It was built by Jerome B. Wheeler, at the time co-owner of Macy's and a major investor in Aspen during its early boom years.

[3] It was the only hotel to remain open through the city's "quiet years" in the early 20th century, as a family business run by a former bartender and his son that often served as the town's social center.

Bill Murray partied there while portraying Thompson in a film, and the J-Bar also inspired a song by Glenn Frey, who had gone there often with his bandmates while a member of The Eagles.

[6] The building itself is a three-story 12-by-11-bay brick structure, with a small hyphen connecting the main block to a north wing of similar shape and size.

Smooth round columns on square bases support a molded cornice with metal letters spelling "Hotel Jerome" on the east and west.

[4] The middle six bays of the facade project slightly, separated by pilasters with foliated caps, forming a tall arcade.

All have sills of locally quarried rough cut peachblow sandstone, which continues around the building as a stringcourse and water table.

[4] At the ends of the facade are wood and glass storefronts, housing two of the hotel's three restaurants, the J-Bar on the west and Library on the east.

Standard amenities include marble vanities in the bathrooms, high-speed Internet access, a DVD player, fully stocked mini-bar and beds with 300-thread count linens.

With the development of skiing after World War II, it began to see a new potential realized only with major renovations at the end of the 20th century that made it the upscale hotel it is today.

In the late 1870s, prospectors venturing west from Leadville in search of silver veins crossed the Continental Divide at Independence Pass and continued down the Roaring Fork Valley to establish several mining camps.

At first it was called Ute City, after the local Native American tribe, but by the early 1880s it had been renamed Aspen, after the trees abundant in the area.

Costs escalated to more than twice that, and a month before the hotel was set to open the builders left town unexpectedly, leaving Wheeler owing approximately $150,000 ($5.09 million in modern dollars[10]).

[13] Three years after its completion, in 1892, Wheeler sold the hotel to a Denver man named Archie Fisk[12] for $125,000 ($4.24 million in modern dollars[10]) as part of a general liquidation of his Aspen assets after losing a lengthy lawsuit over a mining deal.

In 1911 ownership passed to local businessman Mansor Elisha, a Syrian American drummer with a travelling band who had stopped in Aspen, taken a job as the Jerome's bartender, and later acquired the hotel from Wheeler,[11] who had by this time long left the city and was unable to pay the taxes as he had gone bankrupt.

Liquor service continued, in the form of a popular drink called the Aspen Crud, still served there today, that is essentially a vanilla ice cream soda or milkshake generously spiked with bourbon.

Its first two guides, Swiss skier André Roch and Austrian mountaineer Gunther Langes, lived in the Jerome for five weeks while the lodge was finished.

Aspen had many rundown neglected buildings lat the time, but they saw a lot of Victorian charm that could be brought back to life.

In addition to movie stars of the era like Gary Cooper, Lana Turner and John Wayne, intellectual Mortimer Adler, helping to lead the Aspen Institute in its early days, could be seen lounging around it.

The actors routinely stayed in the same suite on the second floor, and children in the city frequently knocked on its door to collect autographs.

[12] Writer Evelyn Ames called the Jerome during this period "a surprisingly heady brew ... of Europe and the corner drugstore, of poets and cowboy boots.

[24] During the 1970s, he was a regular at the J-Bar, coming in from his home in nearby Woody Creek to pick up his mail and then hang out at the bar, drinking, eating and watching television as it had the best reception in the area prior to cable becoming widespread.

"[12] Early in the decade, a new Los Angeles band known at the time as Teen King and the Emergencies went up to Aspen to perfect their country rock sound before releasing their first album as The Eagles.

[25] Their members also became familiar sights at the J-Bar, along with fellow musician Jimmy Buffett and another rising Hollywood star, Jack Nicholson.

Bill Murray stayed at the Jerome in 1980 while filming Where the Buffalo Roam, based on Thompson's life, and the nightly parties that started in the J-Bar continued in his suite.

[12] After the Eagles broke up, Glenn Frey took the "large convention of young monsters" at the J-Bar as inspiration for his 1982 single "Partytown".

LCP-Elysian conveyed the trust deed, with which it had originally collateralized the loan, to Jerome Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of its creditor,[29] in exchange for the forgiveness of the remaining debt in 2009.

[27] The new owner applied to the city for an exemption from the real estate transfer tax it charges, on the grounds that it had acquired the property through foreclosure proceedings.

The city responded that the foreclosure had been a fraudulent conveyance in order to avoid a tax bill estimated at around a half million dollars.

He praised the staff's helpfulness in finding another place to valet-park his car with two bicycles on top, and the two half-liter water bottles and Toblerone candy bars on the desk when he came in.