A Dreamy Stay: Red Rocks' Upcoming Hotel Redefines Sleep Comfort
By Chad Wallace, Root Architecture
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Rooted in Collaboration
The team at Root Architecture believes that the best architectural design results come from working with others. Just like the roots of large Aspen groves connect to form one of the largest organisms on Earth, architects and designers that want to stay relevant must gather and pull insights from a variety of resources to “grow” natural, artistic structures that encourage people to stay, but also incorporate a reasonable level of sustainability. Since Root’s inception in 2012, we have designed the following hospitality-focused projects with that philosophy in mind:
Several years back, as we reflected on the many hospitality projects we had designed for others, Root founder Zeke Freeman and I began to wonder what it would be like if we owned the hotel or restaurant we were designing, right here in our backyard, on Colorado’s Front Range. What would we design? How would we manage it? Well, we are about to find out!
Next month we are breaking ground on a project we will own and manage ourselves, the Red Hotel - which is scheduled to open in early Spring of 2026 in one of America’s smallest towns, Morrison, Colo. There are only 400 residents in Morrison, but the town is in the shadow of one of the most famous concert venues in the world, Red Rocks Amphitheater! Practically every night during concert season (March - Nov) Morrison is packed with people before, during and after each show. Our hotel and restaurant will be booked solid nine months out of every year.
The Red Hotel
Morrison sits at 6,368 feet in elevation and is a tiny piece of Denver’s massive Jefferson County. The town only has about eight restaurants, and currently only two Airbnb rentals. It is sort of an old highway junction between Denver and the high country, and it borders the big, mountainous Evergreen community. Morrison isn’t a forgotten town, more like an ignored one. Aside from Red Rocks there has been no reason to stop, not even for a bite at the tasty Morrison Inn, especially once you weigh the multitude of options a few minutes away in Golden or Lakewood. It was as if the town suffered from a hangover from the never-ending concerts up the hill.
Today Morrison still has a small town vibe, but it is emerging from a slumber. It seems to have recognized the need to present itself as a modern, functioning town for its visitors. Red Rocks Amphitheater is not going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, the number of shows and events each year are increasing. In response to this trend and for the first time in 40 years, last year the town of Morrison approved the building of a new commercial structure within its city limits - our Red Hotel.
The Red Hotel, sometimes known as Red, will serve concertgoers, weekend hikers, fossil hunters and (hopefully) those band members and artists performing at Red Rocks. We will be ready for all comers, and all the shows! Morrison’s first-ever energy efficient, solar powered hotel is going to have the coolest rooftop lounge for miles. For those who like to have a good time before, during and after a concert, Red might be the smartest and safest retreat for miles.
Advanced Design = Energy Efficient Operations
We are not striving for passive certification with The Red Hotel, but it will be energy efficient. Red is designed to the most up to date 2021 energy code standards, but our energy efficiency will ultimately exceed them. We estimate that 60 percent of our building’s energy will be powered by rooftop solar and we are focused on creating a tight building envelope with our window strategy. We prefer to build walls featuring more windows and less insulation, a strategy that drastically improves a building’s energy exchange. We are heavily invested in AlpenGlass and its insulated ThinGlass windows because of the R values they present, which allows us to reduce the amount of insulation in each wall.
WATCH: In this video, Christina Williamson explains the math behind this approach.
Root has had a relationship with Alpen for almost a decade because many of our clients want the best performing windows and want to save the most energy. The natural answer there is always Alpen. I am sort of the embodiment of my own clients - I love huge, sweeping vistas and the only way to capture them is with today’s high-performance windows. Alpen’s relationships with the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, the GSA and the Department of Energy are inspiring and have created a culture of innovation that we are not used to seeing from other window companies.
What is "Sleepability"?
We are automating some of the room functions in The Red Hotel to save energy. For example the rooms at Red will go to sleep when there is no guest present. Lights will turn off, curtains will close, the heat will turn down and more. Then, 30-minutes prior to the guests' arrival, the room wakes up. When the guest leaves for a few hours the room simply goes into a resting mode, powered down but without turning off the heat in winter, or the air conditioning in summer. We call it “sleepability.” Sleepability is a homegrown technology platform that provides comfort for our guests and huge savings for the owners from an operations, energy and labor perspective.
Sleepability II? Well, that would be the Alpen windows. If you haven’t experienced the sound attenuation that accompanies high performance windows you are missing out. Alpen’s insulated, thin triple pane windows dull outside noises better than any window I’ve encountered, minus Alpen’s quadruple pane thin glass windows. Bear Creek, which flows by the hotel, is as loud as the trucks that drive through the tiny town of Morrison, and constant. The Red Hotel is going to remove all outside noises, taking your sleep and your room’s comfort level seriously while also saving some of the world’s precious energy. That feels like a few big wins.
We have not yet figured out our sales strategy when it comes to getting the bands that play Red Rocks to stay at Red. Regardless, we intend to treat all of our guests like rock stars, regardless of who is on stage that weekend because hospitality is in our blood. Where we come from, no one walks about uncomfortable, empty handed, hungry or with a sad face. The Red Hotel and our energy efficient version of guest services and hospitality - our “sleepability” quotient - is coming to Red Rocks next year. Stay tuned and you will see.
About the Author
Chad Wallace, Root Architecture
Principle & COO
Chad is an architect with a B.S. in Architecture from Texas A&M and decades of experience in design/build.
Guided by the philosophy of "less is more," his work blends beauty, functionality, and natural light. He specializes in creating homes with expansive vistas, more windows, and fewer walls to foster connection and community.
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