How The Fort restaurant in Colorado preserves its historical building

Sam Arnold built The Fort in Morrison, Colo., in the early 1960s. But he didn't just construct a space to pay homage to the historic Bent’s Old Fort off the Santa Fé Trail. He created the building using the same traditional material of the period: adobe.

From the get-go, each brick was hand-made using the property's own red clay and sandy soil. Next, a mixture of the same red clay, sand, and straw combined with less than 10% commercial stucco was made in order to create the outside adobe. This process has been repeated for more than 60 years, and now Arnold's daughter and The Fort’s current owner, Holly Arnold Kinney, continues the tradition.

"Not only is it my family’s legacy, but also the legacy of all our guests, employees, and the many communities we’ve served for 61 years," Kinney said. "I truly believe it’s Mother Earth [and] the adobe that give most people a warm feeling of comfort, beauty, authenticity, and the real spirit from the primordial red rock."

Sam Arnold built The Fort in the early 1960s. Photo credit: The Fort

The restaurant is nestled within Colorado’s Fountain Formation, famous for sedimentary red rocks that were crafted by wind, water, and eroded sediment from the Rocky Mountains.

The world-famous Red Rocks amphitheater is also built in that formation.

By using the same red clay found around The Fort, the adobe façade has a similar color and texture to its surroundings, giving the appearance of continuity, almost as if the mountains birthed the building.

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But the adobe isn’t just pretty. It's a tried-and-true way to condition the restaurant. In fact, the indigenous people of the Southwestern United States, Mesoamerica, and the Andes have used adobe for thousands of years. It’s fireproof, durable, non-toxic, and provides thermal mass so the building that holds heat in the winter and cooler air in the summer.

"It holds up very well at The Fort, as the high clay soil in the bricks hardens like rock, and after a rain, or snow, the wind blows and dries it out," Kinney said, adding that the most damage the façade gets is pockmarks from hail, which can easily be patched up. "It’s like a living, breathing system."

The Fort gets adobe maintenance twice a year, carried out by a maintenance crew from El Salvador that Kinney has hired.

They use a screen on a form, sift the different soils, dry them, and then mix in water, straw, sand, and stucco. The exact proportions are a family secret.

After mixing, the adobe is poured into wooden square forms that make four to six bricks at a time. The bricks bake in the sun, and depending on the weather and humidity, the rest time for the bricks may take several weeks. When they’re ready, the team stacks them and stores them until it's time for repairs.

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"Our adobe expert told me he loves adobe-ing the building because he loves to care for her [the restaurant]," Kinney said. "You really develop a relationship with it."

Not only does Kinney want to preserve the historical integrity of The Fort, but she has plans to keep it around long after she's gone. To that end, Kinney donated The Fort’s development rights with an easement to the Colorado Historical Foundation which will require future owners of the building and land to maintain it. She also is creating a maintenance endowment fund.

The Fort was built in Colorado’s Fountain Formation. Photo credit: Rebecca Todd, TruBlu Images

Kinney also built the Tesoro Culture Center about 25 years ago, which is located on the property. There events, lectures, school tours, and more help teach the public about the time when Bent’s Old Fort was built in the 1830s. Both The Fort and Tesoro also teach the culinary arts of the period as well as ceremonial dance and song demonstrations.

With more than 80,000 customers served at The Fort last year, it's apparent that others appreciate these efforts too, as well as the food, which offers steakhouse fare as well as old Western dishes and menu items with Colorado-focused ingredients.

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A sample of menu items includes Sam's Famous Guacamole ($9/$16), an appetizer of game meat sausages ($27), Caesar salad ($23), and Colorado-raised steaks such as filet mignon ($65) and cowboy rib eye ($125). Historical dishes also grace the menu, including Josepha’s Buffalo Empanadas ($15), William Bent’s Grilled Quail ($42), and the Gonzales Steak ($60), a recipe based on a story about The Fort’s wood carver Elidio Gonzales, who requested green chiles stuffed into the meat.

In a restaurant climate of chains and new builds, The Fort stands out as a Colorado institution that preserves the region's culinary history and architectural tradition.