Deer Valley Ranch - Nathrop, Colorado

Julian R

Venado llega a tu puerta!

Caitlin Halbert

We were married at Deer Valley Ranch 9/14/24. From the time we signed our contract to the time of our event, the ranch had changed ownership. We only knew about that because the new owners reached out to all the couples who had contracts and let us know. Things seemed a little bumpy at the time for them, but by the time our wedding came around, things were sailing smoothly and I did not have any concerns about our weekend.

We did the Hitchin post package, staying 2 nights at the ranch with most of our guests staying on the property too. This part was the most magical and my favorite aspect of renting this property. It was a fantastic experience for everyone and we were complimented on having one of the coolest/most fun weddings ever due to the accommodations. Most of our guests list was coming from out of state, so giving them this experience was really important to us. Plus, it’s such a beautiful and underrated area, I wanted as many people staying as possible!

Stacey, the property manager, was super helpful along the entire way. We didn’t use a wedding planner, just a day of coordinator, so planning my wedding was a new experience for me and Stacey was always very quick to respond to my questions and always lead me in the right direction. When we arrived at the property she was there to greet us and help all weekend long.

The property itself is stunning. The views are unbeatable!! The chalk cliffs are so unique and the views from the ceremony site are gorgeous in all directions. We hosted our reception in the main lodge, but mostly on the outside deck and it was perfect. Beautiful and we had great weather.
We had a food truck and a mobile trailer bar set up outside in the main parking area, none of our vendors were inside, which I think helped keep the craziness down and I do highly recommend that to other brides!!

The lodge rooms and cabins are definitely showing their age, but the staff keep them up nicely. It’s a more rustic experience, which is all about preferences. We loved that, personally.
I don’t think there are any TVs. Which we don’t care about, but others have noted that in their reviews. Our room was cooled nicely, no issues with overheating during our stay.
The pool (one was drained) and hot tubs were running great and were well maintained.

My only drawback/critique would be the access we had to the kitchen vs what was in our contract.
The contract we had stated that we had full use of the entire industrial kitchen in the main lodge and that was our hope since we were needing to store 20+ bottles of champagne and desserts for the wedding. Plus we had our own food for the weekend, as did the other 18 guests staying in the lodge rooms. Upon our arrival, not before, we were told that we had to use the back kitchen space (a much smaller, much less equipped kitchen) only. That we were not permitted to use the entire kitchen. What we had access to was the small kitchen in the back. It had some awkward steps down to it, so we were a little concerned for our elderly guests getting in and out of there. But the main draw back was the 2 smaller/older refrigerators in there. One only had a single rack inside of it, so storage was a problem. Luckily we, and several of our guests, had ice chests to help store refrigerated items.
Frustrating, but my point in writing this is to give a heads up to those of you who’s contracts may still state that you have full use, especially if you have florals that need to be stored as well, I would absolutely call ahead of time to establish a plan or plan to bring ice chests for the extra storage space. With the new owners, maybe they do state that in the new contracts that this is the only available kitchen area for lodge guests, so maybe me having an older contract caused the oversight in letting us know ahead of time. But we were able to make it work.

Overall, we loved our experience at Deer Valley Ranch for our wedding weekend and I highly recommend this to other couples, especially choosing an overnight package. Best weekend of our lives!!

Ronald Weber

We we the parents in a wedding party. This wedding was booked before the sale of the ranch but I am not going to get into all that. Just my own experiences.

We arrived and checked in. We had booked a cabin that came with a kitchen so we had the option of cooking meals. The person checking is in appeared to be annoyed that we were there but checked us in. When we arrived at the room we found a sign in the kitchen that said "stove and oven out of order.". We were not told this when we checked in or any time prior to arriving. We still ended up paying full price for the room.

We had to move stuff in from our cars for the wedding. We were directed by the same person who checked us in. Again, they appeared to be annoyed to help us. We were given curt directions and were pretty much dismissed when we asked questions. At one point I went into the kitchen area to throw away a small item as I could not find a garbage can in the lodge. (the kitchen was not being used that evening). I was immediately approached by a person who aggressively asked "what are you doing in here?". I said I was throwing something away. They stated I was not allowed in the kitchen. I then explained I was part of the wedding party set up and that our supplies were in the kitchen area. They stated "whatever" then walked away.

That night there was a rehearsal dinner. It was a steak dinner but I did not pay for it or coordinate it. The steaks were thin and over done. The green beans were obviously canned and not fresh. Not the best dinner for what I understand was paid for it.

The next day was the wedding. It went well. However the wedding coordinator who the couple was required to hire was severely lacking. Half of the appetizers were not set out though instructions were given. No coffee was made and plates were not set out as well. The coordinator was distracted constantly talking on the phone about another wedding which was coming up.

The rest of the night went well. Probably because the wedding coordinator or lodge staff were not involved.

Bottom line is the venue itself is gorgeous but the customers service was very lacking. The room was deficient in that the stove and oven were inoperable. The venue needs to really work on these areas.

Elisha M

We have never stayed at such an incompetently managed property as Deer Valley Ranch. The ranch never provided an electronic or written receipt of our room reservation and room rate at time of booking, and they declined to issue or an itemized invoice (or any invoice) upon check out. Following our stay, when we were already out of the state, Deer Valley Ranch then proceeded to fraudulently charge my credit card for twice the quoted room rate. They insisted on handling everything -- from booking the reservation to reserving extra trips and experiences -- by phone so that there was no paper trail of their shady business practices. I disputed the fraudulent charges with my credit card company, and what do you know, Deer Valley Ranch magically produced an itemized invoice -- 3 months after the fact.||||I don't know if the people running this ranch are incompetent or scammers or both, but please take your business elsewhere -- there are plenty of other lovely properties in the area to choose from.

Matt Jones

We checked in Friday evening around 7:15p and found our check-in packet in the un-staffed office. We dropped our stuff in our room located in the lodge and headed down to the hot tub.
The hot tub only had about 15% of the jets working.
After a quick soak we went back to the room to rinse off and found the shower head absurdly low. My wife is 5’3 and even she had to duck to wash her hair. I’m 6’1 and had to duck down to rinse off the soap from my arm pits.
When we first got in the room it was hot and muggy. We opened the windows before heading to the hot tub. It was slightly cooler when we went to bed. As we tried to go to sleep there was a group of people outside talking and conversating very loudly. It was still very warm in the room, with no air flow. We looked around for a fan to no avail. After 1:00a we finally had to close the windows due to the immense noise from the party happening outside. Even then, we could still hear them pretty clearly. So now we were hot, stuffy and tired! No TV’s or anything to try to drown out any noise. Not ideal after a long day of hiking!
One would think you could contact someone to kindly ask the other guests to quiet down, or bring us a fan. However, during check-in there was a note posted stating to only contact them if it is “dire emergency”, which this was not. See attached photo.
We’re searching deep to find something complimentary to say…. The rooms were clean and had great views.
We tried to provide this feedback upon checkout, but there were no staff.

tl;dr - hot room, no fans, noisy guests, no TV, old hot tub on its last leg, and a shower head great at washing your chest. Good views, but not worth the trade off.

krysten k

TERRIBLE! This place is the absolute worst- especially if you’ve been here before! Watched them tow away the WESTERN TOWN tonight- which is the main staple of fun for kids at DVR. They also took away the game room and also the HORSES. Literally the new owners have taken away all the charm of DVR. DONT COME HERE!!!!! DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY - LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE IN TGE VALLEY IS BETTER THAN THIS PLACE!

Tanya Mello

I cannot say enough good things about the crew at DVR!! We had our wedding here this past weekend and, aside from it being set in a beautiful part of the state, the property is truly magical! Uriah, the owner, and Jess, the event coordinator, went above and beyond to make sure our day was perfect!! Truly such a wonderful experience and our guests who stayed on the property had so much to do- swimming, horseback riding, hiking, etc… an unforgettable weekend! I HIGHLY recommend booking a stay, event or wedding here!!! It is a must see!!!!

Audrey Ramos

I just had my wedding here last weekend. I cannot say enough positive things about the venue. The ceremony site is GORGEOUS and the centennial reception hall was BEAUTIFUL. We brought a lot of our own decorations and Jess set it all up for us! She made sure the day went perfectly and she was SO NICE. I know everyone thinks their wedding day is perfect but mine truly was thanks to the DVR staff. Our family stayed at the Elk Haus Cabin, it was more rustic and its location is also stunning though a bit hard to find! I’m reliving my wedding over and over again in my head and couldn’t imagine it anywhere else!