NEED TO KNOW
John Denver co-founded the Windstar Foundation in 1976 to promote environmental education and research
His Old Snowmass property included a solar-powered learning center, greenhouse and geodesic dome
A 1996 conservation easement protects 927 acres from development despite the foundation closing in 2012
Prior to his 1997 death in a tragic plane crash, one of the most powerful chapters in musical legend John Denver’s life was his environmental work — a legacy that has lived on.
The “Take Me Home, Country Roads” singer successfully used his wealth and fame to create a perpetual ecological sanctuary in 1976, when he co-founded a nonprofit environmental education and research organization called the Windstar Foundation.
The foundation’s home was a massive tract of land in Old Snowmass, Colo. that Denver purchased in the late 1980s.
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John Denver’s Colorado sanctuary
Credit: Douglas Sacha/Getty
From the air, the 957-acre property forms the distinct shape of a whale which Denver—a close friend of legendary ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau—took as a cosmic sign, The Aspen Times reported.
Previously a potato farm and sheep ranch, Denver transformed the property into a solar-powered “eco-learning center” complete with a sprawling greenhouse and a large geodesic dome.
Operating the facility was expensive, with the foundation reportedly facing financial difficulties, per The New York Times.
To ensure that Denver’s dream of land conservation would not be destroyed if the foundation ever folded, the singer and his partners placed a perpetual conservation easement (a legally binding agreement that permanently limits use of the land) on the land in 1996.
Denver died in a tragic plane crash at 53 years old on Oct. 12, 1997, when his small, single-engine experimental aircraft plummeted into Monterey Bay in California. Denver, the pilot and sole passenger, died on impact.
Without his star power and the funding that came with it, the Windstar Foundation eventually wound down operations and closed its doors in 2012. In 2013, the land was officially sold to a private buyer.
Mountains, flowers and trees, John Denver Sanctuary, Aspen, Colorado.
Credit: Efrain Padro/Alamy
“We are proud of our long-time stewardship of the land and the perpetual conservation easement that we placed on the Windstar property in 1996 that will protect and preserve 927 acres from development forever,” Windstar Land Conservancy President and RMI Executive Director Marty Pickett said in a statement at the time.
Even with the sale of the property, Denver’s forward-thinking conservation easement meant that 927 of the 957 acres currently remain strictly protected from development, and will forever.
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