High Country Investments
High Country Investments was the corporate shell through which the Overlook Hotel passed into the hands of organized crime in the 1960s, transforming the mountain resort from a legitimate if unlucky hotel into a security-jacketed key club for underworld figures. The company's true ownership was deliberately obscured through a tangle of dummy corporations, and its brief, violent tenure left a permanent stain on the hotel's history—a stain that Jack Torrance would later unearth in a scrapbook hidden in the basement.
Formation and Purpose
High Country Investments announced its purchase of the Overlook Hotel on April 10, 1963, with a spokesman named Robert T. Leffing declaring that the hotel would become an exclusive "key club" for high-echelon executives of American and foreign companies. The group also owned hotels in Montana, Wyoming, and Utah. The company's name was deliberately anonymous—Jack Torrance later reflected that it was "the most anonymous-sounding company name" he had ever heard. The stated plan was to sell memberships to wealthy businessmen, but the reality was far different.
The Derwent Connection
By July 1964, investigative reporting had revealed that High Country Investments was headed by Charles Grondin, 53, who had previously been the head of California Land Development Corporation before resigning in 1959 to become executive vice president in the Chicago home office of Derwent Enterprises. This connection led to speculation that Horace Derwent, the elusive millionaire who had owned the Overlook from 1945 to 1952, might be controlling High Country Investments from behind the scenes, effectively reacquiring the hotel through a back door. Grondin had been indicted and acquitted on tax evasion charges in 1960, and when reached for comment, Derwent refused to speak. State Representative Dick Bows of Golden called for a complete investigation.
The Mafia Playground
In September 1964, muckraking columnist Josh Brannigar published a bombshell piece titled "MAFIA FREE-ZONE IN COLORADO?" that exposed the true nature of the Overlook's key club. Brannigar obtained a list of members present during the week of August 16-23, 1964, obtained by a former employee of High Country Investments. The list included Charles Grondin himself; Charles "Baby Charlie" Battaglia, a 60-year-old Vegas impresario with an arrest record stretching back to 1932 and suspected involvement in drug traffic, prostitution, and murder for hire; Richard Scarne, principal stockholder of Fun Time Automatic Machines, who had done time for assault with a deadly weapon, carrying a concealed weapon, and conspiracy to commit tax fraud; Peter Zeiss, a Miami-based importer fighting deportation, convicted of receiving stolen property and conspiracy to commit tax fraud, and tried on murder charges; Vittorio Gienelli, also known as "Vito the Chopper," tried twice for gangland murders and indicted twenty-three times; and Carl "Jimmy-Ricks" Prashkin, a San Francisco investor reputed to be the heir apparent to Gienelli's power, who owned large blocks of stock in Derwent Enterprises, High Country Investments, Fun Time Automatic Machines, and three Vegas casinos. Brannigar suggested that Prashkin might be in charge of laundering money skimmed from Vegas casino operations and funneling it back into the organization's legitimate western operations—which now included the Overlook Hotel.
The Gangland Murder and Collapse
In June 1966, the Overlook's criminal idyll came to a bloody end. A triple shotgun slaying occurred at the hotel, with Vittorio Gienelli and two of his bodyguards, Victor T. Boorman and Roger Macassi, killed in the Presidential Suite. The murder was carried out by two men wearing stockings on their faces, who fled down the fire escape and drove off in a late-model tan convertible. The newspaper clipping that Jack Torrance found in the scrapbook showed the sitting room wall splashed with blood and white flecks of brain matter. Below the clipping, someone had written in ball-point pen: "They took his balls along with them." The hotel was sold following the murder, and High Country Investments' involvement with the Overlook came to an end. The company's brief, violent tenure left the hotel with a reputation that would never fully be erased, and the scrapbook documenting its crimes would later become a dangerous obsession for Jack Torrance.
