Life Beyond Silver Spring

Cable World, May 23, 2005

By Shirley Brady

For the residents of Gateway, Colo., Discovery Communications founder John Hendricks couldn't have picked a better time to step away from day-to-day management of his company. In the last year Hendricks unofficially has adopted the struggling community, which has seen its mining and timber industries dry up.

Hendricks, who fell in love with Gateway when he bought a ranch in the area years ago, has sunk a fortune into his local development project, Gateway Canyons. The project will encompass a spa and hotel with adjacent conference center, a car museum and The Outpost, a complex that includes an art gallery, restaurant and general store--a godsend to locals who have to travel 50 miles just for a loaf of bread. The Outpost opens May 26 and the Gateway Auto Museum opens this fall; the rest of the development (the Palisades Spa and Resort and the Mission Bell event center) will be ready in early 2007.

The star tourist attraction is going to be the Auto Museum, for which Hendricks has been buying up classic cars. His latest gem is a 1954 Harley Earl F-88 Oldsmobile Corvette, which he snapped up at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Ariz., for $3.24 million. The car, like Hendricks, is one of a kind. General Motors built four experimental models of the sports car, which is outfitted with a fiberglass Corvette body and an Olds nose and tail and packs a V8 engine; only this one survives.

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