The Future of the Catto Center at Toklat

By Trevor Washko Toklat Steward

During the dawn of Aspen’s post–World War II renaissance, Stuart and Isabel Mace brought their growing family and a team of husky sled dogs to the ghost town of Ashcroft along Castle Creek. There, nestled in the mountain wilderness upstream from Aspen, they built a home they called “Toklat.” Toklat is an indigenous Alaskan word literally meaning “headwaters,” metaphorically meaning “source.” Stuart crafted the structure with stone and timber, claiming that it simply “evolved” from his use of salvaged native materials. The Mace family home continued to evolve over the next 55 years as a rustic wilderness lodge, a world-class dog sledding kennel, a natural food restaurant, and a handcrafted art gallery.

Stuart Mace was a founding trustee of ACES as well the organization’s original Educator and Naturalist. As a guiding mentor to its first directors, Jody and Tom Cardamone, Stuart wished for Toklat to someday become a part of ACES. With the support of Jessica and Henry Catto and many others, ACES purchased Toklat in 2004. This treasured family home became the Catto Center at Toklat, a retreat for dialogue centered on our personal and cultural relationship with the

At some point, a conversation around restoring and renovating the Catto Center at Toklat emerged. The layers of roofing sagged with decades of leaks. The ancient electrical transformer for the single-phase power line was decades beyond its lifespan. And the radiant heat, the main source of warmth for the drafty building, began to fail as the 70–year–old cast iron

The notion of scrapping the original structure was unthinkable. It holds too many memories worth saving: the iron latchstring door handle forged by Francis Whitaker; the repurposed Peach Blow sandstone walls, a signature of the glory days of Aspen’s silver boom; and the hole in the ceiling of Isabel’s kitchen, a subtle tribute to a woman who “fed the world” for nearly 40 years from a wood burning stove. Each element has a

What do John Denver, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Al Gore, Lucille Ball, and Jim Kravitz all have in common? They’ve all been in Isabel’s kitchen—that well–trodden space at the heart of Toklat. Those few square feet between the stove and the prep sink were, without a doubt, the center of gravity for all of Toklat. For decades, this is where Isabel Mace nourished all. And, in the years following, this is where the ACES community has convened to share slow food and slow fun, bringing new generations to Toklat and Ashcroft. A touchstone for many, Toklat has always been a source of inspiration, feeding the minds, bodies, and spirits of generations at its trademark hanging tables and around its council fire.

For ACES, Toklat is a cornerstone. It is our Thoreau’s Walden, our Leopold’s Shack, our Murie’s Ranch. Restoring the Catto Center at Toklat means nourishing ACES’ deepest roots—roots established over 50 years before Stuart Mace planted the wisdom he gained from the Castle Creek Valley into the educational philosophy from which this organization now flourishes. The connection, now decades deep, continues through the procession of naturalists, educators, artists, farmers, and stewards who will inevitably come to know and love the place. They’ll carry forward and amplify this legacy with their work as future scientists, teachers, land managers, policy makers, nonprofit administrators, and sustainability leaders. 