Alpine Mountain Ranch & Club

It would be difficult to find a more perfect swath of land on which to place luxury homesites in Colorado’s mountains. “We are bordered on one side by the Steamboat Ski Resort, so you’re looking at all the trails from the top of the Thunderhead Gondola from one side,” says Director of Marketing Brittanny Havard. “On the other side, you’ve got national forest at the top of the property. And then to the south, we are bordered by Catamount Golf Club.” Even within the development itself, the majority of the land is an open space wildlife preserve, yet it’s still five minutes from the ski resort, and 10 minutes to downtown.

Havard says that the very idea of luxury has changed over the past several years. “Gone are the days when, to buyers, luxury means rubbing elbows with others at a white glove–service country club,” she says. “Today, the luxury market seeks wide open spaces with room to roam. We’ve seen this flight of luxury buyers from the coastal markets, and what they wanted was open space where they could still gather with their families.” And they can enjoy amenities beyond skiing and golf, including groomed hiking and snowshoe trails, a stocked fishing lake, private fly fishing waters in the Yampa River, and horseback riding.

She adds that even the concept of what constitutes a “mountain” home has changed. “The architecture is on the forefront here,” she says, “which is pretty cool and exciting. There are some developments that require you to build with that traditional beam-and-timber style. We have no building requirements specific to style, but we find that our buyers and the market homes that we’re building and putting up are really mountain contemporary-inspired designs, cutting edge architectural styles that are coming out of L.A. and the coastal markets here in Steamboat.”

Another plus is that, once the papers are signed, buyers aren’t left alone to try and manage construction. “We have an in-house design–build company, which is Alpine Master Builders,” she says. “It’s not that it’s not daunting and it’s not that it’s inexpensive, but we try to make it easy by having experts on site that can really help people realize the visions of their home. And no two homes are alike at the Ranch.”

The Numbers

1,200: Size of the ranch in acres

900: Acres devoted to wildlife preserve

63: Total homesites

5: Size of each homesite in acres

4: Percentage of the property that will be developed at full buildout