Ski resort and celebrity hangout After the war some veterans of the Tenth returned to Aspen, including Friedl Pfeifer, another Austrian who had been involved in developing the ski resort before the war. In 1946 Walter Paepcke, then president of the Container Corporation of America, visited the city with his wife Elizabeth. The couple were looking for a place in the mountains of Colorado that would be ideal for an American counterpart to the Salzburg Festival. Aspen had many rundown neglected buildings lat the time, but they saw a lot of Victorian charm that could be brought back to life. They were cheap, and Paepcke bought or leased many, including the Jerome. Pfeifer also convinced him of the area's skiing potential, and Paepcke invested the money in the Aspen Skiing Company that Pfeifer had founded. That allowed the completion of Ski Lift No. 1, claimed to be the longest in the world. Its gala opening in January 1947 was the end of Aspen's "quiet years". As he had done with his other Aspen acquisitions, Paepcke commissioned Austrian Bauhaus architect Herbert Bayer to renovate the Jerome. Bayer's main change on the outside was to paint the exterior a light grey color, with blue accents on the window arches in a color called "Bayer blue", a change that was not popular with most longtime residents, who preferred the original brick. The pool and poolhouse were also added. Inside, the maple bar was completely restored, and moved along with the front desk to its present location. The Aspen Institute leased the hotel to provide space for participants and staff, and the renovations reduced the available rooms to 39. A new swimming pool was built, and it soon became the first place in Aspen where celebrities could be seen. In addition to movie stars of the era like Gary Cooper, Lana Turner and John Wayne, intellectual Mortimer Adler, helping to lead the Aspen Institute in its early days, could be seen lounging around it. The actors routinely stayed in the same suite on the second floor, and children in the city frequently knocked on its door to collect autographs. Writer Evelyn Ames called the Jerome during this period "a surprisingly heady brew ... of Europe and the corner drugstore, of poets and cowboy boots." In the 1960s, as the city steadily grew as a ski town, the Jerome declined. It was closed for several