Since the mid-nineties, two bookshop owners have poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into their vision of an artist’s retreat: a rural, live-in library called the “Rocky Mountain Land Library,” “where visitors will be able to connect with two increasingly endangered elements—the printed word and untamed nature,” according to the New York Times.

The building is an abandoned ranch about two hours from Denver, in the ghost town of Garo, where rare species of animals roam South Park. Jeff Lee, 60, and Ann Martin, 53, of a Denver bookshop, the Tattered Cover, were inspired to build Rocky Mountain Land Library after staying at St. Deiniol’s (now called Gladstone’s Library), a residential library in the Welsh countryside. In contrast to Gladstone’s, however, Rocky Mountain Land Library will be more focused on the land of the West, conversation issues, and regional history.

Indeed, the importance of literature and nature are at the heart of this project. “When Ann and I started this in the mid-90s,” Lee said, “I never thought one of the potential projects could be the death of the book. As important as connecting people to nature and the land is now, it’s going to be even more so in the future.” 

Kat Vlahos, a supporter of the project and director of the Center of Preservation Research at the University of Colorado, Denver, said to the New York Times that the Rocky Mountain Land Library could really be a boon to the overall Western community: “It allows us to hold onto our Western heritage and traditions and historic cultural resources,” she said.

Lee and Martin have invested around $250,000 into the collection of 32,000 books alone, all of which center on “Western land, history, industry, writers, and peoples,” and which have a broad range of potential audiences, “from elementary school pupils to literature enthusiasts and Ph.D.s.” They will need about five million dollars to finish the library, however, which includes funding for water, electricity, furniture, and staff members.

“It’s not really about us,” Martin said of the project. “It’s something for Colorado, for this region.”