The monks who laid the first bricks of St. Benedict’s Monastery in Old Snowmass built their chapel and cloisters in the 1950s to stand through centuries of Catholic worship and prayer. The ones who envisioned a new retreat center in the 1990s planned for the same.
Among them, and after them, came dozens of men called to a philosophy of work and prayer in the austerity of the Capitol Creek Valley. They imagined they might spend the rest of their lives caring for these golden hayfields, shrubby hillsides and forested groves beneath craggy peaks. Some of them — including beloved spiritual leaders like Father Thomas Keating and Father Joseph Boyle — are now buried on a slope just above the monastery, their gravestones set into the earth at the foot of a towering cross.
“When someone enters St. Benedict’s Monastery at Snowmass, he intends to live and die in this one mountain valley, in this one community with its special graces, advantages, problems and limitations,” the late monk and author Thomas Merton wrote in a 1964 text titled “Come to the Mountain.”
“If he becomes a saint, and surely if he is faithful to this vocation he will be a saint in the broad sense, … his sanctity will be that of one who has found Christ in this particular community and at this particular moment in history,” Merton wrote.
Now, just shy of the monastery’s 70th anniversary, this particular moment in history is coming to an end. The final Mass at St. Benedict’s will take place Jan. 11, Father Damian Carr announced at the conclusion of services on Sunday. It will be followed by a reception of appreciation for the monks, just a handful of whom remain in Old Snowmass.
‘Please, keep them in the light’
The news was first shared publicly in early December by Contemplative Outreach of Colorado, which led spiritual retreats at St. Benedict’s before the retreat center and monastery bookstore shuttered in 2023.
Monks have continued to offer daily liturgical services at St. Benedict’s since those closures, aware that the entire monastery would shut down eventually. The decision to close St. Benedict’s came from higher-ups in the monks’ Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance in 2022, in response to an aging and dwindling population at the Snowmass monastery. In turn, the order appointed Carr as “monastic commissary” to oversee care of the fragile community.
The property, totaling more than 3,700 sparsely developed acres along both sides of Capitol Creek Road, hit the market in the spring of 2024 for $150 million. It’s listed by Ken and Haley Mirr, of the Mirr Ranch Group based in Denver, and Michael Latousek of Douglas Elliman Aspen. In marketing material, this massive landholding has been framed as a “once in a generation offering.”
Agents have maintained from the get-go that they are looking for a conservation-minded buyer, who will respect the ecological values of the property and who understands that Pitkin County’s strict land use code will restrict what a new owner can do with the site.
A dense suburb or major commercial project is basically out of the question, based on the property’s current zoning and development rights as well as the county’s competitive Growth Management Quota System. But some residential use of existing structures or construction of a limited number of new homes could be viable, especially if paired with conservation easements that would sterilize much of the land from development.
Some onlookers used to consider the property as good as conserved because of the way the monks had cared for the land. But a formal conservation easement never came to fruition, despite several efforts from local monks and community partners to protect large swaths of open space.
Authorities in the Cistercian Order decided to leave the decision of conservation up to an eventual buyer, according to an email last year from Abbot Vincent Rogers. He oversees St. Benedict’s “mother house” of St. Joseph’s Abbey in Massachusetts and has served as one of the main points of contact for details about the sale of the Snowmass property.
The monastery’s listing agents have received inquiries from multiple interested buyers so far. One circled around St. Benedict’s in the fall of 2024 before stepping away, Latousek previously told Aspen Journalism; another went under contract this spring, but the sale fell through the day it was supposed to close.
Though anyone directly involved in those conversations would not reveal the identities of interested parties, some community members had expressed optimism about those parties’ intentions.
Contemplative Outreach of Colorado’s post on their website Dec. 5 indicated a sale of the monastery was imminent, but also stated that “we do not know who the buyer is or what will be forthcoming at this time.” Several other people following the process at St. Benedict’s said much the same to Aspen Journalism.
But as of Monday afternoon, there had been no public announcement ent of a sale from agents or monastic superiors, and the monastery’s listing was still “active” on the Aspen Glenwood Multiple Listing Service at press time. Carr, the monastic commissary, confirmed Monday that St. Benedict’s services will end on Jan. 11 and that daily worship will continue until then with Christmas mass still on the schedule. But he deferred to Rogers for any questions about the sale of the property and where the Snowmass monks could end up next.
‘A symbol of God’s presence’
A sign greeting visitors to St. Benedict’s in Old Snowmass describes the monastery as a “symbol of God’s presence,” in part for its quiet, stillness and solitude.
The monks follow the Rule of St. Benedict, which dates back to the sixth century with an “ora et labora” philosophy that combines prayer and manual labor. They also abide by the structure of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, also known as the Trappist order, which has roots in the late 11th century and was reformed in the 17th. Theirs is a life of deliberate simplicity, infused with prayer from the moment monks wake before dawn to the time they go to sleep at night.
The brothers are not completely isolated from modern society, however. They keep up on the news, greet visitors after Mass, and often offer prayers for contemporary issues, including social and ecological justice.
“Far from being an escape or an avoidance of people and the world,” the sign reads, “the monks here at St. Benedict’s see their solitude and silence as a response to the deep needs of the world and its people.” As Thomas Merton put it: “What matters about the monastery is precisely that it is different from the world.”
Abbot Rogers declined to comment last week, citing strict confidentiality requirements. Latousek and Ken Mirr did not respond to phone calls or emails seeking additional information about rumors of a sale closing this month.
Mindful of the transition that St. Benedict’s monks are facing, the post from Contemplative Outreach of Colorado came with a request to “kindly refrain from pestering [the brothers] with questions.”
Also: “Please, keep them in the light.”