“The openness drew us to it”
Richard and Judy Souders didn’t plan to sell their Castle Rock home this year, but a $1.6 million offer from a New Jersey couple quickly changed their minds.
As a result, the Souderses moved several blocks away, snapping up a two-story, 6,000-square-foot home in Castles Pines Village.
The $1.33 million, four- bedroom property provided what the pair wanted: a home with high ceilings, pupil-popping mountain views and a “casual feeling” inspired by an open layout.
“It’s very much a Colorado-style house,” said Richard Souders, 61, president and chief executive of Premier Data Services, a Denver software company. “The openness drew us to it.”
The Souderses, who moved to Colorado from Atlanta six years ago, replaced the home’s white walls with a palette of colors, using reds and browns to create a Southwestern style. Four water features, including a waterfall, provide visual and audio ambience.
– Will Shanley
“Four- and five-car garages are in”
People who live in rural areas want big lots, big views and big homes, says Scott Franklund, president of Legendary Properties in Longmont.
Franklund is the listing agent for 6483 Cranberry Court, an 8,618-square-foot home in Niwot that’s on the market for $2.599 million. The home, on an acre, is one of the last four on the 152-lot Somerset Estates.
“It’s an exceptional community,” Franklund said. Prices average $1.5 million, but there are homes that have sold for $8 million.
The just-completed home, on a corner lot, contains six bedrooms and eight baths, all with luxurious finishes. “People really like bedrooms without shared bathrooms,” Franklund said.
Even the garage is oversized, with room for five cars. “Two- and three-car garages are out,” Franklund said. “Four- and five-car garages are in.”
Also in vogue: the home’s exotic woods and real rock and stone. The front door is made of knotty alder, and the interior of the home features hickory floors, cherry cabinets and alder trim. The kitchen has caramel-brown granite countertops, stainless-steel appliances, a large center island with a breakfast bar and sink, and two Sub-Zero refrigerators.
The great room features an all-window west wall. Even the lower level offers great views of the mountains.
– Nora Caley
A large lot and mountain views
Finding one-acre lots close to Denver isn’t easy, but Cherry Hills Village has a few.
John Vaught, a lawyer with Wheeler Trigg Kennedy, took only five days to sell his home in the Devonshire Heights subdivision. A divorce and an empty nest led Vaught, a commercial litigator specializing in class-action defenses, to sell to entrepreneurs John and Susan Harris for $1.29 million.
Vaught said the house didn’t particularly stand out by Cherry Hills Village standards. But it had a large lot and mountain views, and it underwent an extensive remodeling in 1994 that popped the top. People will buy the area’s 1960s-era homes for their large lots and either remodel or raze them, Vaught predicted.
The home, which Vaught purchased six years earlier for $925,000, appreciated 39 percent before commissions.
– Aldo Svaldi
