First, I’ll give an update on the actual build, then advertising. The sheetrock is done, walls are painted, the deck and siding are over half done and we’re just about done with the flooring. After the flooring, we’ll move onto tile in the showers, cabinets, finish plumbing and electrical, etc… We’ve done all of this since Dec. 1st with really just 2 guys, as of a week ago we have 4 guys working full time on site, so instead of slowing down with 4 months left, we’re speeding up.
The big unknown is snow. So far, snowfall has been below average, to the point where the 2 miles on CR 33 up to the house has been ice and rocks, which is tough on snowmobiles, but more importantly, dangerous because the snowmobiles won’t stop going down a steep hill. About a week ago it finally snowed a few feet, which has been very helpful. However, if it snows 10 feet all of the sudden, then it makes things tough. First of all, the non-snow equipment like the telehandler will be useless and all siding work will slow way down. Most importantly, it’ll take longer for everything to melt this spring, which will mean that the last bit of outdoor work to do, hooking up the septic and water to the house, will happen later, thus delaying our getting a certificate of occupancy.
On the advertising front, the website, booking engine, and Vrbo profile are all set up. Before I started asking for strangers’ money, I thought it would be helpful to generate photos of the lodge using AI. I tried feeding photos of unfinished rooms into ChatGPT and having it finish them, but it just wasn’t really working. Finally, I hired a guy in Pakistan via Upwork to do it for me. I paid him $10/hour and he did a great job, but he billed me like an hour per generated photo, which might be excessive, I don’t really know. All I know is that it was better than me doing it. When we were starting up the Escalante Cliff House and Birch Creek House, AI generated photos weren’t really a thing yet, so I am hoping that by posting what the house will look like this time, I can get more quality bookings sooner.
AI image of 1st bedroom
The really big news is the pricing. I use the pricing software pricelabs. It determines nightly price based on variables like occupancy, historical occupancy of the area, how the area is booking up, etc… It works off of a base price for each night, that it then raises or lowers based all the variables. When I originally setup the Escalante Cliff House on this system, it made the base price like $335, which made the individual nights much less than the rate they were at before. All of the sudden, for like a weekend, the Escalante Cliff House was a crazy deal and I booked like a month in a weekend, mistake!! I then manually adjusted the base price to stop the bleeding. Anyways, when I turned Pricelabs on for this rental last week, It suggested a base price of $843!!
The only algorithm inputs right now are that this is a 4 bed, 3 bath house in Silverton Colorado that sleeps 12 people. At first, I thought it was lumping us into the Telluride market, which is the super expensive, super nice neighboring resort town and would’ve increased the price too much. Nope, just Silverton and the surrounding area. Anyways, take a look at the pricing calendar below for July, which is the high month. $2683 for the night of July 11th?!? And for July 11th, Silverton is already 50% booked, 6 months ahead of time? That’s incredible demand. For reference, in Escalante Utah, currently the most booked date in that market is Memorial Day, and the rentals are currently 20% booked. I was constantly told that demand in Silverton was great in the summer, but having nights where 50% of the rentals are booked 6 months ahead of time is wild!
However, the prices in this pricing calendar are not what we’re going to realize in 2026, because I have no reviews, and therefore I’m at the bottom of the search on Vrbo or Google. Long term however, I think I’ll end up above those prices. For the simple fact that those prices are based on an AVERAGE 4 bed, 3 bath in Silverton. And an average 4 bed 3 bath in Silverton is probably a charming, 100+ year old Victorian home. There are lots of those rentals already and they do fine, but there’s a lot more demand, and alot less supply of, a brand new 4 bed, 3 bath, 3300sqft off grid lodge on 10 private acres, a mile from the nearest neighbor. So, if anyone reading this wants to rent the place with your friends, I’ll give you a deal since you’ll be among the first to rent, just message me and we’ll work something out.
I also just became a member of the Silverton Chamber of Commerce which is super exciting. The director, Deanne and I had a super exciting, hour long conversation where we just nerded out about how rad Silverton is and how much radder it’s going to be in the future. And how she wants to introduce us to the other business owners in town and how we’re going to get a page on Silvertoncolorado.com and be in the Silverton magazine and Silverton newspaper in May?!? Stuff like that helps in the same way reviews help, it just adds legitimacy to the property and it helps with search when a big website like Silvertoncolorado.com links to ours.
The long-term dream is this. This fall we’re going to build the most incredible outdoor hot tub anywhere on Instagram. It’s going to be spring fed and heated with wood, or maybe propane. The hot tub post I’m going to do is going to go viral bookings will pour in. In the winter, I want to partner with a helicopter skiing outfit, heli.com hopefully, to pick guests up from out house, fly them to the top of Kendall Mountain, where they can ski/snowboard all the way down to the lodge with a guide. The top is at 13,383ft and our lodge is at 10,400ft, and you can ski/snowboard down the whole thing without hiking because there’s a groomed trail, CR33, to get you through the somewhat flat parts! How incredible is that going to be! Ski in, Ski out heli skiing? Where can you do that?
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