Stadium backer Dunafon keeps taking chances

By James Paton, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published June 21, 2008 at 10:24 a.m.

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Photo by Silvia Razgova / Special to the Rocky

Mike Dunafon shows off the mechanic room in his restored castle, which is tucked away in Bear Creek Canyon in Idledale. Dunafon is seen as playing the instrumental role in pushing for a rugby stadium in Glendale.

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Mike Dunafon is a dreamer, hailed as a “visionary” by some. But in the past his efforts to fulfill his lofty goals haven’t always gone smoothly.

Dunafon, who grew up in Golden, was a standout football player in the 1970s at the University of Northern Colorado. The running back and wide receiver signed contracts with the Denver Broncos in 1976 and 1977 but failed twice to make the team.

A couple of years later, he said, he left Colorado with the idea of becoming a sailor and headed to the Virgin Islands with friends. Dunafon soon found he suffered from severe seasickness and lost 17 pounds. “That was the end of sailing for me,” he said.

Dunafon, 54, said he returned to the United States and drifted around playing music and doing stand-up comedy. Eventually, the Caribbean beckoned again, and he returned to the Virgin Islands and settled in Tortola.

He bought the Sir Francis Drake Pub, redecorated the place and renamed it the Paradise Pub. Dunafon said he upset some patrons who liked it the way it was. The bar carried on, eventually in different hands.

Years later, back in Colorado, Dunafon and Debbie Matthews, his common-law wife and owner of strip club Shotgun Willie’s, restored a castle tucked away in Bear Creek Canyon. Matthews paid $1.5 million for the site in 2004, he said. Then Dunafon hired workers from Step 13 - a program aimed at helping people struggling with alcoholism and addiction - to fix it up.

When Dunafon first broached the plan, Step 13 founder Bob Cote surveyed the tall weeds, the broken windows and other signs of neglect.

“He gave me a description of what he wanted to do, and I said, ‘This guy is out of his mind,’ ” Cote said. “But it’s been amazing what he’s done. He’s a visionary. He’s focused like no one else I’ve met.”

Dunafon was equally focused in the 1990s in co-founding the Glendale Tea Party, a group formed to fight a city effort to regulate topless dancers at two clubs, including Shotgun Willie’s. Three council candidates backed by Dunafon were voted into office, and the new slate repealed the strip club ordinance. Two years later, the people voted to keep Joe Rice as mayor, handing him a narrow victory over Dunafon.

“We agreed on some things, and, obviously, we had our highly publicized disagreements,” said Rice, now a state representative from Littleton. “That was resolved in the election.”

Dunafon is seen as playing the instrumental role in pushing for a rugby stadium in Glendale as part of a bid to raise the tiny city’s profile.

Aside from a lawsuit filed against Dunafon by the first rugby coach, the project unfolded according to plan. But his past is filled with conflict.

News reports in 2003 revealed he owned half of a limousine company targeted by federal agents. His partner, Rodney Mirabal, was accused of using the company, Mr. Limos, to launder drug profits and was sent to prison. Dunafon never was charged.

Dunafon’s Commonwealth Telecommunications also filed for bankruptcy protection. He blamed the collapse on fraud at another company he was doing business with.

“If you want to live life to its fullest, you gotta trust people,” he said, and he has trusted people he shouldn’t have. “I don’t try to blame anyone for negative circumstances in my life. You just gotta keep taking chances.”

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