A winding path leads to the Catto Center at Toklat. Architects and builders preserved the original sandstone and marble that the Mace family used to construct the building.
The Catto Center at Toklat sits 11 miles up Castle Creek Valley, nestled among high peaks along Devaney Creek, which flows from American Lake. It is, by its nature, a bit inaccessible. After a three-year major renovation project, the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies hopes to expand both access to, and the reach of, the unique place, just in time for Toklat’s 75th anniversary.
The Catto Center at Toklat will reopen to the public Dec. 21, with a solstice bonfire and 10 days of open houses meant to rekindle the sense of community that has long drawn a wide range of visitors — from ivory-tower thinkers to day-hikers — to the property.
“A lot of people said, ‘You could raze it and build it for a lot cheaper and quicker,’” said Jim Kravitz, naturalist programs director at Aspen Center for Environmental Studies. “But there was so much heritage and so much history of the Mace family and the history of Aspen that we decided it was really important to preserve.”
Toklat’s history, in many ways, parallels and mirrors Aspen’s. The Catto Center at Toklat sits across the valley floor from the historic mining town of Ashcroft, has deep connections with skiing and outdoor recreation, and grew to become a center for art and conservation.
Like Aspen, Toklat was influenced by Walter Paepcke and his wife, Elizabeth, who founded ACES. The Paepckes were focused on bringing people who would contribute to a premier culture in town, and that included the Mace family, who built and lived at Toklat for decades.
Paepcke persuaded a young Stuart Mace to bring his growing family and a team of Alaskan sled dogs to the Aspen area. Paepcke was convinced that Mace would contribute to his cultural ideal of Aspen.
In a letter preserved by Stuart and Isabel Mace’s daughter Lynne Mace, Paepcke wrote, “From what little I have heard about and see on you, it is my intuitive feeling that you are tops in your field, and no doubt the quality of your Huskies, your training of them, and their skill are first class.”
A traditional Oaxacan loom is used for demonstrations by Elena Gonzalez Ruiz, ACES’ artist in residence at the Catto Center at Toklat. The Mace family brought Ruiz’s indigenous art to Toklat’s gallery and shop beginning in 1989.
The Maces built a cabin, to which they would add and expand in coming years, on property leased from Ted Ryan and the Highland Bavarian Corp. in 1948. It would become Toklat — a home, wilderness lodge and dog-sled operation, and later a center for arts, conservation and retreat. It remains a place that those close to it insist embodies the best of the Aspen community.
The Mace family had lived on the property for more than 55 years based on a lifetime lease from Ryan’s Highland Bavarian Corporation. In a lease renewal in 1971, the Maces made clear their wishes for the land at the end of their lifetimes.
The family included a section expressing their wishes that “upon the termination of this lease, … [the lessor] shall thereafter make every reasonable effort to use the premises demised herein in appropriate manner to promote the appreciation, enjoyment and study of wildlife, both animal and plant, and its continuing relationship to man.”
Toklat has been owned by ACES since 2004, when a gift from Jessica and Henry Catto enabled the environmental organization to buy the property from Highland Bavarian and the estate of Ted Ryan for $1.375 million. At the time, it was one of few remaining properties in the Castle Creek Valley owned by Highland Bavarian, which once hoped to open an extensive ski area. By the early 2000s, most of the company’s vast land holdings had been returned to the White River National Forest through land exchanges.
Stuart Mace, who died in 1993, had been a founding board member and a guiding force of ACES. At the time of the purchase, Isabel and Lynne Mace were living on site.
Tom Cardamone was executive director of ACES when the organization bought the property; Cardamone’s wife, Jody Caudill Cardamone, had been its first director, hired by Elizabeth Paepcke on Stuart Mace’s recommendation.
With Toklat’s deep connection to ACES, Cadamone said it was a natural fit for the nonprofit to take over stewardship of the property as the Maces’ lifetime lease neared its end in the early 2000s.
“It’s a window into wilderness that has an effect on your mind and spirit,” Tom Cardamone said. “It was important in a way that was ineffable.”
Now, 20 years after its purchase, ACES has renovated the aging building and is working to guide the Catto Center at Toklat to its next lifetime.
Stuart Mace drives a dog team near Toklat in 1966.
Next steps for Toklat
When Walter Paepcke reached out to urge Stuart Mace to make the Aspen area his home in 1947, Paepcke was clear about his goals for Aspen.
“We have followed a strict policy in the development of Aspen to encourage only those whom we consider tops in their line. Of course a lot of people drift in without our doing anything about it, but where we can exercise some control, cooperation, or encouragement, we have tried to select individuals who are leaders in their field,” Paepcke wrote in the letter that Lynne Mace preserved.
Paepcke considered Stuart Mace to be first-rate, and Mace left an indelible mark on Aspen and Ashcroft. As one of the founders of ACES, “He set the tone for the organization,” Cardamone said.
Mace, who was trained as a botanist and had a deep interest in environmental science, introduced the Cardamones to local teachers to initiate ACES’ in-school education programs. He taught at Hallam Lake and at Toklat, and his environmental ethic permeated Toklat.
His interest in art intersected with his passion for the natural world; Mace curated and sold a range of indigenous arts and mentored numerous artists at Toklat.
Isa Catto, a local artist whose parents donated the funds for ACES to purchase Toklat, grew up visiting the Mace property and credits Mace for helping create her own reverence for the natural world.
“He was quite a formidable figure,” Catto said. “He cared passionately that we did not have sovereignty — that we were all living together with the wild animals, with plants. We couldn’t just recreate and enjoy this place with impunity. We had to participate, give back and learn.”
Mace drew the attention of national media with his sled dogs, and as part of the training for new naturalists each year, ACES staffers still screen a 1974 documentary about Mace produced by journalist Bill Moyers for PBS. It provides a glimpse into Mace’s life at Ashcroft and highlights his environmental ethic.
“Man can’t, doesn’t and shouldn’t own land,” Mace tells Moyers. “He can use it, but he shouldn’t own it or even be able to use it unless he cares about it. Unless he proves he cares about it, he shouldn’t be able to own it.”
Participants in a workshop hosted by the Aspen Global Change Institute at the newly renovated Catto Center at Toklat. The center will serve as a meeting space, art gallery and gathering place.
ACES is now tasked with preserving the Mace legacy and steering Toklat into the future — while working to welcome everyone who drifts in the door.
“I think the thing about this place is it works on you. When you spend time here, some barriers disappear,” Kravitz said.”You find creativity and forward-thinking and drop old ways to allow for innovative thought.”
Perhaps this comes from stepping outside of day-to-day life. Lynne Mace recounted years of hosting executive seminars for the Aspen Institute. First her father, then Lynne would share the history of Toklat around the campfire, which they refer to as a council fire.
“It was a magical experience and a deeply personal one for a lot of people,” Lynne Mace said. “The council fire and sitting out there in the alpenglow with the fire going just got people into a very different place.”
The outdoor firepit sits near Devaney Creek, part of the inspiration for the name “Toklat,” which is also a river in Denali National Park and Preserve, in Alaska. The Maces say the name translates to “headwaters of a glacial valley.”
Toklat sits on an alluvial fan, with braids of the creek winding above, through and around the property. Devaney Creek supplies fresh water to the property, and ACES also uses the creek to power a small hydroelectric plant.
The public reopening of the Catto Center at Toklat is on the winter solstice, but organizations such as the Aspen Global Change Institute, Aspen Skiing Co. and the White River National Forest have held workshops and retreats in the past month.
Emily Jack-Scott, program director at AGCI, said the restored Toklat has been an ideal meeting space for the organization’s intimate, cross-disciplinary workshops.
“We see it as really a part of our mission to get people who are working at the forefront of their fields, these global experts, getting them out of their daily settings and getting them immersed in nature, immersed in the mountains,” Jack-Scott said. “It really gets people thinking in a different way. That’s exactly our mission, to get people thinking about innovative approaches to global issues.”
This continues a long tradition of companies and think tanks using the space for retreats and seminars; the Aspen Institute has been holding seminars at Toklat for decades.
The door to the Catto Center at Toklat was carved by Dustin Wolf, whose father was mentored at the property in the 1980s. The windows reflect a modern driveway, including electric charging stations.
Former ACES board chair Daniel Shaw, who is married to Isa Catto, said the goal is to continue to embrace such groups and to increase access. He said the board has had long discussions about whom the space is meant for.
“The key is to open it up, make it more available to other organizations and nonprofits and also to people on an individual level,” Shaw said. “We really want people to just stop in.”
The upper Castle Creek Valley, though remote, includes the historical ghost town of Ashcroft, access to backcountry huts, a cross-country ski touring area and a restaurant, the Pine Creek Cookhouse. Kravitz said it’s important that Toklat doesn’t increase traffic and environmental impacts, but ACES wants to add experiences with art, history and environmental ethos to the visitor experience.
“We want to complement the activities that are already up here, and we want to capitalize on the traffic that’s already up here,” Kravitz said. “If you’re going to the historical Ashcroft ghost town or you’re going to the cookhouse, or you’re skiing or hiking up here, we want you to stop in.”
ACES has spent more than $9 million on the renovation, and Executive Director Chris Lane said it has been well worth the hefty price tag.
“It’s this community’s meeting space,” Lane said. “You can’t make a space like this, surrounded by wilderness at the end of the road. It doesn’t exist on Earth much anymore.”
While Lane has spearheaded the renovation work, his predecessor at ACES, Tom Cardamone, set the wheels in motion by convincing the ACES board of trustees that the Toklat property was a natural fit, and not only because of Mace’s ties to the organization as a founding board member and educator.
But the first time Cardamone broached the subject of acquiring Toklat in 1995, the board rejected the idea. ACES’ first home was at Hallam Lake, tucked into Aspen’s West End, and the organization also has another location, at Rock Bottom Ranch in Carbondale. The board wasn’t convinced that they could support another, more remote, property.
“They’d ask, ‘Isn’t Hallam Lake enough?’” Cardamone said.
He saw Toklat as key in the role that ACES aimed to fill — not just to educate students about environmental stewardship but to allow nature to infuse all parts of daily life in the community.
“Hallam Lake is the school,” he remembers telling the board, “Rock Bottom Ranch is the grocery store, and Toklat is the church.”
A three-year remodel of the Catto Center at Toklat aimed to modernize the building while preserving its original charm and structure. The preserved roofline mirrors the angles of nearby peaks in the Castle Creek Valley.
Honoring conservation and art
There are two paths to enter the Catto Center at Toklat.
One winds across the property, with small bridges crossing Devaney Creek and short way-finding walls made of peachblow sandstone and Yule Quarry marble that Stuart Mace sourced decades ago. It’s meant to slow people down, force some engagement with the creek, the meadow and the shadows of the peaks.
The other is more direct, straight into Toklat’s history with art. From the driveway, you enter the building through a huge carved-wood door.
The door, carved with meandering streams framed by aspens and towering mountains in the distance, was created by Dustin Wolf, whose father, Eddie Running Wolf, was mentored by Mace and who carved the front door to the Hallam Lake visitor center. Mace’s son Kent and grandson Amos contributed to the door, too, sourcing the wood and helping to build it.
“There’s a couple generations of Maces and a couple generations of Running Wolf in this door,” said Trevor Washko, ACES Toklat steward, who was mentored by Lynne Mace beginning in 1996.
No matter the way in, visitors encounter something of the history of Toklat, which was defined by environmentalism, arts, food and gathering people to develop ideas.
Prior to the remodel, the Catto Center at Toklat stood as it had beginning 75 years ago; there was the original home the Mace family built and a series of labyrinthine additions that happened as the family grew. The building was still heated from the original, corroded steel pipes, and the roof was made from highly flammable shingles and “covered with silicone goop,” Cardamone said.
“I remember pulling a piece off and holding a match to it,” he said. “All you’d need is one spark and the building would go down.”
Cardamone said he would advise ACES workers who stayed at Toklat to keep winter clothes in their car in case of emergency.
It was clear that the building needed to be modernized to meet current codes and safety standards. ACES added 1,600 square feet to the footprint of the building and an additional 2,500 square feet that sit behind the traditional roofline and provide housing for employees. The property has been updated with high-efficiency renewable-energy systems.
“The old place felt like a canoe. This feels like a submarine with all the systems,” Washko said.
Along with the updates, the goal was to restore the original charm and spirit of the building. In a building that holds an intangible value for so many, it was a big task, but Jody Cardamone, who began visiting Toklat as a child, said the remodel was a success.
“You still have the cozy corners where you can circle up for good conversation,” she said. “They’ve preserved the intimacy that Toklat always had.”
Stuart Mace salvaged building materials from other historic structures, including the corner stone from Aspen’s Washington School.
Lynne Mace held on to many artifacts from her parents’ time in Ashcroft. A dog sled sits in the front entry, and there’s an old bottle signed by all the 10th Mountain Division soldiers who were stationed briefly near Ashcroft before their operations moved to Camp Hale.
The original kitchen, where Isabel Mace cooked for both the family and customers of Toklat’s restaurant, is intact and refurbished, decorated with old menus and Stuart Mace’s detailed drawings of plants. Also, Lynne Mace is repopulating the kitchen with original tools, including her mother’s old flour mill that she used to grind grain for bread every day.
“It’s unbelievably special to see the kitchen up there,” Lynne Mace said.
Isabel Mace’s interest in natural and sustainable food is carried through in ACES’ current focus on understanding food systems, Kravitz said.
The Maces operated restaurants in Aspen and at Ashcroft that were known not only for their natural foods but for the hanging tables. Stuart Mace learned of hanging tables during his time in Alaska; they made sweeping easier, prevented mice from climbing table legs, helped keep tables level even if the floor wasn’t — and allowed for ample leg room even around a community table.
“There are a few places up here that are strong centers of gravity; anytime you’re around one of the hanging tables is one of those experiences,” Washko said.
ACES has also added a modern commercial kitchen.
Longtime visitors will recognize the loom room, where master weaver Elena Gonzalez Ruiz from Teotitlan del Valle in Oaxaca, Mexico, has demonstrated traditional rug-making since 1989. Mace had an interest in indigenous art that has been a focus at Toklat for decades.
Also, the geranium room, which looks out to a small pond and Devaney Creek through huge picture windows, has been restored.
“There are stories in these walls, and we didn’t want to erase those,” Washko said.
The floors in many parts of the buildings and decks, including bricks with the paw prints from lead sled dogs over the years, were preserved and reused, and Lane said the building team — Michael Fuller Architects and Louthis Custom Builders — even agreed to reuse the dog-food bags that had been stuffed in the walls for insulation by the Mace family.
“Instead of throwing it into the landfill, we’re reusing them again, as insulation — along with the updated technology,” Lane said.
The original Toklat building contains physical reminders of Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley’s past. Mace used salvaged sandstone from the Fryingpan Valley to build the house, including the cornerstone from Aspen’s original school, the Washington School. He salvaged marble from the Yule Quarry and sourced wood from trees that were being cleared to build roads across the country, Kravitz said.
Those key pieces of Toklat’s past have been preserved, along with its unique roofline that is meant to mirror the ridges of nearby Malemute Peak, named in honor of Stuart Mace.
“The true beating heart of what Aspen was and still is, it’s all right here,” Kravitz said. “The most essential element is to re-invite the community to explore this place and get to know it and have it as a touchstone in this valley.”
As development and time change the Aspen community, Kravitz said ACES plays a role in holding space for community, and at Toklat, that will kick off on the winter solstice, Dec. 21, bringing a tradition from Hallam Lake to Ashcroft.
In homage to Toklat’s past council fires, ACES will host a solstice fire that burns through the night. The public event runs from 2-6 p.m.
