Day 56: What it Means to Experience The Baldpate Inn (National Encourage a Young Writer Day)

Being a 100-year old inn, The Baldpate has many unique qualities! It may be unlike anything you’ve experienced before. While there are many modern conveniences at the Inn (such as wi-fi and cell phone service), a visit is reminiscent of a charming step back in time. 

There is simply too much to fit into one blog, and since it’s National Encourage a Young Writer Day, I challenge you youngsters and young-at-heart to write your own experiences of The Baldpate Inn, with all its unique attributes (and I’m sure I’ve missed a few!) and share them with us. Here’s a few prompts. Haven’t had a chance to visit us yet? Check out our video tour. 

World famous Key Collection and curiosities

Fresh and healthy Soup and Salad Buffet, enjoyed on beautiful handmade stoneware

Rustic lodging (My favorite description comes from an early brochure, “All rooms in the Inn are equipped with hot and cold water.  We believe in “roughing it” with a degree of comfort. The relative enjoyment of a bath is not necessarily a matter of geography.”)

Three-course breakfast! (Do the cinnamon rolls need their own composition? Probably!) And if you’re not a Bed & Breakfast guest, don’t despair! Just make reservations for a special celebration of Breakfast at Baldpate!

Evening snacks and Peachy-Keen (Are you noticing a food theme? It is a Love Language, right?)

Views from the front deck and the porch swing

Library and movie time

Sun deck parties

Aspen autumn glory

KeyThedral Theater Productions

Photo and art collections (Stay tuned for more on our photo collection!)

Gift shop

Hand hewn log furniture

Fireplaces: the warmth, sight, smell, and sounds of wood crackling ablaze

Hummingbirds, wildlife and bears

Your own memories! 

While The Baldpate Inn means something different to each guest who visits, at the heart of it all is a desire to serve all with excellent hospitality. Your experience is certain to be a memory you will cherish especially if you write it down.

Written by Liz Rodgers

Day 46: Seven Keys to Baldpate: The Book, The Play, The Movies, the INN

The Seven Keys to Baldpate is a story that has captured the imaginations of millions and literally shaped history! 

First conceived as a novel, written by Earl Derr Biggers (also famous for creating the Charlie Chan series), The Seven Keys to Baldpate was initially published in 1913. 

The story is of an author seeking solitude to write his next book. What better place than a closed summer inn, clinging to the side of a mountain, in the dead of winter? However, surprise visitors with keys bring mystery, burglary, gunfire and could-it-be love?! 

But the book was only the beginning! 

In 1917, it inspired the naming of The Baldpate Inn in Estes Park, Colorado, as it was the perfect match to the description of the hotel in the story!  And soon our Key Collection was begun, with Biggers himself donating “The original key to Baldpate,” noting that, “All others are imitators.” 

The fascination with this story started early and continued in many formats.

The renowned American playwright George Cohan created the stage-play version, which opened in New York in October of 1913. Interesting to note, when the leading man was hurt in a horse and carriage accident, Cohan himself starred in the three opening performances of his play. 

The play has been performed several times at the Baldpate Inn’s Key-thedral Theatre. Although more recently the boards are tread by professionals, I remember fondly my stint as the slightly-crazed hermit in an all-staff production. (Type casting? Perhaps. Just because no one else was crazy enough to run barefoot along the wall behind the fireplace…)

Several adaptions of The Seven Keys to Baldpate were also made for the silver screen.  (And if they make it again, I'm sure they'll ask me to be Hermit again!)

• In 1917, the same year the “real” Baldpate Inn opened, Paramount Studios and director Hugh Ford created the silent, subtitled movie. It was written by and starred George Cohan. The leading ladies were Anna W. Nisson, Hollywood’s first Swedish import to become a star, and Elda Furry, who soon changed her name to Hedda Hopper, who acted in several silent films before becoming a renowned Hollywood columnist.
• Remade in 1925, Seven Keys to Baldpate was directed by Fred Newmeyer with stars Douglas McLean and Edith Roberts.
• As one of the first talking motion pictures, it was produced in 1929, with Richard Dix, Joseph Allen, Mirian Seegar and Nella Walker in the cast.
• In 1935, Gene Raymond starred in a Radio Pictures production. 
• And, in 1947, a fifth film version was made with Phillip Terry and Jacqueline White.

Not to be missed is the radio theater version starring Jack Benny and Mary Livingston, which we often have playing in the Key Room during our season. 

As you can see, this is a story that has captured the hearts of many throughout the years. 

Stay tuned to our upcoming 2017 Theater Events to see how you can experience the mystery and intrigue of the Seven Keys for yourself! 

 Written by Liz Rodgers

Day 28: Six Degrees of Separation in the Seven Keys

The connections in space and time that exist within The Baldpate Inn and its key collection are staggering. With over 30,000 keys in the collection and nearly 100 years of history, what connections could you have? 

As you will recall from our yesterday’s post about the history of The Baldpate Inn’s Famous key collection, legends say author Earl Derr Biggers visited the Inn and was thunderstruck to see that this very real place was exactly what he had imagined when writing his mystery novel, The Seven Keys to Baldpate. 

In 2013, Dr. Richard Kelley spent an afternoon with his wife, Linda, dining at The Baldpate Inn.  The Baldpate Inn has always been a family business, and Richard had grown up working in a family-run hotel in Waikiki, Hawaii, opened by his parents in 1947.  The name of that hotel was The Islander Hotel, and it was where his parents, Roy and Estelle Kelley, launched the prestigious Outrigger Enterprises. 

During their lunch, Richard and Linda spoke to Lois Hoke Smith, owner and innkeeper, and asked if The Baldpate Inn’s key collection could possibly contain a key connected to Outrigger Enterprises. Lois escorted Richard and Linda to the Key Room and together they looked and looked. To Richard’s amazement, they found a key and key tag for Room 15, The Islander Hotel!

Photo credit Dr. R. Kelley

“Finding that key at The Baldpate Inn was very emotional for me,” Kelley says, “particularly because one of my early duties was to cut replacement keys when they were lost or not returned by guests.” Could this very key have passed through his hands years before?

If that wasn’t enough of an amazing connection, author Earl Derr Biggers also visited Waikiki, the hometown of Dr. Kelley in 1925, where he was inspired to create the character Charlie Chan. Read more of that story here from this article in the 2014 Honolulu Star. 

And finally, if that wasn’t enough to convince you that perhaps there’s a link to everyone in The Baldpate Key collection, read Dr. Kelley’s “The Rest of the Story” to discover another key connection to The Baldpate Inn!

 - Sources:  Honolulu Star2014; Outrigger Saturday Briefing,3/15/2014

Written by Liz Rodgers