How a group of nonresident homeowners tried to influence a rural Colorado election.
Image credit: Luna Anna Archey/High Country News
Jan. 1, 2021
From the
print edition
April 2020, and the novel coronavirus was spreading through the United States. As businesses closed and hospitals filled, Jim Moran found himself sheltering in place in Colorado, at his second home. His mansion has dark wood siding and a jutting patio, and it perches on a bluff above Crested Butte, a small snow globe of a town whose brightly painted cottages huddle at the base of mountains at the north end of the Gunnison Valley, a long thin basin high in the Rockies. Moran is from Dallas, Texas, where he managed private equity firms. From his back door, he can ski directly onto Crested Butte Mountain Resort, one of Colorado’s iconic ski areas. Moran speaks quickly and passionately and has swept-back silver hair. Housing prices in rural towns have surged since the pandemic as well-to-do people flee cities. Moran’s property, which he bought in 2013, has appreciated: Were he to list his house today, Zillow estimates the value at $4.3 million.