Christmas at Holiday House - RaeAnne Thayne Page 0,27
a snob, and after a few years she left with their children and insisted on living in Boston, which she considered far more civilized. They stayed married, probably so she could spend his money, but lived apart for most of the year. At her husband’s insistence, she agreed to spend summers here with their children, hence the name.”
“Holiday House. So the name really has nothing to do with Christmas.”
He shook his head. “No, which makes Winnie’s obsession with the season rather amusing.”
“Okay. The original owners were Lucinda and William. What about subsequent inhabitants?”
“They left the house to their oldest son, Howard. By that time, thirty years after William struck it rich, the mine was played out. Howard did his best to waste what was left of his family’s fortune on wine, women and song. The old story. He ended up marrying a woman from his mother’s Boston set and rarely came to Colorado, so the house fell in disrepair.”
“How sad.”
“Some silver barons managed to hang on to their fortunes while some ran through it with frightening speed. The Lancasters were in the second category. By the time my great-grandfather came along, the original miner’s grandson, they had very little left. They did, however, have this house and the land. After World War I, Great-grandfather Thomas had the grand idea of turning the mountainside into a ski resort. This house was the first hotel in town. I guess you could call it the first ski lodge.”
He pointed to another picture of people in old-fashioned clothing with long skis clustered around what she assumed was an early ski lift and another next to it that showed Holiday House with a fire blazing in the great-room fireplace and people clustered around it looking tired and happy.
“There were thirty guest rooms, and skiers would be taken to the slopes in a horse and sleigh.”
“Oh, how charming.”
“I’m sure it was for a few years. Except then the Great Depression hit and nobody could afford to go skiing, especially not to come all the way out here for it. The town was dead or dying because all the mines had dried up. And then World War II came, and people had more important things on their mind than winter recreation. At that point, Holiday House was used to house recovering soldiers injured in the war.”
He pointed to another picture that showed row after row of cots down in the great room.
“Finally after the war, Thomas, along with his sons Thomas Jr. and Clive, my grandfather and Winnie’s husband, reopened the ski resort and used what little was left of their fortune, along with a mortgage on this house, to build an actual lodge closer to the slopes. Things took off from there.”
“What a story Holiday House has to tell.” The house really was exceptionally lovely. She admired the thick gleaming woodwork around the windows, the elaborately scrolled hardware on the door hinges and knobs. “It sounds as if this place is inextricably tied to your family’s history.”
“For good and bad. My great-uncle and my grandfather did a great deal to repair the family fortunes. They were the ones who transitioned from owning a ski resort and lodge to focusing almost exclusively on the hotel business. In the sixties, they started buying small hotels in other strategic travel locations around the globe. Clive ran the company until he died while I was in high school.”
She heard the sadness in his voice and sensed how much he must have cared for his grandfather.
“You couldn’t have been old enough to start running the company after he died, were you? Did your father take over?”
He made a scoffing sort of sound. “My father? No. There would have been nothing left if Rick had been left in charge of Lancaster Hotels.”
It had been a stupid question, she realized in retrospect. She knew enough of the grim details of his family life from what Lucy had told her to guess his father wouldn’t have taken much interest in the family business, other than to spend his trust fund as quickly as possible.
“No, my great-uncle Thomas, Clive’s brother, ran the company after Clive’s death. He was brilliant and expanded the hotel operations exponentially.”
He pointed to a picture of two men together that looked like it was from the sixties. One was larger, nattily dressed and more confident looking. The other was younger and looked like a beatnik.
“Is he gone now, as well?” she asked, though she suspected the answer from the stark grief