{"id":91621,"date":"2019-11-25T12:03:10","date_gmt":"2019-11-25T12:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rod-barker-ready-to-handover-stewardship-of-strater-hotel\/"},"modified":"2019-11-25T12:03:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-25T12:03:10","slug":"rod-barker-ready-to-handover-stewardship-of-strater-hotel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rod-barker-ready-to-handover-stewardship-of-strater-hotel\/","title":{"rendered":"Rod Barker ready to handover stewardship of Strater Hotel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Rod
Rod Barker, owner, president and CEO of the Strater Hotel, said when he returned to run the hotel in 1982, it was in need of major maintenance. Lacking a budget for major refurbishing, he did the work in phases, paying for it out of operating funds.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Anyone who has entered the Strater Hotel can attest that history is important to Rod Barker.<\/p>\n

Barker, 64 \u2013 whose family has been involved in the operation of Durango\u2019s iconic inn, the Strater Hotel<\/a>, since 1926 \u2013 is looking toward retirement, and that means a new era is approaching for the downtown hotel.<\/p>\n

A deal to sell the Strater, which was built in 1887 and opened in 1888, was close to being finalized before falling through last week, and the hotel remains on the market, Barker said.<\/p>\n

Adjusting for inflation, the $70,000 to build the Strater in 1888 would amount to just over $1.9 million in 2019 dollars. Of course, the business has grown into something much more than it was 130 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bummer for all the time and effort I put into it,\u201d Barker said about the collapse of the deal. \u201cAt this point, no sale is pending, and it is available, but until that time, our family continues to enjoy being stewards of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barker said he would like to retire, and while he may still dabble in business in Durango, he is looking for \u201csomething that\u2019s less demanding of my time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond an appreciation for history, Barker is an antiquarian, and it\u2019s a family thing.<\/p>\n

He is especially pleased that the family\u2019s passion for antique furnishings and all things Victorian has created an inn that\u2019s not just a place to lay your head but a place to step back in time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve sourced antiques for the hotel all over the United States,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have the largest collection in the world of its kind, American Victorian walnut antiques. And so as a consequence, the Strater is actually a museum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barker, CEO and president of the Strater Hotel, said the family was specific about its quest. It focused on walnut, which is the wood of choice for the finest craftsmen. The Barker family collected some oak antiques, but the vast majority of the collection is walnut.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all American except for one or two beds that were made in Austria,\u201d Barker said.<\/p>\n

\"Rod
Rod Barker, owner, president and CEO of the Strater Hotel, has placed the iconic inn up for sale. \u201cIf we take care of downtown Durango, this town will take care of us and our interests,\u201d Barker said.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The driving force of Marion Jarvis, Barker\u2019s grandmother, is behind the Strater\u2019s antique collection. And Jarvis is whom Barker credits with setting the Strater on its path to offer guests not only a nice room but a place that honors the Victorian era.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was really a pioneer in many things,\u201d he said. \u201cShe inspired my mom \u2013 my mom who wanted not to live in Durango, she wanted to live in San Francisco or some big city and really get out of the town that she was raised in \u2013 to realize that she had a gem here. And why not spend some time and make this hotel special.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, inspired by Marion Jarvis, the family began buying antiques.<\/p>\n

The family\u2019s history with the Strater is what swayed Barker to return to Durango, his hometown, when he received a fateful phone call in 1982 from his father, Earl Barker, with the news he intended to sell the Strater.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know I had fully planned on being in the hotel business, and I was doing well with Westin Hotels, and I would have had a general manager\u2019s position before too long, and my dad said he was going to sell the hotel, and I said, \u2018No, dad, don\u2019t do that. I\u2019ll come back and run the hotel.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

With the Strater, Barker knew the family had a \u201cdiamond in the rough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rod
Rod Barker, owner, president and CEO of the Strater Hotel, talks about the history of the hotel. Barker, 64, says he is looking for something that is less demanding of his time.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

At the time, the inn needed some maintenance, and Barker didn\u2019t have a big budget for major renovations. It was a financial pickle, but with the assistance of the family\u2019s appreciation for antiques, Barker said everything worked out in the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to do all of the renovation of the hotel out of the operating funds, and instead of having a hotel where you trash everything every five or six years and throw it in the landfill, we bought wonderful assets that last. Some of the beds in the rooms have been here for 40 or 50 years. We are one of the most green hotels you could find in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tim Walsworth, executive director of Durango\u2019s Business Improvement District<\/a>, said no set of downtown photos is complete without a shot of the Strater.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis attention to the details, and all the craftsmanship that he has continually invested in, are a huge part of how downtown Durango maintains its history,\u201d Walsworth said.<\/p>\n

Barker, he noted, helped start the BID in 1997, and his vision for an organization that would foster cooperation among local businesses continues to help commerce thrive downtown and in the North Main District.<\/p>\n

Monique DiGiorgio, executive director of Local First<\/a>, said Barker has been instrumental in supporting local businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cRod\u2019s leadership and dedication to local business is apparent throughout the Strater, from their commitment to sourcing food locally to the historic preservation you witness down every corridor,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Today, the essential aspect that remains central to Durango, Barker said, is its vibrant downtown and the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. He sees new cookie-cutter hotels now going up around town as too sterile: \u201cstandard chains you see everywhere else, and so they don\u2019t really say Durango to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

When a sale of the Strater does come to fruition, Barker said he may work on redeveloping his property next door to the inn, which includes Magpies Newsstand.<\/p>\n

Barker believes if Durango protects its downtown and the train, its future is likely to be healthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandfather once told me, \u2018Take good care of this hotel, and it will take care of you,\u2019 and I think the same thing is true about downtown Durango.\u201d He added, \u201cAs locals, whether you live in Hesperus or Three Springs or the north county, if we take care of downtown Durango, this town will take care of us and our interests. That\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

inn owner, honoring past assures our future<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[314,950,13,422,445,421],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-91621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-downtown-durango","tag-durango","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-hotel-and-accommodation","tag-newsletter-lead","tag-tourism-and-leisure"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91621"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=91621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}