Less than a year after re-opening The Manor House in Jefferson County as a restaurant, an investment group led by real estate executive Michael Shinn is selling the historic property.
T&T LLC plans to officially list the house for sale by late August. An asking price for the property, showcased in the DuPont Registry, a listing of high-end homes, has not been determined. Patrick Velasquez and Christopher Pflueger of Re/Max Alliance are the listing agents.
Shinn is executive director of T&T but not an owner. The company is controlled by his children.
The Shinns paid $2.4 million for The Manor House in March 2006 and said they planned to hold onto it for the long term. They spent about $600,000 renovating it, but financial troubles cut their plans short.
“We’re getting to the point where we don’t have deep enough pockets to hold onto a property like this,” said Shinn’s son Todd. “Our ideal buyer would be someone who would realize the historical value of it, and keep it open as a community center. It is such a key part of Colorado.”
T&T would consider a joint venture as well.
Operated since 1990 as an upscale restaurant and event center, The Manor House’s biggest source of income is special corporate events and weddings.
“It’s a very emotional property to a lot of people from around the world,” Michael Shinn said.
Residents of the Ken-Caryl Ranch development where the property is located have asked the homeowners association why it didn’t purchase the property at the time T&T did, said Don Coufal, president of the HOA board.
“HOAs are not typically in the business of owning the properties unless they affect the HOA,” Coufal said. “As an HOA, we’re not in the restaurant business or the event center business. We would have to raise dues at least 25 to 35 percent.”
Built in 1914 by former Rocky Mountain News owner John Shaffer, The Manor House property once was one of the country’s largest Hereford cattle ranches. The residence has a history of entertaining presidents, celebrities and business moguls from around the globe.
The 5.7-acre property includes a Federal Aviation Administration-approved helicopter pad and two homes with a private road leading to the neighborhood below.
Existing zoning allows for several uses, including commercial, office and residential.
If a buyer wanted to convert The Manor House back to a residence, the 9,000-square-foot home could have at least six bedrooms and four bathrooms. The guest house has three bedrooms, two baths and a huge wood-burning fireplace.
Michael Shinn has been in the real estate business for most of his life. At one time, his was the largest Century 21 franchisee in the country before he moved into the homebuilding industry in Hawaii.
In 2001, Shinn founded the now-defunct National Home Buyers Assistance Corp., which had a mission of helping credit-challenged people become home owners.
NHBA franchisees bought houses on behalf of people who didn’t qualify for conventional loans and who rented the houses while fixing their credit problems. When their credit was repaired, they bought the homes from the NHBA.
Former Denver mayor Wellington Webb was, at one time, a franchisee and board member for the company.
“NHBA is a company that probably had more potential than any real estate franchise company ever, but it was undercapitalized,” Shinn said. “I put several million dollars of my own money in, and it drained me.”
In fact, Shinn’s Lone Tree home is in foreclosure. He did not meet the 5 p.m. Monday deadline to pay $700,000 to the public trustee to redeem the home.
Former NFL player Mario Henry took over NHBA and moved the company from its headquarters at The Manor House to New Jersey in December.
There were lawsuits from former employees claiming Shinn didn’t pay them what he promised and a trademark case by Kansas-based National Home Buyers Alliance saying that the company’s name, acronym and logo were too similar to its own.
“By the time I got the potato, it was too hot,” said Henry, who runs Credit Evolution, a credit repair and financial-education service. “The lawsuits probably could have been settled, but at the same time as the lawsuits, the franchisees stopped paying their royalties. At that point, I was running NHBA off Credit Evolution, but it finally got to a point where it would not support the NHBA.”
Staff writer Margaret Jackson can be reached at 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com.
