Under the roofs of his two Victorian-era landmark buildings, which occupy a square block in the center of town, various enterprises owned by Richard Edwards cater to the primary needs of Aspen’s elite. They buy art at the Baldwin Gallery; they drink, dine, and dance into the late hours at the members-only Caribou Club; and they shop at his retail tenants: currently Dior, Zegna, Frette, and Yves Salomon, among others. Upstairs is Edwards’s inner sanctum: a baronial two-story apartment furnished with 1940s French furniture, Asian and pre-Columbian antiques, and a treasure trove of contemporary art. From its high windows and terraces, there are commanding 360-degree views of Ajax, Red, Shadow, and Sopris—all four of Aspen’s mountains.
Thirty years ago, when this dry-witted, erudite Englishman arrived in Aspen for a weekend visit, few could have predicted he would wind up in this position. Edwards, least of all. A Cambridge-educated lawyer, he had never been on skis or even driven a car. But when a friend took him to dinner at the Caribou, he was introduced to Harley Baldwin, the brash and charming entrepreneur who founded the place. In one evening, his life changed forever. Baldwin’s story is local legend.
A Chicago native, he drove into Aspen one day in 1968 at age 23, with little in his pocket. He rented the Popcorn Wagon, now a downtown fixture, and sold crêpes to the crowds coming out of the bars at night. As Edwards, now 68, recounts, Aspen was then mainly populated by hippies and dropouts: “It was very funky. There had been no money in Aspen for about 75 years—since the Silver Boom ended. The Victorian buildings that are much prized today were very run-down. People were demolishing them.”
In Edwards’s sitting room hang paintings by Carroll Dunham (left) and Philip Taaffe (right).
In 1971, Baldwin bought the once grand but then derelict Brand Building for $170,000 with a loan from Robert O. Anderson, the chairman of Atlantic Richfield. He restored it, constructing posh apartments and shops for Aspen’s first international retailers. (One of the earliest was Gucci—after Baldwin cold-called its then-CEO, Domenico De Sole, in Florence.) Later, Baldwin bought the neighboring Collins Block, where he dug a basement to house the Caribou, the town’s first private club; upstairs, he fashioned a sprawling apartment for himself.
Harleywood, as the vicinity became known (it was also referred to as Glitter Gulch), was instrumental in Aspen’s transformation. De Sole, who ended up building a house there and becoming a seasonal resident, called Baldwin “the king.” According to socialite Amy Phelan, “Harley was the guy.”
Baldwin and Edwards hit it off that initial evening, but the next day Edwards flew back East to his job running the New York office of the British law firm that employed him. Baldwin, who lived part-time in the city, where he was also involved in real estate developments, followed up with an invitation to dinner. “After we dated a few months, Harley said, ‘You should really come to Aspen and see what it’s like.’”
In the fall of 1994, Edwards quit his job and became a Coloradoan. The early days were challenging. “It’s quite an odd situation, moving to a place where somebody you live with is so well known and you don’t know anyone,” he says. “Nobody is much interested in you because they don’t know who you are. So, you have to be quite self-sufficient and fairly immune to rude things people can say and do.”
Edwards found his niche through a new venture. “One day, Harley said, ‘I don’t understand why there’s not a decent gallery in Aspen. You know people in the art world. Why don’t we open a gallery? How hard could it be?’” Edwards thought it might not be so easy. “I said, ‘What happens if we fail?’ He said, ‘We’ll end up with a lot of art.’”
Inside the Caribou Club, which houses a collection of Western art that ranges from 19th century works by artists Frederic Remington and Albert Bierstadt to contemporary painters.
The Baldwin Gallery, as it was named, launched in 1994 with shows by Nabil Nahas and Jennifer Bartlett. “In the beginning it was difficult, because collectors were wary about buying from a ‘resort’ gallery,” Edwards recalls. But the artists they approached were intrigued, and signed on. According to Edwards, after a couple recessions, they were more inclined to “look after themselves,” and show outside their New York galleries. Timing aside, he and Baldwin swiftly began to mount impeccable exhibitions—and showed the artists a very good time while in town. Before long, the Baldwin Gallery’s roster included Alex Katz, Pat Steir, Donald Baechler, Louise Nevelson, Eric Fischl, David Salle, Ross Bleckner, and Donald Sultan. “A lot of our success came through word of mouth,” Edwards says. “The artists spread the word to their friends.”
Even, as Edwards says, “people who everybody said were impossible” came to show, including the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who referred to themselves in the third person. “When Harley picked them up at the airport in Aspen, he opened the car door for them,” Edwards recalls. “She said, ‘Christo and Jeanne Claude do not travel in the front seat of a motor vehicle.’ Harley said, ‘Maybe you would be more comfortable tied to the roof rack?’ There was a shocked silence, then she fell laughing and said, ‘We are going to get on very well.’”
For a decade, Edwards and Baldwin, who was 11 years his senior, went from strength to strength, much like Aspen itself. Then, in January 2005, just six weeks after he had been diagnosed with kidney cancer, Baldwin died, at the age of 59. Edwards was not only grief-stricken but unprepared for what fell on his shoulders: Baldwin left him everything. While the Aspen community rallied around Edwards (“I cannot tell you how kind people were,” he says), the IRS was quite another story. Years before gay marriage was legalized, Edwards was hit with massive tax assessments.
“We had a relationship that had all the traditional qualities of a straight marriage. Harley had given me a ring. He told me, ‘I feel like we are married.’ But his illness was so unexpected and sudden, we didn’t have time to plan,” Edwards recalls. “Then I found myself in this terrible situation where I was treated as a total stranger. And even worse, I wasn’t American.”
For the next 10 years, Edwards was in dispute with the IRS, eventually settling: “I spent most of my life with lawyers and accountants and valuers trying to figure it out. It was so touch-and-go whether I could keep the businesses going. It was very stressful. I had 60 people working for me. Their jobs were in jeopardy, too. So, it became about keeping everybody employed, not just about me. And if I didn’t keep it all going, I would have failed Harley, I felt.”
Edwards did more than just carry on. “He has enhanced everything,” De Sole says today.
Read the full story in PALMER On the Road.