Scott Coors, the great-grandson of brewing magnate Adolph Coors, grew up in the 1980s in Golden, Colo., a town just outside Denver. Not coincidentally, it’s also the home of the Coors Brewery.
Scott Coors’s parents’ house was on one hill, and his neighbors—Bruce Benson, the former president of University of Colorado, his wife Marcy, and their children—lived on another. Benson happened to be putting his 100-acre property on the market just as Coors’s parents split up. “I think the price was $2.6 million,” Coors recalls, “and my dad said he couldn’t afford not to buy it.”
And so Coors’ father, Bill, then chairman of Adolph Coors Co. and famous for introducing the aluminum can to the beer industry, moved into the 7,326-square-foot house in 1995 and lived there until his death at 102 last year.
As executor of his father’s estate, Coors, a serial entrepreneur, is listing it with LIV Sotheby’s Realty for $4 million; in accordance with his father’s wishes, 81 of the property’s original acres have been put into a conservation easement, leaving the house with 19 acres.
“There’s nothing on [most of] the property,” Coors says. “That’s what he loved about it.” By surrounding the house with protected land and ensuring that the land left to the house can’t be subdivided, the area will remain “unique,” he continues. “One hundred acres of open land just 20 minutes from downtown Denver, with those kind of views, is kind of unheard of.”
The House
The house was designed by MHP architects and completed in 1985, Coors says. The home was “designed to follow the contour of the mountain. There’s an in-law suite below ground, but other than that, almost everything is on one floor.”
The Coors brewing family's 19-acre mountaintop compound hits the market https://t.co/A4h6duWAgo
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Coors’ father didn’t change the house from its original design. The layout is currently configured for just three bedrooms, “but it could be made into a four-bedroom easily and a five-bedroom with some effort,” Coors says. An additional structure on the property—a house that overlooks the tennis court—adds yet another bedroom to the property’s totals.
There’s still original wood paneling and parquet, exposed beams, a profusion of skylights, and an open kitchen.
“He was pretty meticulous about taking care of it,” Coors says. When there was a hailstorm three years ago (“just devastating, with hail the size of lemons”) several skylights were cracked and “it took a toll on the roof,” he says, at which point his father promptly replaced it all.
Coors’s father entertained in the house often, both for work and pleasure. There’s an accordingly large, climate-controlled wine cellar, along with spacious rooms that can be used for both formal and informal gatherings.
The only obvious update, Coors says, is a bathroom with what can only be described as an Alfred Bierstadt-inspired, full-room mural. “That would be his wife’s influence. I would be the first one there with a roller and fresh paint.”
The Land
The star of the house, though, is clearly the land on which it sits. Nearly every room has sweeping views, and there are outdoor spaces, including patios, on which to take it all in.
“It’s peaceful and quiet,” Coors says. “There’s wildlife everywhere, everything from skunks to coyote to deer.” There’s even, he says, 30 elk that roam the property, along with the occasional bear.
“My dad was a pioneer in holistic medicine and wellness. The tranquility that was up there really suited him.”
For more active pursuits, there’s a tennis court that was originally covered by a bubble (“It was a pain to maintain”) a bit farther down the mountain. Coors’s father would reach it via golf cart.
In one direction, the lights of Denver can be seen in the distance; in another, the Mother Cabrini shrine, a local landmark. “You look down on the shrine that everyone else looks up at,” Coors says. There are also views of Mount Evans and the Rocky Mountains.
When his father died, Coors and his two siblings were tempted to keep the house for themselves—“it’s so special”—but given their existing properties, they ultimately decided to put it up for sale.
“Another house was not in the cards,” Coors says. “But we hate to let it go.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.
