ASPEN – —A landmark piece of Aspen’s history, the Smuggler Mine, is up for sale for $9.5 million. The property includes access to many millions of dollars’ worth of high-grade silver ore and, perhaps more enticing, two side-by-side developable lots with expansive views of town and Aspen Mountain.
The distinctive property is among Aspen’s most funky reminders of an era long passed, when it was silver, not skiing, that put the town on the map. Throngs of people pass by the mine’s entrance gate, off lower Smuggler Mountain Road, as they hike and bike up and down Smuggler Mountain. Inside the perimeter fence, staggered piles of mine tailings climb the hillside amid tiers dotted with mining relics — rusty ore cars, ramshackle buildings and ancient machinery.
“I’ve never listed anything quite like this before,” admitted broker Matt Holstein, with Sotheby’s International Realty. “When they first started talking about listing it, I said, ‘Wait, can you even sell that?'”
Holstein, an Aspen native, remembers climbing the property’s fence as a kid to explore the site. A few decades earlier, so did Chris Preusch, now one of the mine’s owners.
Preusch is president of New Smuggler Mining Corp., a group of seven partners who are only the third owners of the Smuggler Mine in its 133-year history.
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