By Katherine Clarke
Oct. 20, 2020 - Link to the article on wsj.com
A recently remodeled mountain-style stone home with wood details and panoramic views of the Gore mountain range in Vail, Colo., is coming on the market for $32 million. If it traded for close to that price, the home would be among the most expensive ever sold in the Vail area.
The large house, located close to the Vail Golf Club, spans about 11,000 square feet with six bedrooms. The property has large open-plan living rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows that open up to terraces, fireplaces in many of the bedrooms and living areas, elaborate bookmatched marble bathrooms and numerous outdoor lounging and dining areas, including a poolside outdoor bar.
This Vail Home Could Be One of the Area’s Priciest
Inside the 11,000-square-foot home of Matthew Fleeger, an oil and gas company executive
A Vail, Colo., home with views of the Gore mountain range is asking $32 million.
Seller Matthew Fleeger, the chief executive of a Dallas-based oil and gas exploration company, bought the home for $17 million last year and embarked on a huge renovation project that is only now nearing completion, he said. Mr. Fleeger estimated he has spent an additional $7 million upgrading the property since the purchase.
Mr. Fleeger, 57, said the home was about four years old when he and his wife Candee Fleeger purchased it last year, but it was more traditional in style than they would have liked. The windows were also small and didn’t make the most of the mountain views, he said.
“We were honestly shocked when we started looking at the house and what a poor job they did of taking advantage of what, to me, is the money shot in Vail,” he said. “To not take advantage of that to me made no sense.”
Mr. Fleeger said he completely gutted the property. “We set the architects loose and basically started over,” he said. One of the biggest parts of the renovation involved opening the entire east wall of the house by installing floor-to-ceiling glass. They renovated most of the house including the kitchen and master bedroom, built a large outdoor patio and added a pool.
Asked why he is now selling the property, Mr. Fleeger said that, when it comes to home renovation, he’s more addicted to the journey than to the destination, much to his wife’s chagrin. This is his eighth renovation or construction project and he is now working on another one in Aspen, he said. “She knows I love the creative process and she goes along with me,” he said.
Since the summer, the high-end market in Vail has seen the upside of the pandemic—wealthy buyers have been fleeing cities for the open air of the affluent Colorado mountain town. Biotech entrepreneur Kevin Ness, the chief executive of the Colorado-based biotech company Inscripta, set a record-high price for a Vail home in August when he paid $57.25 million for an 11-bedroom, 15,000-square-foot estate. Before that transaction, the highest price paid for a Vail home was $28.7 million in 2017 for a property owned by philanthropist Ann Smead, records show.
Tye Stockton of LIV Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing.