If you have lived off Lake Circle or up toward Mesa Avenue for more than a couple of years, you already have a Saturday routine. Coffee at Café Julie's, a lap around Cheyenne Lake, maybe the zoo with visiting grandkids, dinner somewhere on property. That routine is worth rewriting this summer, because three of the anchors it depended on have all shifted at once.
The 2026 season is the first in years where the Penrose Room, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, and Seven Falls have each debuted something material in the same calendar window. For residents, the neighborhood's public-facing amenities have been rebuilt in parallel.
That parallel reset is the story. Here is what a Broadmoor resident actually needs to know about each piece, and how the pieces fit into a weekend that doesn't feel like the one you did last July.
The Penrose Room came back, and it isn't the room you remember
The Penrose Room went dark during the pandemic and stayed dark. What reopened in early 2026 is not a refresh. It is a full reimagining by Tihany Design out of New York, and the physical space now reads more like a Gatsby-era set than the hushed formal room longtime residents will picture. Red velvet seating contrasts with modern wood paneling, grounded by a checkered marble floor and a dramatic fireplace, with display cases showing artifacts and personal treasures from the Penroses' global travels, and an adjoining lounge with equestrian-inspired leather detailing and ornate ceiling tiles that reinterpret a Western saloon.
The detail most residents will care about: a concealed bookcase door leads to a speakeasy-style polo club with walnut paneling, archival black-and-white photography, and a leather-clad bar. There is a walk-in cellar built around the whiskey list.
Chef Justin Miller kept the tableside theater the room was known for and added a menu that leans well past continental. Caesar salad is tossed tableside, cantaloupe is scooped for a prosciutto appetizer, and Beef Wellington is carved tableside. Sushi, Thai-barbecued red snapper, Japanese white miso-glazed halibut, and pistachio- and za'atar-crusted lamb now share the card with the old classics. Two new signature cocktails, the Seafarer and the PenRose, are worth ordering at the bar even if you are not staying for dinner.
The practical resident takeaway: the dress code from back then remains for guests at linen-draped tables, while guests at the bar and cocktail lounge can dress casual. The bar and lounge are the entry point if you want to see the redesign without committing to a full tasting menu evening.
The zoo turned 100 and rebuilt its front half
Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is not a place most residents think of as changing. In 2026, CMZoo is celebrating a mountain of memories and 100 years of growth in animal care, conservation, education, and community. It marked the anniversary by rebuilding the parts of the zoo you walk through first.
On May 28, 2026, CMZoo hosted the grand opening of its newly transformed admissions area, featuring life-sized giraffe sculptures, a new gift shop, and a café, with a redesigned space that separates vehicle traffic from pedestrian areas. Chobe, the zoo's 150-pound African spurred tortoise, bit through the ribbon to open it. The centerpiece out front is "The 200 Project," an installation of six life-sized giraffe sculptures celebrating the more than 200 giraffe calves born at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo as part of the Giraffe Species Survival Plan. Antonia Chastain, the zoo's longtime sculptor, spent years on them.
The bigger project, the International Center for the Care and Conservation of Giraffe, opens this summer as the anchor of the centennial. What that means for a resident who has walked the old giraffe barn dozens of times:
| Feature | Old exhibit | New Giraffe Center |
|---|---|---|
| Indoor habitat | Older 20+ year barn | 12,000 sq-ft habitat |
| Hand-feeding zones | 3 | 11 |
| Outdoor yard | Baseline | ~25% larger, with switchbacks and a feeding tower |
| Lettuce supply | Purchased | Up to 80% grown on-site hydroponically |
| Roof | Standard | Built-in rain system and heated walls for microclimates |
The numbers come from the zoo's own project reporting and an elevated browse feeder system, a ceiling rain system some giraffes wander under and others avoid, and microclimates including heated walls, cool zones, and varied flooring textures of sand, mulch, and gravel. The $40 million project is being funded entirely by ticket sales, membership dues, special event attendance, and donor support, since Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is one of just a few AZA zoos that operates without tax support.
If you have a zoo membership sitting dormant, the summer weeklong centennial celebration around the Giraffe Center grand opening is the moment to renew it. Also worth a stop: the Penrose Heritage Museum opened a new exhibit in March 2026 marking the zoo's 100th anniversary with archival photographs, documents, a short documentary, and hands-on activities, and admission is free.
Seven Falls has a price window most residents will overlook
The Broadmoor Seven Falls reopened for its 2026 season and the details worth planning around are the calendar and the family pass math, not the falls themselves.
In 2026 the seasonal dates are March 13th through November 29th. The park closes for winter after that. Extended evening hours run August 12–13 with 11am–4pm and 5pm–8:30pm; September 3 through October 19, Thursday–Monday, with the same split schedule until 8pm; and October 23 through November 29, Friday–Sunday, 11am–5pm.
Here is the piece almost nobody notices. Colorado's 150th anniversary is this year, and from July 26 through August 1, the Family Four Pack for the 2026 season is $150 rather than the standard $350. That is a season pass for four named people covering roughly four more months of park access. For a Broadmoor family that goes even three times a year, the arithmetic is one-sided. The pass requires four specific names and ID at the gate.
Two other things residents forget: complimentary parking and shuttle are located at The Norris Penrose Event Center, and there is no parking inside the park, and if you are visiting Restaurant 1858, you still need to pay park admission, so plan extra time to enjoy the park before or after your dining reservation. The wood-fired room and the Falling Waffles food truck are still there, and evening cocktails on the 1858 patio with the falls lit is a quieter option than dinner at any of the on-property Broadmoor restaurants.
The Cañon calendar is more useful than the hiking map
Most people who live in the Broadmoor treat North Cheyenne Cañon Park as a trailhead. It is also a community calendar, and 2026 has a specific set of dated events worth putting on the fridge rather than discovering after the fact.
- Saturday, April 25, 2026: Volunteer trash cleanup on Gold Camp Road, 8:30am–noon, organized through the city's volunteer portal.
- Hummingbird Festival: The Friends of Cheyenne Cañon host their annual festival celebrating the return of the hummingbirds to the canyon.
- Thursday, July 16, 2026: Trail work day on the Mid-Columbine Trail, 8:30am–noon, meeting at 2120 South Cheyenne Canyon Road.
- Sunday, November 8, 2026: The Canya Cañon run/hike, with a new 2.5-mile course for hikers alongside the returning 4-mile course. Sun hoodies go to the first 100 registrants.
Details for each are on the Friends of Cheyenne Cañon calendar. If you have not been up the canyon since the newer trail work, the Daniels Pass Trail System added nearly 7 miles of new trail, bidirectional and open to non-motorized, multi-recreational users, with two short hiking-only trails. The Starsmore Visitor and Nature Center at the park entrance is still the best place to grab a current map.
A resident's rewritten Saturday
Put the four resets together and you get a genuinely different day than the one you did last year. One version, front to back:
- 7:15 a.m. Coffee and a pastry at Café Julie's. Skip the hotel-guest morning rush.
- 8:30 a.m. Drive to the Norris Penrose Event Center, ride the shuttle in, and walk the .8 mile up to Seven Falls before the mid-morning wave arrives. First shuttle is the best light on the cliff.
- 11:00 a.m. Back down, cross to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, and start with the new admissions plaza and The 200 Project sculptures before the temperature climbs. The Longneck Café is the new lunch option that did not exist last summer.
- 2:00 p.m. Detour to the free Penrose Heritage Museum for the centennial exhibit on the zoo's early years from the Penrose private collection.
- 4:30 p.m. Nap. This is a lot of elevation change in one day.
- 7:00 p.m. Cocktails in the bar side of the reimagined Penrose Room. Order a PenRose or a Seafarer, ask to see the concealed polo club, and skip the dinner tasting unless you have booked ahead.
None of that itinerary was available a year ago in the form it takes this summer. The individual anchors were there. The reset versions were not.
The through line
The Broadmoor neighborhood tends to get talked about as static, a place where the important buildings look the same as they did decades ago. That description is doing you a disservice this summer. The dining room where residents celebrated anniversaries, the zoo you take out-of-town family to, and the waterfall park at the end of the road have each been redone in the last twelve months. Walking the same loop and expecting the same experience is the mistake.
When your out-of-town friends visit in August, you have a story to tell them that the guidebook does not have yet.
If you are curious how these long-term neighborhood investments affect what your home in the Broadmoor is worth this summer, the Behr & Behr Team is happy to share a quiet, no-obligation valuation grounded in what is actually selling on your block. Request a Free Home Valuation whenever you are ready.
