Part 2 of a two-part series on Adam Zimmerli, owner of the Black Monarch Hotel. Part 1 starts the journey.
Adam Zimmerli, the owner/designer/engineer of the Black Monarch Hotel in Victor, is a maven of historical reconstruction and out-of-the-box architectural theory. His instincts and skills led him from his initial beginnings in construction and renovation roots in Denver to expanding his canvas with a custom-made AirBnB property in Teller County in 2015 and his eventual opening of the Black Monarch Hotel in Victor in 2019.
Currently, he is putting finishing touches on his new hotel: The Best Little Boarding House in Victor as well as gutting and creating the new Battle Mountain Inn (also in Victor) for a future opening. The future looks bright.
The context of where the area is going is primary on his mind, but it also is a matter of the community, logistics, and, of course, money.
The Road to Growth in Victor and Teller County
Zimmerli says that he doesn’t have a doubt a big population boom is coming to southern Teller County, “Because there’s nowhere else in the state for people to go. And naturally, people are going to go to areas that already have some level of development.” He points to Cripple Creek where there is a mega-casino development underway that will take that city from a little over a hundred hotel rooms to nearly 1000 likely within 5 years. This shows the demand is there.
Victor is on the lower scale of that, but he says there is potential. That is what drew him in. His initial impression when he arrived, jokingly, was “What happened here?” The Victorian architecture is what technically drew him in because of his renovation background but Victor wasn’t his first stop. He had to build up to the expansion he is working on now.
That said, Zimmerli has a serious commitment to making Victor better. “I definitely don’t have plans in the short term to cash out. It’s definitely not a quick fix and flip type deal for me.” But to elevate the space, more like-minded people need to move in around his properties. “We probably need $12 to $15 million of private investment cash invested in the town. Other people and businesses around us to just come in, buy up buildings around us and really help build the tourism district.” Zimmerli believes that is the missing factor. “I need more me’s around me, quote-unquote. People who have some amount of pockets and want to come and do unique, fun, small businesses.”
The path to this new canvas was gradual but specific but shows the kind of thinking and action needed.
After taking over a turnkey Airbnb property in downtown Denver that became successful, Zimmerli was looking at how to take his expertise, some newly acquired investment capital from the Denver property and take it to the next level in a way that combined his aesthetic with how he wanted to approach life: with no boss, creative freedom, some money-making possibility, and lifestyle fulfillment.
A Path to a New Space of Land
“I was just poking around on Craigslist one day, and I saw an ad for a guy who would finance land to anybody out [in Teller County],” which is about 50 miles from the Springs. As late as 2015 in Teller County, according to Zimmerli, a person could buy a builder’s acres, which is an acre of land, but it’s on a road and next to service delivery (i.e., power and water). At that time, it was about $3000 an acre for a builder’s lot.
With this idea in mind, Zimmerli proceeded to create a unique off-grid cabin property that he designed, engineered, and built himself between 2015 and 2017 in Teller County. During that time, he also continued to learn more about design through discussions with his mentors including Rachel Brown and David Cook who gave him encouragement in his earlier endeavors.
“So just kind of through osmosis, I learned to build these complex structural projects as well as absorb a lot of design philosophy.” In Zimmerli’s experience, architecture, in its discipline, is a lot more artistic than people realize. He thinks a lot of what people think architects do is more what a structural engineer does. Brown would always encourage him saying as he built more structures: “Oh this is amazing. You’re doing this but it’s called that.”
Zimmerli completed the cabin in 2017 and put it on Airbnb. “It just immediately sold out and it ended up being one of the top-rated properties in Teller County. And it was one of the only Airbnb Plus properties in all of Teller County.” The differentiation is that those with an Airbnb Plus rating are considered the highest quality homes on the service with hosts known for great reviews and attention to detail.
Zimmerli ended up finishing the building of this house with $130,000 in cash inclusive of the land. “Then I get it on Airbnb and it’s grossing like over $70,000 a year. So, I’m out of debt… debt-free, I’ve got a house I’ve paid for, and then the house is going to completely pay for itself in two years, right? I’m just going, ‘Man, you’re doing good for yourself, Adam. You’re really getting financially free kid!’”
Construction is an Art Form
“The whole vacation rental thing, construction, building stuff, is kind of my art,” Zimmerli explains.
The next step was commercial property. While he was building the cabin in Teller, Zimmerli would go over to Cripple Creek and at times would stay at The Imperial Hotel there. He was inspired by the aesthetic but wanted to do his own angle. Then he drove into Victor and saw possibility.
The Black Monarch Hotel continues his melding of aesthetic and form but also the psychology of architecture. “[This is] someone’s quote. It might be Frank Lloyd Wright’s – but someone once said that architecture really is the highest form of art because you have to integrate functionality into aesthetics. When it’s really, really good, it’s kind of like painting on the canvas of life.”
As shown by Zimmerli’s cabin build, “When you have a space, even if it’s a small 400- or 600-square foot dwelling, if it’s put together well and it’s aesthetically pleasing, it’s so calming, and it has such a profound effect on your mind and just your outlook on life.”
The rooms at the Black Monarch are designed with this idea in mind. The four current rooms (with more to come) can be the four chambers of the heart where each one represents a certain sort of search for the soul.
Aesthetic as Form and Perspective of Function
Zimmerli again cites Wright in its aesthetic. “The material that you’re going to use to build a structure has a function over a form. The material will make itself available to you because it’s going to be determined by your budget and what you want to do, right? So, when you’re making a structure or whatever, you have a function and then you apply the best material for its function. That will lead you through itself aesthetically.”
“[Then] once you determine the function, and you’ve determined the material, you just apply simple concepts of space and how light flows through the space – [specifically] the use of the space, and what is the most aesthetically pleasing application of the function.”
That is the reason Zimmerli loves Victorian design so much which he integrates within The Monarch “because that’s all out the window.”
Zimmerli liked Victor because of the canvas it provided. Victor has potential. When he first saw it: “All these big, beautiful Victorian buildings here were obviously unoccupied, and all need to be loved. That’s a lot of work but I love to do this work.” However, it is about small moves because completely overhauling the town would take an exorbitant amount of money and work. Zimmerli is doing what he can.
Expanding the Black Monarch Hotel
“Initially we launched Monarch with three rooms, and then I launched the fourth room.” Next, he is self-funding three more rooms there. He’s built a coffee shop and a gift shop. The building Zimmerli explains was 0% usable for 11 years “when I got it.” Monarch right now is using 65% of the structure. Zimmerli still has a big, old bar room downstairs as well as the laundromat. “So, I’ve got a big 2,300 square feet downstairs that isn’t activated yet.” Zimmerli is continuing his work incrementally to open 100% of the structure for use
“I’m of the belief I’ve got to build up the community around me. They have a functional mine up here, but it’s moving out eventually.” The mine generates almost half of the city’s funds that run the city and keep a water plant operational.
“I really think that activating more of these buildings towards vacation rentals is really the only path that I can see to develop the kind of revenues that are going to be needed to maintain the town.”
Vision for the Future in Victor
Like what he is doing with Black Monarch, he and others want to help save the buildings and, in turn, save Victor.
“Where I’m going with it right now, I have acquired two more buildings. I got the building directly next door to the Monarch now, which is 305 Victor Ave. And then right across the street, 304 Victor Ave. 305 is going to be called Best Little Boarding House in Victor. Basically, I’m taking the entire business plan and everything that worked with Black Monarch and has made it a big success … and I’m basically swapping out the skin on it. So, Black Monarch is everything black or charcoal gray. [Boarding House] is going to be pink and purple and rainbow-colored. Black Monarch is about figures like H. H. Holmes and Elizabeth Báthory and Bela Lugosi. Best Little Boarding House in Victor is going to be inspired by all the great female country Western stars of the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s like Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, and Patsy Cline.”
“And then with 304 across the street — the gold mine behind us is called Battle Mountain because they had like a thousand different bidding claims, and they all murdered each other fighting about these mining claims [back in the day.] The one across the street is going to be called Battle Mountain Inn. That one was in really bad shape where – a lot of the Monarch was in actually really good shape – like B+ condition when I got it.” Zimmerli did a lot of moving of walls and structural stuff with Black Monarch but kept the bones intact.
With Battle Mountain Inn, he has totally re-framed the roof with a whole new load-bearing structural system. “I’ve addressed the foundation of the building and we’re getting ready to do a whole new sewage line.” He says that it’s basically going to be a whole new building while keeping the historic storefront.
“I am going to leave very little of the original structure because it had been so severely neglected for so long. It was at the point when Zimmerli acquired the building, that it had actually begun the process of collapsing. That gave him a new challenge. “But that’s fun too because then I get to go a lot farther and I don’t feel guilty about tearing stuff out.”
Zimmerli’s path is a unique one but one bathed in the love of architecture, hard work, commerce, and aesthetic fulfillment with a practical application as shown by his history but also in his properties. With his highly successful Airbnb properties, the success of Black Monarch, and his just-around-the-corner new possibilities in Victor, Zimmerli’s horizon continues to burn bright and true.
