Aspen Square Condominium Hotel ★★★

Apartments With a Front Desk, Facing the Gondola

Aspen Square is a hybrid, and that is the point of it. The building wraps a courtyard opening onto Hunter Street, a short block from the gondola plaza, and what it rents are 101 privately owned condominiums run with hotel discipline: bell service, concierge, daily housekeeping. Guests arrive to an apartment with a kitchen and a balcony and still get their bags carried up. In a resort town where the choice usually falls between a rental with nobody at the door and a hotel room with nowhere to cook, that combination has kept the same families coming back for decades.

Why It Works

The first argument is distance, or the absence of it: the base of Aspen Mountain sits across the street, so the morning gear-hauling that defines most ski trips simply disappears. The second is the format. A studio with a full kitchen changes the economics of a week in Aspen, and the larger apartments absorb three generations without anyone sleeping on a sofa. The third is the service layer, which is what separates this from a holiday let. Free parking, in a town that charges for every kerb, settles the argument.

Why This Location

East Cooper Avenue is the eastern end of the pedestrian core, which means the restaurants of the Hyman Avenue mall are a two-minute walk and the gondola an even shorter one. Step out the Hunter Street side and the town thins quickly towards the Roaring Fork and the Rio Grande Trail, good for a morning run or a summer ride. Durant Avenue buses leave for Snowmass and the Maroon Bells from a few steps away, and the airport is a short drive. The block is busy by day and quiet after dinner, which is the right way round.

Fast Facts

• Price: Premium to Luxury, depending on the size of the apartment

• Vibe: family condominium, unshowy, built for repeat visitors

• Rooms: 101 suites, from studios to three-bedroom apartments, each with a full kitchen, living and dining area and a private balcony

• Best For: families and multi-generation groups, week-long ski stays, travellers who want to cook

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the courtyard entrance off Hunter Street, which turns an apartment block into something closer to a village square

• Dining: no restaurant on site, by design: every suite has a full kitchen, and the Hyman Avenue restaurants are two minutes away

• Amenities: heated outdoor pool and hot tubs, private fitness centre, free parking, concierge and bell service, daily housekeeping, ski storage

• Attractions: Silver Queen Gondola and the Aspen Mountain base across the street, Wheeler Opera House about five minutes on foot, Aspen Art Museum within ten, Maroon Bells by bus from Durant Avenue

Inside the Suites: Kitchens, Balconies and Room to Spread Out

The units belong to individual owners, so no two are decorated alike, and the floor plans matter more than the finishes. Studios are generous by Aspen standards and take a full kitchen rather than a kitchenette. One- and two-bedroom apartments add a proper living and dining room, and the three-bedroom plans are the reason large groups book eleven months ahead. Every suite opens onto a private balcony, most of them looking towards Ajax or down into the courtyard. Air conditioning, unusual in older mountain buildings, makes the summer season genuinely comfortable.

The Courtyard, the Pool and the Practical Side

The heated pool and the hot tubs sit in the courtyard, open year round and busiest in the hour after the lifts close. A private fitness centre handles the rest. What guests talk about afterwards, though, tends to be the logistics: the free garage under the building, the ski storage by the door, the front desk that takes deliveries and books tables. None of it photographs well, and all of it is why a week here runs smoothly.