The mid-1960s were just around the corner. Colorado officials were finally getting moving on a plan that would better connect Front Range communities to the mountains in western part of the state: the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels. That project was expected to provide easier access to Frisco, a sleepy mountain town that only needed a stop sign or two to calm traffic on its dirt roads. 

Four-year-old Kate Armstrong was just small enough to hide under the bar of her parents Frisco-based restaurant, the Blue Spruce Inn, unnoticed. She would periodically snag maraschino cherries from the Inn’s stash. Her sister, Jules, was upstairs playing with the Anderson kids, who were close family friends of the Armstrongs. The Blue Spruce Inn at this point was over 20 years old, and the family picked up their lives and moved to Frisco to run it.

These memories flooded back to Susan Wentworth, whose maiden name is Anderson, when she was made aware of tentative plans to demolish the building that once housed the Blue Spruce Inn a few months back.

The building has been picked up and moved three different times and stayed intact through it all. Wentworth said it’s a part of Summit County’s somewhat recent history that she wants saved, and she’s not alone. The project has started a community discussion about how robust of a role the town should play in preserving its history.

Developers are looking to swap the building for a mixed-use development featuring nine residential units, around 3,300 square feet of commercial restaurant space and a partially buried parking garage. 

The Nov. 7 meeting was the last time the concepts appeared before any Frisco officials in a formal manner.  

Frisco community development director Katie Kent said the town hasn’t received a concrete timeline for the project at this time since the application is pending and the applicant is working on submitting a full site plan. Once the application is completed, she said next steps include sending it out to agencies like Summit Fire & EMS, Xcel Energy and the Frisco Sanitation District for vetting. Then, the town will schedule a public hearing followed by a final review by the Planning Commission. 

Locals like Chris Eby want to see if there is any “win-win” that can be agreed upon where parts of the structure, or the structure entirely, can be preserved and the developer can follow through on their concept. 

“I think that the community cares about preserving these older vestiges, landmarks of Frisco’s landscape, particularly on Main Street, and they’re an important part of Frisco’s economy,” Eby said. “I think allowing these buildings to disappear can have a significant impact on our local economy.”

The Armstrongs, whose family formerly owned the Blue Spruce Inn, would also like to see the building preserved. Sisters Jules Armstrong and Kate Amack, whose maiden name is also Armstrong, currently live on the Front Range, but held onto their mother’s home in Frisco for decades and just sold it recently. 

“Our ties to Frisco are bittersweet. To hear that this building (could) be torn down, that’s another part of the history of Frisco we are losing. It seems like we keep losing the components of history,” Jules said. 

Representatives of the developer say their group has long expressed a willingness to preserve parts of the building and even offered to donate the structure in its entirety to the town.

Kent said, presently, the town can’t require historical preservation efforts from developers. 

“With regards to preserving the Blue Spruce building, the Town does not have specific requirements that require the building to be preserved,” Kent said via email. “The Town does have incentives that a private property owner may utilize if they want to preserve the building, but we cannot require them to.”

She said the town is currently working on its comprehensive plan for the town that will include direction provided by citizens related to altering definitions and/or preservation mandates of historic structures.

Mark Sabatini, a local with deep ties to development in Summit and Colorado’s High Country, said other mountain towns like Breckenridge, Aspen and Steamboat Springs have prioritized historic preservation and it paid off. He said these towns have been able to pull in visitors with their historical sites, and Frisco could benefit from historical preservation given its rich background. 

Sabatini said he has been a part of numerous processes related to Frisco revamping its comprehensive plans over the course of decades, and while there has been intention on emphasizing historic preservation each time, it never seems to come to fruition.

History of the Blue Spruce Inn

According to documents and narratives compiled by the Frisco Historic Park and Museum, The Blue Spruce Inn opened for business sometime in the 1940s as a two-story inn and restaurant near Old Dickey along an old highway from Old Dillon to Breckenridge. Museum manager Rose Gorrell said there’s conflicting information regarding its exact opening year. The present-day location would be slightly north of the Farmers Korner area near the Blue River Arm Trailhead. The upper level served as guest rooms, and the first floor was the restaurant and kitchen.

Old Dickey was largely abandoned by the 1950s, and the Historic Park and Museum believes this pushed the owners at the time to move it since local and state officials began seriously considering constructing the Dillon Reservoir.  

The building was then moved to Frisco, on the old U.S. 6 route at 818 Main St., across from the Frisco Cemetery. Gorrell said there are also conflicting dates regarding what year it moved, but it was likely the mid-1950s. 

She said there is very little written information on the history of ownership of the building at this location. Advertisements in The Aspen Times from the mid-to-late 1950s list Hal and Sal Reeser as owners at the Frisco location. The museum also has archives that show Joseph Wilson and Codie Wilson owned the building in 1969. Armstrong estimated their parents bought the building sometime around 1963 before selling it around three years later. 

Susan Wentworth said from the time the Armstrongs owned into the 1970s the Blue Spruce Inn was regarded as the go-to spot for a “special dinner” in Frisco. 

“It had such a great reputation that people would drive up here from Denver just to have dinner,” she said. 

The building underwent its last move in the spring of 1974 under the ownership of James Holmes. 

Most recently the building served as the Frisco Prime, a steakhouse and seafood restaurant which is no longer open.