How it all began...
by Jeff Crane, NoLo Co-Founder
I was born and raised in Denver. Since 2004, I had lived in New York’s Hudson Valley, where I taught art and art history at the State University of New York at New Paltz and served as Snowsports School Director at Plattekill Mountain.
In July, 2016, my brother Dan (a professional air guitarist) organized a ‘bachelor weekend’ at his high-school friend Matt LaBarge’s (then-owner of Sputnik in Denver) cabin outside Alma, CO. Picture a bunch of old dads sitting around drinking beer and shooting beer cans with a $30 BB gun. After a day or two of merriment and sloth, I suggested a hike. We got into our cars to explore. After some aimless wandering, we headed up Mosquito Pass Road.
Driving as far as seemed prudent on the rugged road, we got out of our vehicles and continued walking.
I will never forget seeing the North London Mill for the first time as it appeared over the horizon, cradled in a spectacular high-alpine valley carpeted with wildflowers. It was perfect; the very definition of picturesque.
Trespassing, we wandered around the North London Mill site. Matt and I went into the Mill’s perimeter (we would rather you not do this until it’s further stabilized), and began to imagine.
At the time, I was beginning to explore backcountry skiing and had done several hut trips in Colorado. I imagined, what if this were a ski area with no lifts? The terrain above the Mill looked perfect for low-angle, low-consequence backcountry education. I thought, my son – who was 7 at the time – could ski here.
When I got back to New York, I told my partner, Kate, about the place. She was game. I Googled the Town of Alma and found the Town Supervisor. I called and left a message: “Who owns that Mill site on Mosquito Pass Road?” I remember thinking, this is going to be a consequential phone call. She called a geologist and left-handed guitarist named Dean Misantoni who called Joe Harrington.
Several days later, I was at the IKEA in Paramus, NJ, on my way to pick up my dad at Newark Airport when I received a call from a 303 area code. Colorado.
“Hi, this is Joe Harrington. I own 3,000 acres up around Mosquito Pass. I understand you were up at the North London site. Wondering what your interest is.”
I must have sounded like a total hippy dude when I said, “well, we were up there and it was just so beautiful, and I thought,’this would be a perfect sort-of backcountry ski area.”
“I agree,” said Joe. “Let’s do it.”
I remember thinking, I have no idea how to do that.
Kate and I flew to Denver and met with Joe, along with Matt LaBarge, at a Colorado Water Conference at a hotel in the Stapleton area. We sat down with Joe at a high, round table in the bar. Joe pulled out a map of the lands that he had recently acquired from an estate – about 3,000 acres of discontinuous mining claims. His interest was in a tunnel on the south side of London Mountain that discharged water polluted with heavy metals into Mosquito Creek, which drains into the South Platte. He had developed a process to precipitate the contamination – common to all old mining tunnels – to clean the water. His interest was in cleaning and selling the water right. He put a pencil eraser over the spot where the tunnel was – everything else, he said, was up for discussion.
We talked about our idea. Joe was open to forming a plan with us. First step was to create an LLC, which we did, called Mosquito Pass, LLC. We started talking to people and dreaming up plans.
The basic concept was to rehabilitate the historic buildings for backcountry recreation and education. We determined two important things very quickly: 1) there was basically zero potential for return on investment for such a project; and 2) Colorado has incredible funding for historic preservation. This was not going to be a profit-driven project. And, with our backgrounds in education and art, that suited Kate and me just fine. Kate had abundant experience as a grant writer.
We formed a non-profit on February 1, 2017 called North London Mill Preservation, Inc. This was a mouthful, so I came up with NoLo for short. We did lots of paperwork to make these things real.
We engaged historic preservation architects, form+works design group, without whom none of this could have happened. We worked closely with Park County, the US Forest Service South Park Ranger District, and received grants from a long list of funders. We listened to local constituents, and we let the site tell us what we should and shouldn’t do.
To make a long story short – since incorporating in 2017, we’ve raised nearly $2M in grant funding, donations, and other other funds to rehabilitate the NoLo site. The Office received its Certificate of Occupancy in November 2023, and we spent a year beta-testing. The NoLo Office opened to the public in 2025.
Now, NoLo is much more than simply a backcountry hut. The North London Mill, slated to be donated to the Unites States Forest Service in early 2027, is Colorado’s newest (oldest) contemporary art space. We are education, the arts and sciences, and a growing a Community of Shared Stewardship – we invite you become part of it.