The new Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center is getting ready to open – and I’m getting ready to party there.
The $310.7 million, 1,100-room hotel will have its ribbon cutting and greet the first guests Dec. 20. The grand opening party will follow in January, says developer Bill Mosher, CEO of Denver Convention Center Hotel Authority.
Adds hotel GM John Schafer, “My first goal is getting the hotel open. Then we’ll get ready for a party. I’ll need a cocktail.”
The history of hotel-opening parties is rich in Denver. In the past, they have been extremely extravagant. “That sounds extremely expensive,” Mosher says. “It won’t be that.”
You can’t open the Hyatt with a tea party, pal. I cruised through some of the hotel’s public spaces this week. It will be a wower of an inn. The big ballroom can hold about 2,000 – with room for more in the other two. Then there’s the bar downstairs and the second- floor lobby overlooking the convention center and the mountains.
PR dynamo Wendy Aiello, who is the go-to gal for Denver openings (I wouldn’t open my refrigerator without her), is planning the party. A lot needs to be ironed out, she says. If it all comes together as planned, it’ll be a “great big party” that will benefit three Denver charities. Stay tuned for the deets.
Cribs
WB2 anchor Asha Blake is going where few women have gone before: into the homes of high-profile Coloradans. With a camera. Her series, “Colorado Celebrity Cribs,” debuted Wednesday night with a visit to actor Rick Schroder’s 15,000-acre ranch near Grand Junction. It’s for sale, for $29 million. The house was modest, but the property was magnificent.
Blake says she’ll continue to visit cribs of high-profilers. Next up is Nuggets GM Kiki and Peggy Vandeweghe’s exquisite house on Cheesman Park and philanthropist Sharon Magness Blake’s Cherry Hills pad.
Knowing
Robert Trachtenberg’s collection of essays, “When I Knew,” examines the moment gay people figured out they were. A few of them were read recently on NPR – and among them comes this from Denver native Kate Nielson.
“The Paramount Theatre, 1965, Denver, Colorado: I was sitting next to my mother, munching on popcorn, watching ‘The Sound of Music,’ and I wondered in my little 5-year-old brain if it was wrong to want to be Christopher Plummer, a.k.a. Captain von Trapp. It was the only way, as a girl, that I could imagine being able to be with the beautiful Julie Andrews … I made my mother take me back to see the movie several times that summer, which she was more than happy to do as she just assumed it was because I wanted to be a nun – not that I wanted to be with a nun.”
City spirit
MTV’s reality show “Run’s House” comes down in Keystone on the Nov. 17 episode, when Reverend Run and his family go rafting, fly-fishing and kick back at Timbers Lodge … Sez who: “Comedy is the blues for people who can’t sing.” Chris Rock
Bill Husted’s column appears Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Husted also appears on Fox 31 News. You can reach him at 303-820-1486 or at bhusted@denverpost.com.
