Chelsea's Abramovich buys mansion in Snowmass Village

Home, 200-acre property fetch $36.375 million

Rick Carroll, special to the Rocky

Originally published 06:43 p.m., April 30, 2008
Updated 06:43 p.m., April 30, 2008

Photo by Wildcat Homes

Chelsea chairman Roman Abramovich bought this 14,300-square-foot home above Snowmass Village on Tuesday for $36.4 million.

Photo by Wildcat Homes

Leon Hirsch had been trying to sell the Wildcat Ridge estate for three years.

SNOWMASS VILLAGE — Chelsea chairman Roman Abramovich bought the Wildcat Ridge mansion in Snowmass Village on Tuesday for $36.375 million.

The sale ended more than three years of attempts by Leon Hirsch to sell the estate using different brokers and even an auctioneer.

“We’ve had multiple offers,” said listing broker Maureen Stapleton of BJ Adams Real Estate, which handled both sides of the transaction.

The sale goes down as the third-most-expensive residential real estate deal in Pitkin County. The standard was set in February 2004, when Hollywood movie mogul Peter Guber sold his Mandalay Ranch, outside of Snowmass Village in the Owl Creek Valley, for $46 million to Dawn and Roland Arnall.

And in December, Prince Bandar bin Sultan sold his 14,395-square-foot guest home to the Soffer family of Florida for $36.5 million — $125,000 more than what Abramovich paid.

Abramovich, was ranked No. 16 last year on Forbes’ list of billionaires, with a net worth of $18.7 billion. In February, he bought a Snowmass Village home for $11.8 million. Stapleton said he likely will hold on to both properties and live there part time.

Tuesday’s deal also comes at a time when the local and national real estate markets continue to reel. Last week, valley- based Land Title Guarantee Co. reported that first-quarter real estate volume totaled $358.1 million, down 52.9 percent from the same period in 2007.

Meanwhile, Hirsch apparently got what he wanted, after years of trying to unload the property with an unwillingness to do much negotiating. In March 2005, Hirsch listed the 14,300-square-foot home, which sits on more than 200 acres rising about 1,000 feet above Snowmass Village, for $35 million.

He then took it off the market for five months before relisting it for $37.5 million. In September 2006, Hirsch announced he had hired Chicago-based firm Sheldon Good & Co. to sell the house at an auction scheduled at the St. Regis-Aspen hotel but abruptly canceled the event the day before it was to be held.

Abramovich’s purchase price might have been $1.125 million shy of the home’s listing price, but it apparently was good enough for Hirsch, who built the mansion in 2003.

Stapleton said negotiations began in April.

In 1991, Hirsch’s $123 million of compensation made him the highest-paid CEO in the United States that year as the head of U.S. Surgical. In October 1998, the medical equipment and surgical stapler firm was acquired for $3.17 billion by Tyco International, which separated into three companies last year in the wake of a $600 million compensation scandal.

Stapleton said Hirsch plans to remain in the area but in a smaller house.