Guyer Hot Springs

Closure notice: Guyer Hot Springs is closed to the public, and it has been since the resort shut in 1929. The spring sits on private land in Ketchum’s Warm Springs neighborhood, and the owners’ development application argues for “maintaining the subject property without public access.” Online maps may pin “Guyer Hot Springs” near warm seeps in Warm Springs Creek: those spots are not a public soak, and reaching them can mean crossing private property. This page is a history and status record, not a visitor guide.

For roughly five decades, Guyer Hot Springs was the Wood River Valley’s grand resort: a hotel and plunge on Warm Springs Creek west of Ketchum. Its end was unusual. The resort did not burn or dry up; in 1929 its owner piped its 160 degree water three miles into Ketchum instead, where it heated a Main Street lodge for decades. The water still works today, heating private homes, but the resort is long gone.

At a Glance

The facts below describe a historic, closed spring, collected here so readers are not misled by older sources or map pins: there is no soak to visit at Guyer Hot Springs.

Status	Closed to the public since 1929. Private land, no public access and no soaking
Location	Warm Springs neighborhood, Ketchum, Blaine County, south-central Idaho
Land & management	Private land (Carbon Hill Hot Springs, Inc.); proposed Guyer Hot Springs Subdivision
Source temperature	About 159°F (70.5°C) at the source, far too hot to soak in undiluted
Flow	500 gallons per minute (Idaho Department of Water Resources, 1990) to about 1,000 gallons per minute (Geo-Heat Center); surveys differ by year
Elevation	5,920 feet
Resort era	1882 to 1929. The hotel was demolished in 1937 and rebuilt in Ketchum
Facilities	None. No pool and no visitor facility
Fee / hours	None. The spring is not open to visitors

Current Status & Access

The Guyer property is private land inside the Ketchum city limits. Its geothermal system still works, but its job today is heating private homes in the Warm Springs neighborhood, not receiving visitors. The owners have proposed the Guyer Hot Springs Subdivision, a phased residential development of about 17 to 20 homes on roughly 8.9 acres. The City of Ketchum’s staff record sums it up: the resort closed in 1929, and the system now serves private homes along Warm Springs Road. As of fall 2026 the subdivision was still in public hearings, continued to November 5, 2026, with no final approval documented.

Location & Place Information

Guyer Hot Springs rises on Warm Springs Creek in the Warm Springs neighborhood, just west of the Warm Springs base area of Bald Mountain in Ketchum, Blaine County. Because the site is closed private land proposed for homes, this listing gives the neighborhood and county only: no street address (city records list the project address as “No address”), no public access point, no directions.

The Spring Itself

The water is abundant, and it is hot. The Idaho Department of Water Resources records the main spring at 70.5°C, about 159°F, flowing 500 gallons per minute. The Geo-Heat Center at Oregon Tech measured a similar surface temperature but a larger discharge, about 1,000 gallons per minute. At that heat the water was always a heat source and a supply for built, cooled pools, never an undiluted soak: it is diverted into holding reservoirs and a pipeline, in a heating system that ran about 2.9 miles to the old Bald Mountain Hot Springs Lodge in town.

History of Guyer Hot Springs

Claims, a townsite, and a July 4 opening: 1880 to 1882

In 1880, Henry Guyer and Isaac Lewis filed mining claims covering the springs (one of the property’s tax lots is still identified by the claim name “Hot Springs Lode”) and laid out a townsite they called Saratoga. The Blaine County transportation history credits Guyer with purchasing the water rights two miles west of Ketchum that year. It opened on July 4, 1882: Lewis had built a bar, a restaurant house, and a 20 by 40 foot dance floor, and opening day bar receipts were $253. The Philadelphia Smelter dammed the creek just below the springs, and its employees bathed there. The narrative source is Lundin’s history of the valley’s resort hotels.

Fame, and a parting of the ways: 1883 to 1885

The reputation came fast. In 1883 the Alturas Mining Reporter called Guyer “among the great healing springs of the world.” Elliott’s History of Idaho Territory (1884) called it “the grandest hot-springs watering-place in the United States,” crediting Lewis, who “brought them into public notice.” In 1884 the partners spent $23,000 on a two-story, 10-room building with a ladies parlor and plunge bath. Then, in the spring of 1885, Guyer bought out Lewis for $4,000. The partners had split over philosophy: Guyer wanted a “temperance plan,” Lewis a “rowdy plan.” The resort was then operated by lessees for several decades.

Excursion trains and private rail cars

The Oregon Short Line ran excursion trains to the resort: an 1886 excursion from Shoshone cost $3 by train, then 50 cents by carriage from Ketchum. Union Pacific’s 1889 resort guide said “there is no more attractive place in the NW to spend a hot summer.” Wealthy visitors arrived by private rail car, among them the Astors and Goulds; the Jay Gould party stayed at Guyer in 1891 and 1892. Captain Guyer died in Peru in 1907, where he worked as a mining engineer, and a railroad plan to buy the resort never went through.

The mission-style rebuild: 1913 to 1914

Raymond Guyer, also a mining engineer, returned from Peru in 1913 to run and expand the resort. A new $25,000 hotel opened in 1914: two stories with gables, 18 rooms upstairs, a lobby with a fireplace, and a turbine for lighting. Hawley’s History of Idaho describes the mission-style hotel, its ballroom, and a cement swimming pool that replaced the old separate men’s and women’s plunges. It was not enough: the Wood River mining bust of the 1910s undercut the resort, and by the 1920s it had fallen into disrepair.

The water moves to town: 1927 to 1929

In 1927, Carl Brandt, a retailer from Shoshone and Hailey, bought the resort from Raymond Guyer. Judging it too far out a seasonal road, Brandt paid $30,000 to pipe its 160 degree water three miles along Warm Springs Road to Main Street, and built the Bald Mountain Hot Springs Lodge there, with a 200,000-gallon concrete natatorium and 31 log tourist cabins, at an estimated $100,000, then the most expensive development in Ketchum. The Guyer resort itself closed in 1929, its water gone to town.

What became of the hotel, and of the water

The hotel had a second life. In 1937 Brandt dismantled it and rebuilt it on Main Street as the St. Georg Hotel, a 28-room Swiss-chalet replica heated by the spring water; it burned in January 1939. The Brandt family kept the Bald Mountain lodge until 1956, and the Community Library notes that the Limelight Hotel now stands on its site. At Guyer itself, the last historic structures were removed in 1996, leaving the geothermal works. The water never stopped working: it has melted snow at the Warm Springs lift area since 2007, and the owners are now revitalizing the main vault and repairing lines damaged by a 2022 avalanche.

Fees, Hours & Reservations

There are none. Guyer Hot Springs has no hours, fees, or reservations, and takes no visitors. For the property’s current status, check the City of Ketchum.

Nearby Hot Springs

Ketchum still has a real soak on the same creek. Frenchman’s Bend Hot Springs, a set of natural pools on Warm Springs Creek about 11 miles west of Ketchum, is the genuinely public spring on this water (day use only). The valley’s other classic, Hailey Hot Springs, is also a closed historic spring. More South-Central Idaho hot springs →

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Guyer Hot Springs open to the public?

No. The resort closed in 1929, the site is private land, and the owners’ application argues for keeping it without public access. There is no pool or visitor facility.

Can you soak at Guyer Hot Springs?

No. There is no soaking facility, the property is closed, and the source water runs about 159°F, far too hot to soak in undiluted. Warm creek seeps nearby are sometimes described online as an informal soak, but reaching them can mean crossing private property, and no official source sanctions soaking there.

Who owns Guyer Hot Springs now?

Carbon Hill Hot Springs, Inc., per the subdivision covenants in the City of Ketchum record, which has proposed about 17 to 20 homes on the roughly 8.9-acre property. As of fall 2026 the application was still in public hearings.

What happened to the Guyer resort?

Carl Brandt closed it in 1929 after piping its water three miles into Ketchum to the new Bald Mountain Hot Springs Lodge. In 1937 he dismantled the Guyer hotel and rebuilt it in town as the St. Georg Hotel, which burned in 1939. The site’s last historic structures were removed in 1996.

Where can I soak near Ketchum instead?

Frenchman’s Bend Hot Springs, on the same Warm Springs Creek about 11 miles west of Ketchum, is the closest public soak, day use only. Russian John Warm Springs north of Ketchum is a shallow warm pool best in summer.