Smith-Eslick Cottage Court
Grand County
The Smith-Eslick Cottage Court (SECC) building is architecturally significant as an excellent and rare example of one of Colorado’s earliest auto-tourist accommodations constructed in the Rustic style. The lodgepole pine construction, vertical, unpeeled half-round, lodgepole siding, with complimentary horizontal, unpeeled, half-round, lodgepole siding, gabled roof, exposed rafter tails, and multi-paned windows are the character-defining features found on the Cottage Camp building. Designed with carports placed directly between lodging units all sharing one roof, the Smith-Eslick Cottage Court auto camp building is a very early and rare example of a building designed specifically to accommodate tourists and their vehicles. It is also important for its role in the evolution of automobile tourism in the early-twentieth century. The SECC was the first known such accommodation providing housing for the traveler with an attached carport for an automobile in Grand Lake and surrounding areas.
Smith Cottages - Eslick Cottage Court
The building was relocated in 2009 to prevent demolition of the building. Because the significance of the building is derived from its Rustic architecture and its rarity for this type of resource in Colorado, as the only known Rustic style auto-camp building retaining its original design, materials, and workmanship, it meets the requirements of National Register Criteria Consideration B, which establishes additional requirements for buildings that have been moved from their original location.
Eslick Store and Office
On May 27, 2020, the State Register nomination for the Smith-Eslick Cottage Camp was amended to include the Eslick Store and Office. Though never used for this purpose, the Eslick Store and Office was constructed by Loren Eslick to serve as the Cottage Camp store. When these plans changed due to Loren Eslick’s death in 1934, the building was repurposed, first as additional accommodations within the tourist camp, and later as the camp’s registration office. The owners of the Cottage Camp began dismantling the business in 1956 and relocated the Eslick Store and Office to its present location in 1957.