Beaver Creek main plaza Eagle Valley Ceramic Art Tile
— — the warm square the snow leaves alone.
Not only on a wall.
“A village square pressed against the foot of Beaver Creek Mountain. The pavers are heated, so the snow doesn't settle. An outdoor rink turns at its centre through the winter; a fountain replaces it when the lifts stop running. The buildings around it are European alpine, the kind of village that opened in 1980 and has been added to since. After dark a few fire pits draw a small ring of long coats. The peaks close over the lights and the music from the Vilar carries up through the timbers.
Beaver Creek main plaza Eagle Valley Ceramic Art Tile, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Beaver Creek Village's main plaza sits at roughly 8,100 feet at the base of Beaver Creek Mountain in Eagle County, Colorado, about two miles south of the town of Avon and ten miles west of Vail. The resort opened on December 15, 1980. The village is built in a European alpine idiom: pedestrian-only walkways, timber-and-stone facades, and a covered escalator that carries pedestrians up to the lower lifts. The plaza itself centres on an outdoor ice rink, ringed by the Park Hyatt, the Charter, and the Vilar Performing Arts Centre. Heated pavers run through the streets so snow does not accumulate underfoot.
The plaza is open to the public in every season and does not require a lift ticket. The Black Family Ice Rink runs daily through the winter season; skate rentals are available at the rink office, and admission is free for hotel guests with a small fee otherwise. Lift access to the mountain is sold by Vail Resorts on day, multi-day, and Epic Pass terms, and a covered escalator carries skiers from the plaza up to the Centennial Express base. The afternoon Cookie Time tradition, in which thousands of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies are handed out free at the base of the slopes at 3 p.m. on ski days, has run since the 1990s.
The plaza's calendar runs in two halves. From late November through mid-April the ski mountain is open, the rink is in, the holiday lights are up, and the rooms above the plaza are full. From May through October the rink is taken out and replaced with a fountain plaza, the gondolas continue running for hikers and mountain bikers on a reduced schedule, and the Vilar Performing Arts Centre books a summer concert and theatre series. The shoulder weeks in late April and early November are the quietest in the village. The mountains hold snow on the high peaks long after the runs close, and the alpenglow line on Bachelor Gulch reads as the same colour from the plaza in May as it does in February.