City: Boulder, CO

Category: Relocation

Address: 15 miles from Boulder

Description: This is the closest “mountain” community to Boulder. The gold in these hills comes from the orange and yellow lichens that color the walls of Eldorado Canyon State Park, one of the nation’s premier rock-climbing areas. The springs area was the winter home of a Ute Indian tribe. In the early 1900s, these same springs sustained a 40-room resort. Trombone player Glenn Miller used to leave studies at CU to play with the Eldorado Springs resort band. Sweet-faced movie star Mary Pickford was a visitor, and soon-to-be-president Dwight Eisenhower and his bride, Mamie, vacationed here. A quarry once yielded Eldorado Canyon’s beautiful red rock. It has closed, but that mining scar remains, a reminder of the trade-offs between promoting industry and natural grandeur.To see Eldorado Springs, drive south on Broadway. Three miles past Table Mesa Drive, turn west on Highway 170. After 3 more miles, you’ll meet a riffraff of cabins, precariously balanced along a steep mountain stream. Welcome to the bumpy dirt roads that some residents say add character and discourage tourists. Most Eldorado Springs residents are romance-smitten commuters. You can see their influence in the flowers that wink in rock gardens, in the misty wash of rainbow colors on a potter’s garage, in the blue cow bells cascading near a shake-shingle entry. Drive past the pool and head over the rutted wooden trestles of that one-way bridge. Continue past the caramel-colored chalet called “L’il’ Abner,” past the 1950s-style, minty green place named “Jitterbug,” and by that upscale cottage called “Chelsea Morning.”Eldorado Springs pool, fed by underground springs, is a favorite summer swimming hole, the warm water delivered from more than a mile below. The springs also provide clear Eldorado Artesian Springs water, available for home delivery or in local grocery stores.