James Lyman Berry

James Lyman Berry passed away December 13, 2025, after a lifetime of over 97 years.

He was born October 9, 1928, to Lyle and Gena Berry of Lusk, WY, where Gena owned a retail home electric equipment store and Lyle was manager of the town's electric power generating plant. Jim and younger sister Jean both were born in Denver where medical facilities were superior. Grade school years were spent in Holyoke, CO, after the Berrys purchased the Burge Hotel in 1933. For 8 years they successfully catered to salesmen who traveled by train during the Depression and Dustbowl eras. After selling the hotel the family returned to Lusk for 2 years.

At the beginning of World War II, the family moved to Denver where Jim went to East High School, graduating in 1946, and where he had two summer war-related jobs. During that time his father worked at several wartime production and construction jobs in the region.
Graduating from the University of Colorado Boulder in 1951 with a degree in Business Administration, Jim went to Newcastle, WY, (a town enjoying a regional oil production boom) where his parents had built a small hotel, and where he had several oil company jobs in oil production, accounting and actual time in the oil fields.

Jim and Joan Lund married in 1952 and together raised their children Carol, Paul and Jamie in Newcastle, Lusk and Sheridan, WY. During these years, in addition to his oil industry work, he owned a small-town Ford dealership, became a Chamber of Commerce manager, was an active Mason, rose to 1st Lt. as artillery trainer in the National Guard during the Korean War, and performed at the Seattle World's Fair as the comic villain with a melodrama group. In 1968 he returned to Colorado with wife and family where he became Village Manager at the newly opened Snowmass Ski Resort near Aspen. After 17 years of marriage Jim and his wife divorced.

After obtaining a real estate license, Jim and son Paul moved to Steamboat Springs in 1971. He took a sales position with developer LTV-RDI which had just purchased the ski area and had started their own real estate company to market their condominium projects and golf course homesites. He remarried in 1973 to Susan Schoenheit. They raised one son Brian and, as a family, enjoyed the Steamboat mountain lifestyle. Their 52-year marriage was one filled with love, fun and happiness.

Jim's Steamboat real estate career continued for 30 years, and he introduced many to the wonders of the Yampa Valley. He truly enjoyed getting to know his customers and their families and many became lifelong friends. He loved sharing all Steamboat had to offer beyond downhill skiing including cross-country skiing, cutting Christmas trees in the forest, hiking the backcountry and boating local lakes. He was active in Kiwanis and volunteered as a ski jumping judge at Howelsen Hill.

An avid sailor, Jim owned 8 sailboats over the years. In addition to sailing and racing mountain lakes and the Sea of Cortez, he crewed for friends on a regatta across the Gulf of Mexico, and on passages from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Cabo San Lucas.

A lifelong sportsman and mountaineer, he climbed Longs Peak while in college and led family summiting several other fourteeners. He harvested a bighorn sheep in the high mountains of Wyoming; hunted big game and birds; shot skeet; rode dirt bikes; flew with a friend over the Continental Divide in winter in a hot air balloon; enjoyed winter hut trips in the 10th Mountain Hut system; boated and fished at their home in the Florida Keys; and owned and loved several bird dogs over the years. He taught his children and grandchildren to hunt, fish, sail, and tie a bowline knot (which 3 of the grandchildren had to master at "Berry Boot Camp").

Beginning at age 68, he designed and built a mountain home in Clark, CO, doing most of the work himself over six years with welcome help from family, friends, neighbors and a few contractors. He lived there the last 24 years of his life exploring the hills, hunting and fishing, boating, building and flying model airplanes, playing pickleball, fixing things from parts in his junk box, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, riding his scooter 6 miles to get the mail, hosting family and friends, enjoying wildlife, and watching the Elk River flow by.

Jim was a man of honesty and integrity. He remained active and enjoyed the outdoors all his years. Preceded in death by his sister Jean McLaughlin, he is survived by his wife Susan, his 4 children, 8 grandchildren, 3 ½ great-grandchildren and the large extended family of his sister Jean. We celebrate his life on behalf of his family and friends that he loved so much and who will miss him greatly.