After creating the Discovery store and selling the successful chain to television’s Discovery Channel, Rick Rolater craved yet another adventure.  It came in the form of By Nature, his new gallery that opened in Beaver Creek in 2004 and in Aspen in time for the winter of 2005-2006. By Nature is packed with the finest of the planet’s creations. 

 

 

Featuring a nearly perfect 32,000-year-old Saber-tooth tiger skeleton and a 135-million-year-old fossilized wood table filled with sparkling amethyst pockets, By Nature carries Rolater’s most remarkable nature specimens from a 30-year, international collecting spree.

 

Such an extensive mix of petrified woods, fossils and minerals are found at only a few other galleries around the world, according to Rolater, who explains people’s love for the earth elements.  “People have a very strong attachment to nature,” Rolater says.  “All the objects we have here are a part of nature that can be taken home and made part of one’s living environment.”