History and The Gold Family
This stunning property has been in our family for the last 40 years and we are so happy to share it with you.
We wanted to give you a little history about the property so you can truly understand how special this land is.
As history shows, Colorado was a huge mining community. When the mines were exhausted in the late 1800’s, some of the locals turned to ranching. Henry Lehman was one of these ranchers on the upper Grand (Colorado). He homesteaded and built a ranch on the South Fork of the river where the family took in guests, travelers and fishermen. Henry died in 1919 and the ranch was purchased by the Knight family of St. Louis.
Knight’s most important place in local history was his friendship with Charles Lindbergh. When Harry Knight was president of the St. Louis Flying Club he developed great respect for the “ace pilot”. Lindbergh had pioneered the airmail route between St Louis and Chicago. Because of his skills Knight chose Lindbergh as his personal flight instructor. Harry convinced the head of the St Louis Chamber of Commerce to have them help Charles by sponsoring his famous flight with a check for $15,000.
Upon completion of the New York to Paris flight in 1927, Knight built an airport on the ranch. Writings of the period indicate that Harry built the airport just for Lindbergh. However, Harry also was a pilot in his own right. Lindbergh would fly over the divide and onto the ranch mostly for weekend visits.
Years passed and Lindbergh became involved with other activities that did not involve the Knights. Water storage became the most important problem facing them. The Granby dam was proposed for construction. After completion of the dam the Knight family auctioned off their house, bunkhouse and all the town buildings on July 27, 1946. These buildings were moved onto our property by rolling them on logs. The Dance Hall and Historic Lodge (the Knights house) still grace our land.
There Ranch changed hands a couple times over the next 30 years.
Our family purchased the ranch in the 1970’s and Arapaho Valley Ranch was born.
Matt and Barb Gold operated AVR as a dude ranch, raised their family there, and spent the next 20 years providing a wonderful and special mountain vacation for people. To this day we receive comments about how special their time at AVR was and how the memories will forever live on.
The Golds decided to close the doors in the 90’s after a huge snow storm took out powerlines and damanged many of the cabins. The property was used strictly as a private residence until 2010 when Todd Gold, Matt and Barbs youngest son, met his soulmate Emily.
Emily and Todd were married on the ranch in 2012 and decided to re open the property as a luxury camping facility so that people could once again enjoy this special property. Emily and Todd have 3 children and a dog named Roosevelt and are committed to once again create memories that will last a lifetime for their guests.
