We were lucky to catch up with LeAnn & Doug Bair recently and have shared our conversation below.

LeAnn & Doug, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Originally, we were looking for our own mountain campground and soon we purchased our first two property lots in 2005 and then another three lots. We fell in love with what we have named Rancho Arturo and wanted to spend as much time here as possible. The only issue was how to make a living in a small mountain community?

LeAnn had unsuccessfully applied for work in town. We needed to have our own business. After much discussion, we decided we needed to utilize one of our property lots to bring in income. The only way we could do that was to create a Vacation Rental property. With a Vacation Rental we could share the beauty of the Wet Mountains in Custer County which was just getting discovered!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

We are outdoor lovers! We provide the opportunity for others who are escaping their busy lives to experience the adventure of living in the mountains with fresh air, tranquility and wildlife by offering a Vacation Rental.
We offer an off-grid mountain experience where our guests can enjoy the full comforts of home. As a base camp, our guests can explore the beauty of the Rocky Mountains! The Casita sleeps 6 and has a full kitchen enabling guests to “just bring your food and drink” as we have the rest covered!

Visit us at Ranchoarturo.com!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

From vacant land to the vacation rental business and home we have today, we endured cold, sleepless nights in a bunkhouse with no heat or plumbing. All the while we held full time jobs in Colorado Springs where Doug has his paint contracting business. We continued building our infrastructure which included hauling in road base to build a driveway, drilling a water well, digging a septic system and putting up a solar system on the weekends. Each project was done in the order we needed it. First project was a bunkhouse for shelter. then a shed to store tools for our next projects, then a garage for more storage as we began building our log cabin. Doug enhanced his carpentry and concrete counter top and flooring skills. LeAnn was his go-fer and kept the volunteers fed! Thanks to all of our friends who helped erect the cabin. Working as a team, we were determined to build the mountain home we had dreams of!

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

We met in Mazatlán, Mexico over 25 years ago after each of us had been through a divorce. We hit it off immediately. The only issue was LeAnn lived in Colorado and Doug in New Mexico. Five years of commuting back and forth, we decided to end this traveling and get married. Little did we know that each of our senses of adventure would drive us to where we are today living in the Colorado mountains and still hitting it off!

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: Ranchoarturo
• Facebook: Rancho Arturo Vacation Rentals