A 3,720-acre ranch in Snowmass, Colorado — a ski town 15 miles north of Aspen — is on the market for $150 million.
Its current owner is St. Benedict’s Monastery, which no longer has enough monks to support itself and is looking for buyers who want a lot of land close to the slopes.
Listing agent Ken Mirr, who specializes in ranches, knows how rare a property like this is.
“It is such a unique landscape. Somebody will sit there and go, ‘Wow, there’s nothing like this,'” Mirr told Business Insider. “You’re not going to duplicate it.”
Mirr, of Mirr Ranch Group, shares the listing with Michael Latousek of Douglas Elliman.
The Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance, a Roman Catholic religious order colloquially known as the Trappists, bought the property in 1956 for an unknown price. It built the original monastery in 1958.
Early on, the monks supported themselves by cattle ranching, making candy, and selling eggs to local restaurants and farmers. Later, they tapped a local cattle rancher to do the physical work with livestock on the land.
The monastery includes a chapel, prayer areas, and living quarters for the monks. The compound added more buildings since the 1950s, including a retreat center hosting events.
The late Reverend Thomas Keating founded the Snowmass Interreligious Conference in 1984, bringing regular interfaith retreats to St. Benedict’s. The space has also been used by the Aspen Institute, Mirr said, which hosts the yearly Aspen Ideas Festival that is attended by business executives, public officials, and other thinkers.
The property might sound like the perfect location for an ultrawealthy buyer to erect a massive family compound. But Pitkon County, where Snowmass and Aspen are located, won’t let large developments be built without scrutiny.
The county has caucuses that uphold its laws and approve land uses. In Snowmass, the caucus approved a 5,750-square-foot limit to the floor area of homes — so putting up an extra-large megamansion on the ranch is out of the question.
The county is known for oversized luxury homes that trade for handsome sums — a 22,405-square-foot mansion in Aspen sold for a record-setting $108 million in April to an LLC called Buddies Aspen, which the Wall Street Journal reported is a powerful duo: billionaire financier Thomas Peterffy and former casino developer Steve Wynn.
Mirr said he has already turned away buyers who are not the right fit for the property. He and the monastery leadership are looking for someone who want to do a little with a lot.
“There’s going to be a limited buying pool, and we understand that,” Mirr said. “Our focus really is to look at a conservation buyer ultimately who can work with the code and work with the open space.”
