Some of her best childhood memories are of times she and her siblings spent with their great-grandmother Julie Penrose. The beautiful grounds of Julie and Spencer Penrose’s El Pomar home were their playgrounds, their great-grandmother a spirited and “grand American lady” they called “Bonne.”

As part of the 100th anniversary of The Broadmoor, Baroness Anne de Selys Longchamps of Belgium brought her own grandsons for her first visit in 50 years. They stayed in Julie’s grand Penrose Suite in the hotel and visited sites important to the family history, including Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun on Cheyenne Mountain, where the Penroses are buried. Grandsons Arsene, 17, and Hugo Van Der Straten Waillet, 21, hiked trails near the zoo started by Penrose.

The baroness’s sister, Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps, had visited in August 2017 and plans to return. Both women were guests of El Pomar Foundation at private luncheons in the former family estate filled with the Penrose history.

Julie’s daughter Gladys, stepdaughter of The Broadmoor’s Spencer “Spec” Penrose, was married in Europe to royalty, becoming Belgian Countess Gladys Cornet de Ways-Ruart.

The family castle was endangered during a German takeover in World War II and is a historic site. Concerned about her family’s safety during the war, Julie had a chapel built across from the hotel, Pauline Chapel, named for granddaughter Pauline Julie Caroline Marie Ghislaine de Selys Longchamps, mother of Anne and Sybille and their two brothers.

Pauline Chapel and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College were two of the stops for Anne and her grandsons. FAC Director Erin Hannan gave a tour of the center, built on the site of the former home of the Penroses, which became the Broadmoor Art Academy, a pet project of Julie’s.

Photo gallery: gazette.com/life/around-town