Snowmass listing: 11 BDR, $35 million
United States Surgical Corp. founder Leon Hirsch is trying to sell his Aspen-area estate for $35 million, two years after it was completed. Brokers believe it’s the most expensive home on the Colorado market.
The contemporary home, with 11 bedrooms, 11 full and two half-baths, sits on 200 acres in Snowmass Village, about 10 miles west of Aspen.
Hirsch, 78, founded U.S. Surgical, a Norwalk, Conn., manufacturer of surgical equipment, in 1964. He ran the company until 1998, when Tyco International bought it in a $3.3 billion deal.
The home was designed by Bart Voorsanger, the architect behind the Asia Society Museum in New York City and the master plan for the University of Virginia. The house measures 14,000 square feet with two fireplaces, a hot tub and a spa.
The property’s listing agent is Aspen broker Joshua Saslove, who sold Hollywood mogul Peter Guber’s 650-acre Mandalay Ranch in February for $46 million, an Aspen-area record (the buyers were mortgage-company executive Roland Arnall and his wife, Dawn).
Software can card wine buyers online
Last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision to allow Internet wine sales nationwide created a new problem: how to verify peoples’ ages online.
IDology Group, a Florida-based software company, is wasting no time hawking software that takes a person’s name and address and instantly verifies the age.
The software is already used by www.wine.com and other wineries that sell wine to the 26 states that do not forbid online sales of wine. It quietly checks information as soon as a buyer starts entering her information online.
“It’s instant,” said IDology chief operating officer Darrell Goodwin. “You don’t even know it’s happening.”
Companies can also customize the software by adding personalized questions to further reduce age cheating. Instead of a fixed price, the company charges the wineries about 25 cents per customer transaction to use the software.
Firm tries to collar Pupperware helpers
With pet owners spending nearly $35 billion a year on goods for their animal companions, one Chicago company has come up with a new way to share the wealth.
Shure Pets is signing up consultants – including 16 in the metro Denver area – who will bring the goods to in-home Pupperware parties. Consultants guide guests and their pets through product lines that are customized for dogs, cats, rabbits and ferrets.
Pet lovers interested in getting an up close look at Boo-Boo Bandages, Paw Balm and Pup-Corn – and entrepreneurs interested in becoming consultants – can get more information at www.shurepets.com.
Teen’s imagination wanders to Microsoft
Mike Burr might have a job waiting at Microsoft when he graduates – from high school.
The 17-year-old, a junior at Pine Creek High School in Colorado Springs, is one of three U.S. finalists in the High School Information Technology Invitational, a category in Microsoft’s third annual Imagine Cup competition.
The contest requires students to write proposals developing products or services that make people’s lives easier using Microsoft’s software and Web services. Burr put together a complex proposal that growing companies can use, gradually adding more computing power to their networks.
More than 200 U.S. high school students entered the contest, which had 3,000 applicants worldwide. The Imagine Cup is also open to college students, but this is the first year programming and design categories were available to high school students.
Burr spent a weekend at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash., meeting programmers and other students who are competing in the software design category of the Imagine Cup.
“It’s like going to the mothership,” said a Microsoft spokeswoman.
Eulogy held for slain Qwest executive
A few hundred family, friends and co-workers gathered Thursday in Centennial at the funeral of 37-year-old Qwest executive Jeff Garrett. He was shot and killed while turkey hunting May 14 near New Castle. Police continue to investigate.
During the service, former US West executive John Scully shared warm memories of Garrett, who spent most of the past 14 years working at the phone company now known as Qwest.
“I have been asked to say a few words about Jeff,” Scully said. “But with Jeff, there were never a few words.”
Scully said the gregarious Garrett earned respect doing a tough job: handling public relations as US West dealt with customer service problems in the mid-1990s.
He also was a gourmet chef and an outdoorsman with unflappable optimism and a predilection for practical jokes, Scully said. Garrett is survived by his wife, Charlotte, a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son.
