Essay by Auden Schendler
Community – April 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
A TEACHER FRIEND of mine just shook the change out of his trousers to buy and then fully remodel a dump in Telluride, Colo. The house cost $1 million, and it was the cheapest thing going. I didn’t ask about the cost of the remodel.
At the same time that my friend was assembling his financial house of cards, citizens voted to condemn a huge chunk of open space at the entrance to the town. The vote was widely understood as support for preservation over development, a triumph of environmentalism over greed. But it wasn’t, exactly.