A Bit of Switzerland, Ghosts, Spies, Buried Gold and a tasty meal too!
Posted by Brent Levy

A visit to Evergreen’s Brook Forest Inn is a mixture of fact and legend, spiced with a dash of the intrigue and the paranormal. About five miles up Brook Forest Road (from County Road 73 in Evergreen) you’ll come upon the “Old World” inspired Brook Forest Inn, a blend of Swiss chalet, wilderness lodge and local folklore.


Viennese born Edwin Welz and his Swiss wife Riggi came to Colorado in the resort and hotel boom days of 1910 and worked in some of Denver’s larger hotels. In 1913, they found a tract of 160 acres that was available for homesteading along Cub Creek at the foot of Black Mountain. They saw “the closest thing to the Alps they had seen in America”. There they found a small cabin with a loosely nailed board that said “Brook Forest”.

The Welzes renovated the cabin, blasted an accessible road through heavy rocks in Cub Creek Canyon, built additional structures, planted crops and landscaped the grounds. In 1919 they opened the inn which brought only two guests that year, school teachers from Denver.

However once the word got out about Riggi’s sumptuous Swiss cooking and Edwin’s obsession with quality, more visitors began arriving. With the growing popularity, the Welzes had an architect draw plans for a Swiss chalet; however they lacked the $37,000 to start construction and a bank willing to lend the money. So in 1923, the couple laid the foundation themselves for a new inn.

Eventually, the resort included an expanded inn, nine chalet guest buildings and a medieval tower which was constructed entirely of white quartz. At its zenith, Brook Forest could host 100 guests and more than 300 could be catered at mealtime, boasted a livery stable with saddle horses & experienced guides offering horseback trips to Mt. Evans, tennis courts, croquet grounds, horseshoe court and a recreation hall.

The boss with his Swiss Staff

According to local lore, prior to World War II, the inn was used by German spies posing as bicycling tourists who were actually crossing the country making maps of America for Germany. Also, it is said the Inn was a meeting place for the German Bund. There may be some truth to this, as swastikas have been found in the floors during renovations. Rumor has it that a large sum of Bund gold was buried in or near the inn at the outbreak of the war. Many have searched for the gold to no avail.


Two ghosts, Carl the stable hand and Jessica the chambermaid have been heard making mischief on the third floor of the inn. Another ghost of a little boy (supposedly died of pneumonia) has been heard running up and down the hallways, knocking on doors.

The Welzes owned and operated the inn until 1946 when they sold it. Since then, the inn has had at least eight different owners and was operated as an inn, restaurant, bed & breakfast, and a computer school. Recently some of the nearby resort structures have been renovated into unique homes.




Today, the Brook Forest Inn offers lunch, dinner, Sunday champagne brunch, a romantic getaway, and a lovely place for a wedding. In keeping with the inn’s reputed phantom tenants, we expect to see murder mystery dinners as well!

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