BY JOHN W. LUNDIN

For years, Guyer Hot Springs near the bottom of Bald Mountain’s Warm Springs side, attracted power brokers from throughout the United States to partake of its healing waters and enjoy its dancing and other amenities.

But, when it fell into disrepair during the late 1920s, its new owners Carl and Dorothy Brandt, who owned J.C. Penny Stores in Shoshone and Hailey, decided against returning it to its former splendor.

Brandt was concerned that the hotel’s distance from Ketchum out a three-mile seasonal road, would discourage visitors, so he came up with a plan to establish a new hot springs resort on Ketchum’s Main Street.

In 1929, Brandt bought a lot on Main Street from the Odd Fellows, for the purpose of building the Bald Mountain Hot Springs Lodge. Brandt reportedly paid $50,000 to have a crew lay a wooden pipe along Warm Springs Road to his lot in downtown Ketchum to bring hot water from the springs. This took an entire summer.

Brandt hired the Boise architectural firm of Tourtellotte and Hummel—the same firm that designed the Capitol building in Boise--to design the lodge. It had 31 log cabin rooms and a 200,000-gallon concrete swimming pool filled with160-degree water brought by the pipe from an immense underground reservoir at Warm Springs.

That reservoir also provided hot water and heat to 70 residences in the Ketchum area.

The lodge is said to have cost more than $100,000 to build, and was the most expansive development in Ketchum at the time. Visitors from throughout the region flocked to the U-shaped string of cabins, attracted by the rejuvenating mineral-water pool and surrounding wilderness.

Count Felix Schaffgotsch, the Austrian aristocrat who was hired by Averell Harriman to locate a location for Union Pacific’ new ski resort, stayed at the Bald Mountain Hot Springs Lodge during his visit in February 1936. When the Sun Valley Resort was built in 1936by Union Pacific, construction managers and railroad executives stayed at Brandt’s resort.

It “boasts a history that is certainly as rich and deep as that of any other venue in Ketchum’s vintage core,” wrote George McLeod in his book, A History of Alturas and Blaine County:”

“Ketchum is now quite a summer resort. In the spring of 1929, Carl E. Brandt had the hot water from the Guyer Hot Springs… piped into town. And a large natatorium built. This water has a temperature of 170 degrees F. There are 31 tourist cabins heated by this hot water and supplied with all modern conveniences. The town has two good general stores, one hotel, one restaurant, one garage, one service station. It is one of the greatest sheep and lamb shipping stations in the state.”

The Brandts built a little log house in the block north of the Bald Mountain Hot Springs Lodge, staying at the Ketchum Kamp Hotel while their cabin was being constructed. Eighteen legions of Ketchum kids learned to swim in the lodge pool.

The “plunge” was an important part of social activity in Ketchum, and the American Red Cross provided swimming lessons there. It provided relaxation for those adults who prefer to ignore the slight sulfur smell in exchange for the smooth texture of the mineral water.

The Brandts operated the Bald Mountain Hot Springs Lodge until 1956 when they sold it and moved to a house at Guyer Hot Springs. Phyllis Houk purchased it in 1964. The pool was closed in 1988 after pipes failed, but the motel continued its operations.

After 32 years Houk sold the facility in 1996 to Brian Barsotti. By then, the roof of the lodge was caved in and the buildings run down. The pool could not be reconnected to a reliable source of hot water so Barsotti tore down the pool structures and transformed the old pool into a wine-storage facility.

He renovated the cabin buildings but could not compete with the Sun Valley Lodge and other more modern hotels. So, in September 2003, Barsotti obtained permission from the city of Ketchum to build an 80-room luxury hotel on the one-acre property, which would include a 3,800-square-foot conference room, a 1,000-square-foot boardroom, retail space, underground parking and a fitness center.

Three structures were moved to Hagerman where they were incorporated into a wildfowl hunting club. The other buildings were torn down in 2006 to make way for the hotel. The wooden pipe under Warm Springs Road still brings water from Guyer Hot Springs, heating a number of homes, although the pipe often leaks.

When Barsotti’s plans to build a hotel honoring Ernest Hemingway with the blessing of Hemingway’s granddaughter Mariel Hemingway fell through, the Aspen Ski Company submitted plans to build the five story Limelight Hotel.

Construction started in summer 2015. The Limelight Hotel opened in December 2016, on the site of the Bald Mountain Hot Springs Lodge with the old Lodge sign on display inside the hotel.

The Brandts lived in their house on the old Guyer Hot Springs Resort site in Warm Springs for many years. Carl Brandt died in 1969, and Dorothy died in 1990. In 1987 she sold the historic Guyer Springs hot water system, along with nine acres of the Guyer Hot Springs site to a Chicago-based real estate development company, the Guyer Springs Land Company, a subsidiary of Pesch and Company.

The property contained 5.6 acres of buildable land, which the company planned to develop for recreational purposes. The land’s zoning allowed up to 61 hotel or residential units, along with retail and restaurant operations. It also allowed geothermal operations as a conditional use.

This project was never built. The James Cimino family bought the Guyer Hot Springs site and the land is presently owned by the family’s company, Natural Energy Resources. The Brandt house and other buildings at Guyer Hot Springs were torn down in the1990s, and the only remnant of the resort that can be seen from Warm Springs Road is the pipe carrying hot water from the springs into town. The plumbing for the resort’s waterworks still exists along Warm Springs Creek.

Guyer Hot Springs water still heats a number of residences along Warm Springs Road via an underground pipe and is used for melting snow at the Warm Springs lift area. There have been a number of proposals to use the Guyer Hot Springs water for a variety of projects over the years, including a heated swimming pool for the proposed Janss Center (YMCA) and melting snow on roads.

In 2013, the Ketchum City Council approved an agreement with the Cimino family to conduct a $5,000 study to determine how much hot water was available at the site and what would be required to develop it as a public pool or spa. But money for the study was never appropriated.

The City of Ketchum is now evaluating a proposal to build Hemingway Hot Springs just west of the historic Guyer Hot Springs site in Warm Springs.

    + EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third part of a series in Eye on Sun Valley looking at hot springs in the Hailey and Ketchum area. John W. Lundin’s award-winning books include “Skiing Sun Valley” and “Ski Jumping in Washington State.”