Hans was born in Wisconsin but most of his childhood was spent in Southern California.  In his teenage years his family moved around quite a bit and this instilled in him a love for travel, food and the great outdoors.  When his family moved to the United Arab Emirates, he was 16 years old. After a brief time in Abu Dhabi, Hans returned to the Netherlands on his own.  He enrolled at the Technical University of Delft, studying Industrial Design Engineering and found a job as dishwasher at the Restaurant the Wijnhaven to pay for his rent. Being an adventurous world traveler the “€œdry”€ engineering industry looked looming.  Attracted to the allure of the bar and the hospitality industry; he starting diving deeply into the mysteries of beer, wine, spirits and mixology.  After 4 years of study, Hans dropped out to become a full time bartender.  Fast forward a few years later, he worked fulltime as bartender at one of the hot spots in Amsterdam -€˜The Panama-€™ Restaurant and Night Club in the Netherlands. There Hans was scouted by the owner of Jazz club/restaurant Panonica in The Hague for the position of General Manager.  Ingrid, the love of his life, whom Hans had bartended with in the days of the Wijnhaven, came back into the picture and in 2006 they moved to the United States. He trained as Restaurant Manager under GM Connie Laslow, winner and owner of best restaurant 2002 of Portland Oregon, at the Golden Hotel in Golden.  In 2008, Hans worked with Steve Naples, owner of Heidi’€™s, to open up two restaurants (Lucille’€™s of Jersey and Sushi Hai) in Conifer in the capacity of General Manager.  After the crash in 2008 Hans and his wife Ingrid decided to go in business together and bought the China Clipper Inn, a 13 room Bed and Breakfast, in Ouray while raising their daughter. The China Clipper has won several prestige awards from Trivago, Hotels.com and has won the Bedandbreakfast.com Top 25 award of the United States. After seven years Hans was ready to get back in the bar and restaurant business and they have sold the B&B.  His forte being the front of the house, Hans has partnered with Cory Sargent, chef extraordinaire and friend of many years.

Cory lived a nomadic childhood until the age of 10 years old, due to his father designing PGA golf courses throughout the west. That life of travel came to an end when his family moved to a ranch in South Dakota’s Black Hills (besides Mount Rushmore) to raise ostriches. After being a ranch hand Cory decided to go study Engineering in Boulder, Colorado where he also enlisted as a reservist. After 9/11 the military took him away from his studies, and when he returned he decided to go to the mountains to ski and cook. He liked cooking so much that he made a new career out of it, and therefore enrolled in culinary school at Johnson and Wales University. He trained under chef Bryan Moscatello, chef from the acclaimed hotel the Little Nell in Aspen and Food & Wines best new chef. Cory then focused his career on luxury hotels and moved to the J.W Marriott in Cherry Creek Denver, where he opened the successful restaurant ‘Second Home”.  In 2007 Cory and his wife Lauryn Sargent moved to Telluride where he worked as Chef de Cuisine at the Excelsior Restaurant and then moved to work at the Madeline Hotel & Residences. There, in 2012 Cory was named executive chef where he presided over the Black Iron Kitchen & Bar. The off-seasons in Telluride provided Cory and Lauryn time to travel, (and climb) all over the world and experience new food in faraway places. In the summer of 2015 there taste for new adventure landed them in Hawaii, where Cory was the chef of RumFire located on Kauai at the sunny Poipu beach. However, when Hans contacted him about the potential of the Ivory building (now Brick House 737), Cory jumped at the opportunity to come back to their home in Ouray.  He enjoys incorporating influences from his travels in Asia, South America, & Spain, and continues to work with local farms, dairies and ranchers.