VAIL, Colorado — Like most of Vail's first wave, Gerry White quickly fell in love with the fledgling resort and community. And he worked as hard as anyone ever did in turning Vail into the place it is today.

White and his wife, Elaine (now Kelton) — both originally from the East Coast — came to Vail in 1964, shortly after they were married, and following a quick stint on a ranch near Jackson, Wyo. The young couple quickly dived headlong into civic live in the fledgling resort.

“Vail offered a sense of community,” Kelton said. “When you work in a large metropolitan area, you just don't have that.”

Vail in the early days was a tiny place, with just a handful of year ‘round residents, all of whom depended on each other for their own success. The Whites were quickly immersed in that new life, along with starting a family of three daughters.

The Whites built the Rams Horn Lodge in 1967, just after the village broke away from the ski company and became an independent town. Not long after, White was elected to the Vail Town Council while still in his 20s.

As the town established itself, White was at the forefront of any number of projects, from creating the town's “home rule” charter to creation of open space plans, parks, paths and more. He also served on the boards of the Vail Resort Association, helping the town establish a central reservations system, and the Vail Recreation District.

“If it was a community thing, he was involved,” said Dr. Tom Steinberg who also arrived in the mid-1960s as Vail's first full-time doctor.

Guiding the future

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, towns and counties across the state were starting to create regulations for zoning, and creating plans to guide development.

“In a lot of ways, Vail set the tone for the rest of the county, and Gerry was involved in that,” Steinberg said.

White's enthusiasm for trying to guide the community to a sustainable future was a big influence on Jim Lamont, who came to Vail in the late 1960s, and is now the director of the Vail Village Homeowners Association.

“Gerry was an extraordinary person,” Lamont said. “He was one of the people who profoundly affected how I live my life with his passion for the environment and Vail.”

Terry Minger, one of Vail's first town managers, befriended White before he took the job at town hall. Minger, then the assistant city manager in Boulder, stayed at the Rams Horn when he came to Vail for his interview, and quickly came to know and like White.

“He was very engaged and full of ideas about Vail,” Minger said. And the lodge was a boutique hotel before anyone really knew what a boutique hotel was.

“They ran it perfectly,” Minger said. “Gerry was behind the desk, he carried the bags and more.”

Minger and the Whites helped create the Vail Symposium, which was founded as an educational forum to talk about big issues affecting both the resort and the world. With the Whites' involvement, the hotel played host to actor Robert Redford, then-New York Mayor John Lindsey and other big thinkers of the time.

The Rams Horn didn't have a TV, and had a big gathering room on the first floor, so evenings at the hotel were often filled with both big ideas and fun.

An accident, a changed life

White brought seemingly boundless energy to his business, his family and his adopted hometown. He was also passionate about the outdoors. On Labor Day weekend of 1974, that passion led he and Minger to take a bicycle trip to Aspen through Leadville and over Independence Pass.

On the ride toward the pass, White was hit head-on by a car. He bounced onto the hood and went through the car's windshield head-first. Minger remembers wrapping his friend's body with newspapers to try to get his bleeding under control, then driving as fast as possible to the hospital in Leadville. Since it was holiday, there was just one doctor on duty.

That doctor gave White drugs and tried to get his condition stabilized enough for a medical helicopter ride to St. Anthony's hospital in Denver.

“The doctor there told me, ‘He's not going to make it,'” Minger said.

Minger stayed in Denver with his friend for days. Meanwhile, Minger's daughter was born in a hospital across the street.

“It was one of the two or three hardest times in my life,” he said.

But as the days passed, White started to recover, slowly. He was in various hospitals and rehabilitation clinics from the day of the accident until March of the next year, including months at a rehab hospital near Pittsburgh, where his family still lived.

Kelton said her mother came to help at the hotel and with the couple's three daughters. Meanwhile, she flew from Denver to Pittsburgh every other week to be with her husband, who she'd been dating since both were in high school.

White came home that spring, but the accident had changed him forever. He left public life. He and Kelton sold the Rams Horn and divorced a decade after the accident. It was simply too much.

In the years after the accident, White kept a low profile, writing and working. He remembered most of his old friends, but, Minger said, the spark of recognition wasn't really there many times.

But the work White did in Vail's early days still resonates.

“Gerry was a mentor and guide for a just approach for a vision of a growing community,” Lamont said. “All the new things in Vail are all still within the context of that early work.”

And, while things came together in Vail, Minger said the resort's success was far from assured in those early days.

“Those weren't easy decisions,” Minger said. “But it was a wonderful time to be in Vail. People were caring, but there were a lot of battles, and those took a lot of courage. Gerry was a great partner.”

Business Editor Scott N. Miller can be reached at 970-748-2930 or smiller@vaildaily.com.