500-acre Buckhorn Ranch west of Loveland lists for $11 million

This story first ran on BusinessDen.com, a BizWest news partner.

Jeff Hiatt knows what he’ll miss the most about his 531-acre ranch west of Loveland.

“I sat on the porch this morning with my granddaughter, who is 5 years old, swapping stories in the warm breeze,” he said. “And then we sat on the bridge and tossed rocks into the stream. You do that once, and that answers your question.”

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Hiatt and his wife Mary listed Buckhorn Ranch at 9840 Buckhorn Road, about 20 minutes southwest of Fort Collins, for $11 million this week. The couple are downsizing, Hiatt said.

The Hiatts purchased the equestrian property for $2.25 million in 2012, according to property records. They also own a 160-acre ranch on the north end of the land called Mountain Ranch and would ride horses from one ranch to the other.

“What appealed to us is there’s almost a mile of private stream that runs through the center of the property,” Hiatt said. “Along the stream, there are three or four miles of horse riding trails.”

Buckhorn Ranch features a 9,387-square-foot main residence, which was built in 2007, with five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, soaring ceilings, an open floor plan, and custom woodwork.

There’s also an 1,802-square-foot guesthouse with three bedrooms and three bathrooms, and a 4,000-square-foot studio, which the Hiatts used for a glass and woodworking shop upstairs and service equipment storage downstairs.

The Hiatts bought the property out of foreclosure, Hiatt said. Most of the structures on the ranch had been built, but the interiors were not complete, so the couple renovated the main residence, the barn, and the studio. They also built a 10,000-square-foot indoor arena and a run-in shed for horses and added 8,000 feet of linear fence and landscaping.

“The property was kind of a mess, so we did a decade’s worth of work to really turn it into a working ranch,” Hiatt said.

For horses, there’s a turn-of-the-century stable, which Hiatt said was rumored to be a stop along The Pony Express Trail route, with six box stalls, a tack room, a tool room, a vet room, storage and a bathing area.

For cattle, there’s a barn, milking parlor, plenty of roaming pastures, and enough hay storage for about 100 tons, Hiatt said.

Over the past nine years, the Hiatts used Buckhorn Ranch to raise cattle, breed and store horses, and host clinics for neighbors and friends in the additional indoor arena and 20,000-square-foot outdoor arena.

“We’ve been here almost a decade and for us, whether you love cattle ranching, horse breeding or owning horses, you have everything you need,” Hiatt said. “But you don’t have to be an hour away from town, and that in a nutshell is a core value of being able to have a 500-acre ranch and still buzz into King Soopers.”

Address: 9840 Buckhorn Road, Loveland

Listing price: $11 million

Stats: In addition to the five buildings, the property includes a mile of private stream, miles of private horse trails, a 38-acre parcel with a 2-acre building site, 8,000 feet of horse fencing, a 10-acre grazing field for horses, two fenced four-acre fields, and a 75-foot training pen.

The finer things: The primary home features a yoga and exercise room and a bathroom on the top floor, and the main floor includes two bedrooms, a chef’s kitchen with top-of-the-line appliances, a study, a sunroom, and a formal dining room.

Downstairs, there’s three bedrooms, a spacious rec room with a bar, a home theater, a billiards room and 10-foot tall pocket doors that lead out to an outdoor patio, which overlooks the creek.

The home is 20 minutes from Fort Collins, Estes Park, and downtown Loveland and 35 minutes from the nearest private jet service airport.

“It’s an entertainer’s dream,” Hiatt said. “We hosted our daughter’s wedding here, and it was perfect. There were a couple hundred people, and it didn’t feel crowded one bit.”

Sellers: Jeff and Mary Hiatt. Jeff is the author of many change management books, including “Change Management. The People Side of Change,” and “The Essence of ADKAR: a model for individual change management.” He also previously worked for Bell Labs as an engineer and program manager before founding Fort Collins-based Prosci in 1994.

Hiatt was president of Prosci, which uses research-based change management to help corporations, governments and nonprofits, until it was acquired by New York-based Leeds Equity Partners in 2016. He has been retired ever since.

Listing agents: Carliss and Jeff Erickson with LIV Sotheby’s International Realty