cups of latte. Politics is taken seriously. Things were so contentious at town council meetings this summer that a shaman was brought in to perform a ceremony to rid the council chamber of bad vibes.

“The town of Telluride is one of the most politically volatile places you can imagine,” said Tom Ragonettie, the lawyer who represents Blue and the San Miguel Valley Corp., which is the landowner of record. “It’s a very small and very incestuous place.”

Yet enormously powerful. Arrayed behind the condemnation effort are entertainers Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer and Daryl Hannah, all residents of the area. Few of the very rich live in the town itself, preferring the mesas above it.

Other wealthy landowners are EBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman, AT&T; Chief Executive C. Michael Armstrong, and Robert W. Pittman, who until last month was chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner.

In a battle of deep pockets, Telluride can more than hold its own. The town has socked away about $6 million to buy land for open space, and a local environmental group has raised about $5.6 million to purchase the valley floor, back when that was still a possibility.

With money from a bond measure and other funds, Telluride has a war chest of nearly $19 million. This from a town that has barely 2,000 full-time residents.

“People see this as David versus Goliath,” said Telluride Mayor John Steel, an East Coast transplant who favors a white cowboy hat. “But it’s really Goliath against Goliath.”

An Opaque Personality

As long as anybody can remember, there have been arguments about the future of the valley floor. The Idarado Corp., which for decades mined gold in the region, sold the tract to Blue in 1983 for about $7 million. The land essentially has remained unchanged since then.

Even though Blue owns the property, he seldom visits Telluride. Former Mayor Amy Levek remembers meeting Blue more than 10 years ago when he met informally with people in town to sound them out on development of the valley floor. His was an opaque personality, Levek said.

“He struck me as a person who has a very strong idea of what he wants to accomplish,” she said. “One person I know who knows Neal Blue pretty well has described him as a character in an Ayn Rand book. He’s used to getting his way.”

Things went sour for Blue’s interests in 1993, after a bizarre foul-up. A San Miguel Valley Corp. consultant prepared development plans, including draining wetlands “under the guise of agriculture,” buying the pesky local newspaper and using mine tailings to line the bottoms of four artificial lakes.

The consultant intended to fax that document to the SMVC office in Telluride. Instead, it was sent to exactly the wrong place: the San Miguel County Planning Office.

The misfired fax stirred the passions of anyone left in town who had failed to form an opinion on the matter. The general feeling was that Blue had finally tipped his hand and shown that he planned to erect a monstrosity that would essentially trash the neighborhood.

“The fax was a turning point. Everything fell apart after that; the middle ground was lost,” Levek said. “Telluride can be very difficult, very involved and opinionated. After the fax, things were more polarized.”

Levek, who supports condemning the property, said the goal is to preserve the essential character of Telluride. Others see an economic element at work: Telluride earns its tourism income because of its pristine setting. That makes the town willing to spend nearly $20 million to protect that revenue.

Although the majority in town are clearly in favor of condemnation, some believe that Telluride is spending too much money to trample on someone’s rights.

“I understand all the arguments, but I still think the guy--whoever he is--has a right to do what he wants with his property,” said Elizabeth, who would not give her last name because her employer is a strong supporter of condemnation. “It’s rich people willing to spend money to preserve their self-indulgent way of life.”

But to others, the fight is about drawing the line against development and preserving the last best place.

“From an outside viewpoint, I think a lot of people would look at this as a bunch of spoiled people who want everything,” said Joan May, executive director of Sheep Mountain Alliance, a citizens group that began the movement to preserve the valley floor. “But this community is dedicated to open space, and we have the resources to do it. Once something is developed, it’s gone forever.”