Stargazing and Surreal Architecture Come Together at This Gaudí-Inspired Colorado Airbnb

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I had heard about the supernatural vibes around Crestone, Colorado, even before moving to the state. The town of under 200 people is at the edge of the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, near the New Mexico border. The valley is an agricultural center, but is perhaps equally known for its independent-minded residents and otherworldly landscape: the San Luis Valley is the world’s largest alpine valley, sitting at an average elevation of above 7,500 feet and sandwiched by Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the San Juan Mountains. “Otherwordly” in landscape and in energy. Green, graffitied alien heads are painted on plywood boards along both major and minor roads, and the valley is home to the state’s original UFO watchtower.

Hearing the stories and driving through the region is one thing. It’s something else entirely to spend a weekend exploring the valley, as I found when my wife, toddler daughter, and I needed a midway point between Denver and Durango to visit family. We picked an Airbnb that embodied the off-the-beaten-path nature of the town: Crestone Hobbitat.

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The outside is striking, to put it mildly — even in a town loaded with homes that don’t adhere to any standardized building code. The Crestone Hobbitat was built in the style of Antoni Gaudí (of Sagrada Familia fame) with flowing exterior walls that look washed and wind-blown into shape. Colorful tile artwork on the front replicate scenes from Van Gogh paintings, and the brick-lined wall around the rooftop patios contrast with the bright white concrete.

The theme follows to the inside, with the main room ceiling swirling to a circular window that’s reminiscent of an image of a black hole. Blue tiles make the bathroom feel almost underwater, while the kitchen is cave-like. Concert posters of Grateful Dead shows and other psychedelic-adjacent bands dating back to the 1960s line the first floor walls between circular windows. A brick-red staircase with a wavy handrail circles up to the mezzanine and then the main sleeping area, both with doors to the outside patios. On the far side of the top floor, a bright meditation room with sun-yellow accents faces the mountains.

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Jeffrey and his wife, the owners, greeted us when we arrived and explained the quirks of the home (beyond the appearance). A pellet-fire stove heats the place and needs regular checking in on — our trip timed up with the deepest cold snap of the winter that far, with temperatures not getting much above the single digits, if above zero at all. Jeffrey’s artist studio through the door in the kitchen was off limits, though he was eager to point out a couple of their sculptures around the house and outside. There’s no TV, but a couple of bookshelves held titles ranging from wildlife photography to sustainable architecture guides to fiction (in the case of the latter, all titles were on sale for just $3).

A photobook on the mezzanine coffee table tells the story of how the Crestone Hobbitat came to be. The owners visited Barcelona in the 1980s and fell for Gaudi’s architecture. In 2007, Jeffrey and his son studied how to build similar homes at a workshop in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, under Steve Kornher of FlyingConcrete. Kornher agreed to build a studio in his distinctive style in Crestone that evolved into the building today.

My daughter, Margot, couldn’t climb everything inside and out fast enough. At night, we turned on the home’s star projector and bundled up in blankets on the sleeper-sofa, blending the projection with the actual stars visible from the ceiling window. In the quiet of the morning, we the three of us and our 16-year-old pomchi bathed in light in the meditation room and then took a brisk walk to see some of the deer, birds, and other wildlife that roam the property.

During the day, we stopped into town for breakfast and coffee at The Cloud Station. Locals were setting up the band stage for a show that night, and hikers filtered through for healthy eats. A denim jacket with a hand-painted howling wolf on the back tempted me at Tiny Gallery Crestone, but not as much as the sewn fox in socks toy my daughter left with. Or the Himalayan-inspired toys and gemstones at Crestone Creative Trade Co. Later, we drove out to the Crestone Ziggurat, then drove farther down the roads by the foothills that are lined with meditation retreats and centers of worship.

On our last night, Margot refused to let the cold air stop her from seeing the real stars outside this time. We put on all of our jackets, wrapped up in a blanket, and stepped outside. The view of the stars through a scattering of clouds elicited an immediate “woooooaaaaawww” from Margot. Even partly covered, the sky in this International Dark Sky Community — the first with a Rights of Nature Resolution — was filled with more visible stars than I had seen in a long time, and for Margot, likely ever. We shuffled inside when we couldn’t feel our noses, unwrapped, and curled up by the pellet stove. The whole place, inside and out, took us to somewhere completely new and yet just a three-hour drive from home. .