Listen as Jesse remembers starting as a dishwasher at 14 and building a place where every table looks like a family reunion. Hear the small, startling moments—a friend offering a job on the golf course, a grain bin turned restaurant—and how those chances turned into a Grain House that grew $600,000 in its first year and is on track for $1 million. Then meet Shane, whose 25 years in service whisper through the Sandbar’s remodels and long-tenured staff; his stories reveal why the bar feels like coming home and why winter is his next challenge to conquer.

Wyatt’s account brings the new Ted’s Backyard to life: lakes, patios, a tractor spraying water, ducks and a menu made from scratch. He paints a portrait of a place built for growing families—where kids bike over for milkshakes and neighbors spill onto patios—and explains how the restaurant’s heart is its people and their paychecks and smiles. Taylor closes the circle with the Lodge’s skyline and small theatrical touches—the guides who lead your dining experience, the burrata you must try, and a team pushing guests to taste something new. Her quick rise is a hopeful note about youthful leadership and the possibilities in Windsor.

Running through every conversation is a single thread: staff as family. Managers from every venue return to that same refrain—long-serving bartenders, servers who stay a decade, kitchens that mentor like kin. Together they show a hospitality model rooted less in slick branding and more in human connection: mentoring new cooks, hosting private breakfasts, reviving wedding events, and welcoming out-of-state golfers who stumbled on something special.

Against the backdrop of COVID’s shakeups and rapid neighborhood growth, these leaders sketch plans for the future—more music, events, weddings, and a continued focus on authentic, scratch-made food. Whether it’s the novelty of a grain bin restaurant or the simple joy of baby ducklings beside your table, this episode invites listeners to meet the people behind the places and to feel the pulse of a community being shaped, one meal and one story at a time.

Mandy Oberholzer shares her journey from South Africa to Colorado and discusses her evolving role creating unforgettable events, hospitality offerings, and the new Signature Experience. PGA Director of Golf Chris Williamson explores what makes RainDance National, Pelican Lakes, and The Falls unique while sharing his vision for the future of golf at Water Valley. Kurt Hinkle reflects on his Windsor roots and his path from journalism and marketing to membership and tournament sales. Colorado Eagles President Ryan Bach recounts his remarkable evolution from the team’s inaugural goaltender to a leader responsible for building a successful organization and world-class fan experience.

Together, their conversations offer an inside look at the people, creativity, culture, and long-standing relationships driving Water Valley forward—and the ambitious experiences still to come.

Mandy Oberholzer shares her journey from South Africa to Colorado and discusses her evolving role creating unforgettable events, hospitality offerings, and the new Signature Experience. PGA Director of Golf Chris Williamson explores what makes RainDance National, Pelican Lakes, and The Falls unique while sharing his vision for the future of golf at Water Valley. Kurt Hinkle reflects on his Windsor roots and his path from journalism and marketing to membership and tournament sales. Colorado Eagles President Ryan Bach recounts his remarkable evolution from the team’s inaugural goaltender to a leader responsible for building a successful organization and world-class fan experience.

Together, their conversations offer an inside look at the people, creativity, culture, and long-standing relationships driving Water Valley forward—and the ambitious experiences still to come.

You’ll hear the gritty details—how a chance transaction with Kodak and an aggressive market created the urgency to mine millions of yards of earth, how a $65,000 waterfront lot that once seemed impossible sold and became worth millions, and how the team learned to sculpt lakes so they looked like nature had carved them ages ago. This is a tale about engineering and tenacity: the flood that ripped through a fairway before the grass had grown, and the 2013 Front Range catastrophe that washed out entire towns but left Water Valley untouched because of foresight and tireless civil work.

Interwoven with the big moves are the small, unforgettable moments—a baby in a car seat on a dusty road, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill hitting the first balls on the new golf course, a white pelican circling during the groundbreaking as if it were all planned. You’ll laugh at the nicknames, feel the sting of the 2008 recession when the team traded dreams for a jet to stay afloat, and shake your head at the serendipity that linked Martin with Fred Funk, the unlikely architect whose passion and small stature belied grand golf-design ideas.

Listen as Martin explains Rain Dance—the high, dry canvas they called ‘worthless’ until someone joked that they would need to do a rain dance to move water uphill—and Cascadia, the vision of cascading ponds and preserved western heritage. You’ll learn why they left wide fairways along the river, why pelicans became part of the landscape, and how orchard plots, recessed sidewalks, and community design choices were made to honor Windsor’s past while building for the future.

This episode is more than a business case study; it’s a human story of stubborn optimism, creative problem-solving, and family legacy. From dirt and gravel to championship golf and thriving neighborhoods, Martin’s recollections are full of tension, humor, and quiet pride. Whether you live in a lake house or just love a good origin story, this conversation pulls you into the slow, spectacular alchemy of turning a valley into a life.

Join us to hear how Water Valley was named, how Pelican Lakes got its birds, why engineering won the day against a 500-year flood, and what the future holds—Cascadia, community farms, trails, and a continuing commitment to craft places that feel like they were always meant to be. By the end, you’ll understand why this was never just land and water, but a vision passed from father to daughter—and out into a whole town.

He walks us through the grit of the 1990s—forming Poudre Tech Aggregates, racing a booming construction market created by DIA, and staking the first 120 lots where waterfront parcels that once sold for $65,000 now sit as prized addresses. Martin shares the small, human moments: the donated parcel that became Eastman Park, a skeptical attorney who literally ripped up a pro forma, and a baby-in-a-Ford-Explorer memory that grounds the tale in family.

The narrative turns to the golf courses that became the spine of the community. Martin explains why they left wide fairways near the river, how the Pelican Lakes course rose from a mining template into a natural-looking course, and recounts the terrifying flood that carved into the mining operation before the lakes were filled. He recalls the pride when the engineering held through the 2013 Front Range floods—Water Valley emerged unscathed while neighboring areas flooded.

The episode reveals the origin of names and the serendipities that shaped them: RainDance—an ironic nod to a dry, high plateau that needed “a rain dance” to hold water; Pelican Lakes—named after a California round of golf and immediately honored by a single white pelican that flew overhead on the groundbreaking day. Martin explains how they created fish habitat, drew pelicans from far away, and even influenced a local church’s iconography.

In candid, funny moments, Martin recounts how a desperate-era trade ad for a jet led to meeting Fred Funk, who would become a treasured collaborator in designing Raindance National. From a laugh about the world’s shortest golfer designing the longest course to a story about asking Donald Trump for help and being told no, the episode mixes humility, humor, and the stubborn ambition that builds places people want to call home.

Looking ahead, Martin sketches Cascadia—the next chapter of connected lakes, cascading ponds, equestrian ties, and a plan to honor agricultural roots with orchards, sweet corn, and seasonal community traditions. He explains the civic thinking—recessed sidewalks, preservation of Western heritage, and thoughtful engineering—that threads Water Valley, Raindance, and Cascadia into a single living landscape.

By turns technical and tender, this conversation is both a developer’s blueprint and a family story: a study in how resilience, design, and imagination turn mud and gravel into community, and how one man’s vision became a multi-decade legacy that still feels unfinished. Listeners will come away with an insider’s view of what it takes to dream big, weather disasters, and craft a place where people truly want to live.