Aspen
Mark 2006 as the year housing prices first hit $100 million.
Donald Trump started this trend, listing his seaside Palm Beach, Fla., mansion for $125 million. His property tops another estate listed for $100 million in Lake Tahoe, Nev. But here in Colorado even the Trumpster has been trumped.
The Aspen home of Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz and his wife, Princess Haifa, is on the market for $135 million. This is the highest price ever asked for an American residence.
“It is the greatest listing in the world,” said real estate broker Joshua Saslove, 65, of Joshua & Co., an independent affiliate of international auction house Christie’s Great Estates.
Saslove has sold homes worth nearly $50 million, but he typically deals at the $8 million level. He would not tell me what his commission would be on $135 million. “Commissions,” he said, “are always negotiable.”
What I write is negotiable, too. Few journalists have been inside Prince Bandar’s house. But after some wrangling, Saslove and Prince Bandar’s Aspen attorney, William Jordan, allowed me through its many gates and doors.
I agreed there would be no Denver Post photographer, no 9News camera crew and no mention of certain sensitive things I would see. I was not, however, prohibited from mentioning the enormous garage with armored SUVs inside, or the room that looked straight out of NORAD with three of Prince Bandar’s security staffers standing sentry, or the ubiquitous cameras that spy everything that moves, even in the dark.
Prince Bandar is the former Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. He’s won the confidence of four U.S. presidents and helped shape Middle East policies. He’s been reportedly nicknamed “Bandar Bush” by the president’s mother for his close relationship to the family. He’s brokered arms deals between U.S. defense contractors and Saudi Arabia. And he is selling his gem in the Rockies after taking a job as secretary general of Saudi Arabia’s National Security Council.
To help me assess Prince Bandar’s property, I brought along David Nilges, a real estate broker from Centennial. Nilges has seen many high-end homes in his day. In January, he helped me get inside the Beaver Creek home of imprisoned former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski, who is famous for a $6,000 shower curtain in his New York City apartment.
Nilges and I concurred that Kozlowski’s massive log home, then listed for $11.5 million, was in keeping with Kozlowski’s opulent tastes. But after seeing Prince Bandar’s house, the Kozlowski crib now seems like a starter home.
Nilges has never seen anything like Prince Bandar’s home. But don’t ask him about it. He is sworn to secrecy because Jordan made him sign a confidentiality agreement. I signed no such agreement, so here’s what I can tell you:
The home sits on 95 pristine mountaintop acres known as the Hala Ranch. It includes dwellings for staffers and guests, plus a heated hay barn and stable that would make perfectly acceptable quarters for me. The ranch has its own gas station, mechanical shop and car wash. It even has its own sewage treatment plant. It also boasts reflection pools, sculpture gardens, fishing ponds, a tennis court, scenic equestrian and cross-country skiing trails, and barbecue pits large enough to roast goats.
“It has every amenity you can think of,” said Martha Grimes, who has been the property’s general manager for 17 years. “And it’s one of the most beautiful locations in the world.”
Do you know how some people brag that their yard is more than an acre? Well, Prince Bandar’s house is more than an acre inside. At 56,000 square feet, it is bigger than the White House. And its sprawl may never be matched because Pitkin County officials have restricted the size of new homes since this magnificent abode was completed in 1991.
Despite its size, each room in the house seems intimate. Hints of Frank Lloyd Wright in the design balance the interior with its natural surroundings.
The first thing I noticed coming through the front door was the indoor waterfall and a sculpture made of granite boulders shaped to spell “hala” in Arabic, a word that means “welcome.”
The Hala Ranch – just minutes from downtown Aspen – has welcomed captains of industry, celebrities, diplomats and heads of state. President George H.W. Bush reportedly wrote in the ranch’s guest book, “Some log cabin!”
The home, designed by Aspen architects Hagman Yaw, is actually built of steel and concrete, but is adorned with earthy stone columns and arches, timbers and cedar shingles that exude a cabin coziness.
Thousands of pine and aspen trees were planted outside. And the home’s many windows frame them with panoramic views of the Roaring Fork Valley and its four world-class ski areas.
Immediately off the foyer is a suite for private ski, tennis and equestrian instructors to await their pupils.
An elegant wooden staircase winds dreamily between the home’s three stories. It must have taken a forest of mahogany trees to line the interior with meticulously milled moldings, doors and panels. I saw handcrafted stained glass and bronze metalwork everywhere. Skylights bathed rooms in soft sunshine. Floors that were not covered in hardwoods sported wall-to-wall carpets made of fine wool. I saw towering fireplaces, an elevator, elaborate lighting systems, flat-panel TVs with audio systems, and pricey works of art that added to the home’s eclectic, yet harmonized, mix of both Arab and Colorado cultures.
The great room is great enough to fit a small, single-family home. I toured all 15 bedrooms, which seemed more upscale than the fine hotel suites with walk-in closets, massive bathrooms, fireplaces, sitting areas and patios.
There are 27 bathrooms throughout the house – which I think explains the sewage treatment plant. The ones I saw all featured bidets, except for one that I actually used in an area reserved for staff. Instead of a bidet, it had a chrome hose mounted beside the toilet in case some poor pedestrian like me needed a spritz.
The house and its grounds require a permanent staff of about 16. When Prince Bandar comes to town, this workforce can swell to more than 50. I saw dumbwaiters that could deliver food to many rooms from a well-equipped commercial kitchen large enough to prepare hundreds of meals a day.
I marveled at an indoor swimming pool with mosaic tiles on its floor depicting colorful trout. The ceiling above the pool was made out of teak. There was a steam room, a room with a massive hot tub, an exercise room and a regulation-size racquetball court. There was also a whimsical room filled with arcade and video games. It made me realize how deprived I truly was as a child.
Prince Bandar’s bedroom lies behind a secret door. I won’t reveal its location. But I passed through it. Besides the usual grand features of a master suite in an elaborate home, I found a butler’s pantry, a massage area, a personal beauty parlor, and bedside controls for lights, curtains and electronics.
For reasons I can’t explain, I found myself transformed as I toured Prince Bandar’s house. It put me in touch with my sense of awe, like seeing a fine work of art. And I know that for the rest of my life, no matter how luxurious a home I may visit, I will always be able to say, “It’s not as nice as Prince Bandar’s house.”
Only a billionaire will be able to afford this place, but its listing agent, Saslove, said it’s already generating inquiries from qualified buyers.
Toward the end of my tour, I told Jordan, Bandar’s lawyer, that I didn’t know quite how to describe this phantasmagorical mountain retreat of a modern-day prince and princess.
“Well,” he said, “you can say that it’s certainly underpriced.”
Al Lewis’ column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Respond to Lewis at denverpostbloghouse.com/lewis, 303-954-1967 or alewis@denverpost.com.
