LELA?s land selection key to selling high-end home sites

NIWOT — Michael Stengel’s farming grandfather knew the value of land. In 1910, when someone offered him the ground now under Boulder Country Club for $2 an acre, he turned down the deal.

The land just wasn’t productive enough to justify the price, Stengel said with a knowing chuckle. His grandfather paid $5 an acre for 480 acres between Shanahan Ridge and Eldorado Canyon instead — it was better pasture land.

Like his grandfather, Stengel and his wife, Nooshin Katebini, have staked their fortune on careful selection of land. Their design-build firm, LELA Design & Construction, reached No. 3 on The Business…