There may be no better way to understand Crested Butte than from a room above a bar. At Public House Lofts, you can soak in a deep tub after a day on the mountain, walk downstairs for dinner, catch a band in the basement, and then wander onto Elk Avenue and find yourself squarely in the middle of one of Colorado’s most wonderfully idiosyncratic mountain towns. The next morning, the Mountain Express rolls by outside, ready to carry you and your skis back toward the lifts. Then soak, eat, and repeat. It feels remarkably current. The idea behind it is anything but.
Public House is housed in one of Crested Butte’s original saloons, a building that dates back to the 1800s. When Eleven Experiences took it on, restoration was a natural fit for a company that counts preservation and conservation among its guiding principles. Steven Lewis, Eleven’s director of food and beverage, hospitality, and events, helped open PublicHouse in 2017 and has watched the concept evolve ever since. Rather than turn the historic building into something entirely new, the team looked to what it had been for much of its life and considered what that same role could look like more than a century later.
That means a pub at street level, live music below, and three guest rooms above, a setup that echoes the role saloons once played as places for travelers and locals to eat, drink, gather, hear music, and spend the night. Or, in Public House’s case, catch a 12-piece brass band in the basement before heading upstairs to bed. “It’s a gathering place for the community,” Steven says.
Upstairs, however, the old saloon model gets a serious upgrade. Three lofts, Beacon, Fillmore, and Winterland, take their names from legendary American music venues. Exposed hand-hewn beams supply the mountain character; four-poster beds, heated bathroom floors, and steam showers supply the indulgence. The entire building was acoustically engineered, an important detail when your downstairs neighbor happens to be a concert venue.
The combination feels particularly right for Eleven, the luxury adventure hospitality company founded in Crested Butte before expanding to far-flung destinations around the world. Here, its signature pairing of adventure and high-end hospitality is distilled into just three rooms, and honestly, three rooms are plenty when they’re done this well.
But perhaps the lofts’ greatest amenity is Crested Butte itself. There’s no lobby separating you from the town, no resort campus to leave. Walk out the door, and you’re simply in it. For Steven and the Eleven team, that proximity is the point. “We’re really trying to give them an immersion into what it feels like to be a local at Crested Butte,” he says. “We appreciate the town of Crested Butte. We appreciate the history of Crested Butte. And we appreciate the personality of Crested Butte. Public House is basically our love letter to what a historic Colorado mining town, mountain town saloon would feel like today,” he adds. Spend one night upstairs, tub filling and band tuning up below, and you’ll want to write one back.
Eat + Drink
Staying at Public House Lofts means you can eat very well without straying far from home. Start downstairs at Public House, where the mountain-town pub atmosphere comes with a menu built for post-adventure appetites. In the morning, grab coffee at Camp 4 Coffee, the wonderfully funky wooden shack that has become a Crested Butte institution. Later, make your way to The Secret Stash for inventive pizzas, wildly eclectic interiors, and a dose of real Crested Butte character. The best part? All three keep you on the town’s beloved main drag.
Explore
Crested Butte makes a compelling case for getting outside in every season. Winter brings skiing and snowboarding at Crested Butte Mountain Resort, plus miles of Nordic trails and snowshoeing when you want to slow things down. Come summer, those mountains trade snow for wildflowers, with hiking and mountain biking through landscapes that earned Crested Butte its “Wildflower Capital of Colorado” nickname. Fall turns the surrounding aspen groves gold, while spring offers a quieter window between seasons. Whatever the calendar says, pack accordingly and get out there. Around here, adventure isn’t an itinerary item. It’s what you do.
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