Our closing hunt and calcutta party for the Arapahoe Hunt is always held at Tweet Kimball’s Cherokee Ranch & Castle.  We love having our hunt here, followed by Bow Tie Canapés from Tweet’s favorite recipe book of recipes for entertaining.  Tweet was quite a character and I frequently think of her rambling down the local roads in a farm truck with a fur coat and high heels on, often changing from muck boots as she parked in town, which Castle Rock, barely qualified as such back then.   She was tough, full of grit, but also very loyal to her friends and an exceptional host to everyone from ranch hands to Winston Churchill, everyone was treated the same—like family.   In part due to her welcoming committee, of Meg and John, who are still dear friends of our family.

Before the castle, there was a homestead.  This vintage photo captures what we now know as Chickamauga Cottage, originally the Flower Homestead, standing alone on the rugged Colorado landscape. In 1894, Frederick Gerald Flower chose this remote ridge to build a life, raising a stone home where the prairie meets the sky.  The winds were strong, the land untamed, but the homestead endured.  Years later, when Tweet Kimball purchased the property and began shaping what would become Cherokee Ranch, she gave the homestead a new name: Chickamauga Cottage, ensuring its story would continue.

And it has.

For more than three decades, our ranch manager and his family have called this cottage home, adding their own chapter to its long and living history.