A-Bar at The Pad in Silverthorne buzzed with the chatter of people socializing Wednesday, Nov. 27, as it had many nights before.

Like most Wednesdays, it was trivia night. While a few overnight guests with bags checked in at the front desk, a bartender tended to the growing drink line, where snow was melting off customers’ boots.

Winter jackets hung from barstools, and beanies still warmed a few peoples’ heads. Friends gathered around tables, chit-chatting about the recent snowstorm, the start to ski season and holiday plans. A handful of people ate takeout, and one table was playing cards. Upstairs, children did jigsaw puzzles in a play area as few adults talked.

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But for Lynne and Rob Baer, who opened the hostel and hotel in 2021, this was not just any other night. It was the husband-wife duo’s final night as operators of The Pad. Just days earlier, The Pad’s lender foreclosed on the property.

Despite the foreclosure, the Baers said they believe The Pad not only proved the hotel-hostel concept was viable. They believe the business venture showed the concept fostered relationships and built a community for locals and travelers.

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“We’re incredibly proud of what we built. We’re so grateful that we were actually able to get it built and see three years of operation and see everyone who has come through these doors,” Lynne said. “The Pad was a success. We just hit really unprecedented times.”

From founding to foreclosure

The Baers first proposed The Pad in 2017, pitching it as a boutique hotel-hostel hybrid that would offer private rooms as well as dorm-style bunking. When the project was before the Silverthorne Planning Commission that year, the couple told the town that The Pad, then estimated to cost $6.5 million, would bolster the accommodations available to travelers in Summit County.

As world travelers, the Baers said they had stayed at hostels while abroad and wanted to recreate the affordability and intimacy of that experience for travelers in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

“The vision for The Pad was to create a lodging facility that would make the mountains more accessible and open and have that real community feel for both travelers and people in the area,” Lynne Baer said. “We both love to travel. Many of the places we go, it ends up being more about the people you meet than the actual place you’re visiting.”

The Pad broke ground in December 2019, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe. The Baers said that’s where The Pad’s problems started.

Because the hybrid hotel-hostel model was untested, “We really weren’t able to get traditional financing,” Rob Baer said. “So, we had to go through a hard-money lender, for lack of a better term, and they have very stringent guidelines and consequences if things go wrong. Breaking ground three months before COVID, things started to go wrong.”

Construction of the three-story structure, which included 36 rooms, more than 100 beds, a bar, event space, a hot tub and lounges, took about 20 months — several months longer than expected. The Baers said the pandemic also drove up construction costs. At one point, the couple launched a crowdfunding campaign that raised about $58,000 to help get construction back on track.

“Not only did COVID add a lot to the development timeline in terms of delays, but obviously it added a significant amount of cost overruns,” Rob Baer said. “So that was the hole we were never really able to dig ourselves out of.”

The Pad borrowed about $12.3 million from the Seattle-based BRMK Lending to complete the construction, according to court documents. When it couldn’t pay that back, BRMK Lending sued in August 2023, and a judge appointed a receiver to run the business in Baers’ place.

Just months later, The Pad filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reached an agreement with BRMK Lending in December 2023 that allowed the Baers to resume operating the business, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Denver.

At one point this summer, it appeared that The Pad may have found a buyer. Blue Rhino Investments and its owner, Stephen Caragol of Steamboat Springs, offered to purchase The Pad in a bankruptcy sale, according to court documents. The Baers said that offer would have allowed them to continue operating the business.

“We thought we had found a perfect solution,” Lynne Baer said. “Finding someone to buy us that would keep us on as operators would give us the ability to continue The Pad and to make whole our obligations, or provide the runway to get it to where it needs to be.”

But creditors, including BRMK Lending, objected to the $10.1 million sale, which was less than what it cost to construct The Pad and well below what The Pad owed. Following the objections, The Pad dropped its bankruptcy case, and BRMK Lending foreclosed on the property last month.

The Pad was $21 million in debt at the time of the foreclosure sale, according to records from the Summit County Treasurer and Public Trustee’s Office. BRMK Lending bid about $12.9 million for the property at the foreclosure sale, records show.

“I’m truly sorry we haven’t been able to figure it out,” Lynne Baer said as she raised a glass last Wednesday in a toast to her and Rob’s three years running The Pad. 

The Pad ‘brought in the community’

As the emcee prepared for trivia Wednesday night, Summit County residents Tiana Ibarra and Jana Arnold — both regulars at The Pad — laughed with a couple friends, waiting for the first round to start.

The Pad, Ibarra and Arnold said, has had an impact on the local community. The two friends said The Pad’s calendar of events, known as “Padhaps,” with offerings like salsa dancing, speed dating and bingo nights, brought a welcomed liveliness to Summit County that had not been there before.

Fittingly located on Rainbow Drive, The Pad hosted Silverthorne’s first Pride Month festivities in 2022, “which was unlike anything else,” Ibarra said. She noted that The Pad has become a place where she knows she will find friends — and make new ones — after an event in town, especially after a function at The Pavillion down the street.

Ibarra and Arnold said they recommend The Pad’s hostel experience when friends visit from out of town. Arnold also noted that they’ve met hikers on the Colorado Trail or Continental Divide Trail who’ve taken advantage of the accommodations at The Pad.

“They brought in the community,” Ibarra said. “They did such a great job of getting people here. This has been our stomping ground, and hopefully that will continue.”

What exactly the future holds for The Pad is not certain at this point, the Baers said, noting that the lender now owns the property and has contracted with Five Senses Hospitality Management to operate and run The Pad.

Five Senses President Chris Manley said in an email Tuesday, Dec. 3, that his management company also operates the AC Hotel Frisco and that the company is therefore very familiar with what guests and locals want to experience in Summit County.

Most of the team members at The Pad have chosen to continue to work with Five Senses, and the management company plans to continue the hotel’s tradition of hosting community events, Manley said.

“We will continue operation as usual,” Manley said. “The Pad has a great reputation of welcoming guests from the Front Range and around the world to experience what Summit County has to offer.”

While no longer an owner, Robert Baer said he is proud of what he and Lynne built at The Pad, which “really has become a spot for locals” while also finding its niche in the mountain tourism industry.

“The concept was proven,” Robert Baer said. “It showed demand. It showed a gap in the market that a lot of travelers want to see.”

The Baers said that after dedicating years to The Pad, they plan to spend time with family, including their 3- and 5-year-old daughters, and traveling around the country to catch up with friends.

Last Wednesday night, Rob Baer raised a glass of champagne to bid The Pad, at least the physical destination, farewell.

“The Pad is an idea. The Pad is about community,” Rob Baer said. “Our tagline is ‘building community through travel.’ It doesn’t matter if you’re a local, a traveler. Our goal is to keep this dream alive in some form. Hopefully one day, no matter where it is, you’ll come visit us again. Whether it’s across the street or across the world.”