The Record Setters

Many people dream of one day owning their own home. But for some, that dream is bigger — or at least pricier — than others.

In an area where the median home price is already two to three times the national average, these are the record breakers — the houses that sell for millions of dollars, and the ones that most can only dream of acquiring. But if you think size is the only thing that sets today’s record-breaking homes apart, think again.

According to Boulder County Assessor records, Scott Franklund, owner of Legendary Property Group at Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, has sold some of the county’s highest-priced homes ever. He regularly works with upscale buyers in the region and said that, in recent years, there has been a major shift in what this area’s wealthy homebuyers are looking for. And for one thing, “big is out.”

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In the past, Franklund explained, a $5-million home might have been a 12,000-square-foot compound with multiple buildings. Today’s buyer might pay the same amount for a house half that size — or even less.

Dean Thedos agrees. “Thoughtfully sized, functional square footage is what’s in,” he said, though he noted that, when dealing with multi-million-dollar properties, “size is, of course, a relative matter.” According to Broomfield County Assessor records, Thedos, director of architecture and development at Cornerstone Homes and president/CEO of Livable Art Partners, holds the record for the highest-priced home sale in Broomfield County, a $2.7-million home that sold in late 2007.

But what makes buyers willing to pay such high prices, if not size? The agents say that these days, modern aesthetics, convenience, and sustainability trump square footage.

In addition to amazing views, which the area offers in abundance, modern architecture is highly sought after. “Today’s upper-end buyer wants a home with a dramatically experiential form,” Thedos said. “People aren’t looking for the faux-Tuscan villa anymore.”

Franklund said that, in addition to simple aesthetics, part of the reason behind this zeal for modern architecture, with its clean lines, open floor plans, and uncluttered surfaces, is the convenience such a home offers.

“People today want a simplified living design that’s easy to maintain,” he said. These modern homes are easier to clean and often use materials that won’t deteriorate over time, such as stone and steel, rather than wood.

Many of the area’s record-breaking (or potentially record-breaking) homes also incorporate technologies such as on-demand hot water and heating and cooling systems that kick on when they “sense” that a person has entered the room. Not only are such “smart” systems convenient, but they also help shrink a home’s carbon footprint by reducing energy use. Other eco measures, such as solar power and the use of sustainable building materials, are also popular.

“It’s a real paradigm shift,” Franklund said. “In the past, it was ‘let’s consume;’ now, it’s ‘let’s be conscious.'”

As homes become less ostentatious, so, too, do the people who own them. “Just like they want their homes to blend into the landscape, they want to blend in and live a normal life,” Franklund said, explaining that most of his clients keep a low profile, preferring Volkswagens to Bentleys and backwards baseball caps to suits.

But this same penchant for privacy can make compiling a definitive list of the area’s highest-priced home sales tricky. The county assessors’ lists are pulled from sales databases, but Realtors say some upscale buyers keep the final sales figures under lock and key, meaning that many of the true “record-breakers” may never make the public record.

Nestled at the edge of a residential neighborhood near Chautauqua, Boulder’s famed “Glass House” embodies both of these principles — modernism and mystery — and may have set the sales record for Boulder County when it was purchased in late 2008. Franklund, the selling agent, declined to reveal any sales figures, but a 2008 Daily Camera article indicates that it was originally listed for almost $22 million. And Franklund asserts that, as far as he knows, it “eclipses all sales records in the county to date.”

“People came from all over the world to see that home, because it’s so far advanced,” Franklund said. The five-bedroom, seven-bathroom house models angled walls of Pilkington glass and flagstone that mirrors the color of the Flatirons. The rooms flow seamlessly into one another, and the house uses the latest in eco-home technology, including solar energy and ground-source radiant heating and cooling. Down to its Zen garden, “it’s the epitome of modern living,” Franklund said.

That’s not to say, of course, that it isn’t opulent at the same time, boasting an oversized, heated garage, multiple-sided glass fireplaces, an art glass walkway, a full-service outdoor kitchen, a wine cellar, a home theater, and a separate carriage house and gated entryway. However, even at more than 9,000 square feet, the Glass House’s conscientious use of space stands in sharp contrast to the sprawling estates of years past.

Like the Glass House (though with a decidedly lower price point), the Cornerstone Homes property at 2008 Alpine Drive in Boulder also exemplifies this modern aesthetic, seeming to rise organically out of the surrounding landscape, as well as the trend toward more sustainable housing.

“We go through a lengthy process of deciding what a particular house in a particular location ‘wants to be,'” Thedos said. In this case, “the house’s reason for being evolved out of a very steep, very deep, and very narrow site with incredible views of the Flatirons.” Inspired by the unique configuration, Thedos and his team took this natural “fractured angle” and incorporated it into the building design, creating an angled structure that seems to cascade down the terrain.

In addition to its modern architecture, Thedos said, the Alpine house has been built to accommodate solar panels and a “green roof” should the future owner want to add one. The interior includes sustainable carbonized bamboo flooring, on-demand hot water delivery, and other energy-efficient systems.

Despite its innovative design (it recently won an American Institute of Architects Merit Award), the house, which was built in 2010, has been slow to sell. (It’s currently listed at $2.79 million.) “I’m not used to having something that cool still unsold after completion,” Thedos said.

He isn’t alone in his frustration. Few of the record-breaking sales on the assessors’ lists weremade after 2008. As the recession dragged on, affecting more and more Americans, upscale buyers “began to fear that their desire to buy a new home was somehow flawed,” Thedos said. “They were not only afraid of making a financial mistake, but also of seeming insensitive.”

According to Boulder County assessor Jerry Roberts and Broomfield County assessor John Storb, the market value for such homes has decreased slightly in recent years as well. Both offices completed state-mandated biennial property reappraisals in April, based on sales numbers from mid-2008 to mid-2010. The Boulder County report showed a 2.6 percent overall dip in residential property values, and though Broomfield’s overall residential market remained fairly flat, “higher value homes fell a little more,” Storb said.

However, it seems that things may be starting to turn around. Franklund said that so far, 2011 has been a banner year for upscale home sales, with the highest level of absorption of multi-million-dollar homes in Boulder’s history. “Our city is in high demand,” he said. “In the past, you’d see one of these home sales once a month. Now, it’s almost on a weekly basis.”

If this holds true, there may be more record breakers in the area’s not-too-distant future.