“I must be the luckiest son of a _____ there ever was.” That’s what Duane Larson recalls thinking in 1997 when he contracted to buy the home site in Bear Tooth Ranch that you’ll see stretched below you from a magnificent custom by architect Karen Keating, available for viewing by appointment.

Owner Duane Larson (left) and agent Pat McGuire show home in Bear Tooth Ranch.

By 2002, Larson had builder Ken Gray rendering the Keating design into a 7,000-foot main-floor master suite plan, with eye-catching interior, massive Venetian plaster walls and prominent timber construction. But what’ll really get you is the home site. more »

Renaissance man Ron Kessinger has built race cars, airplanes, theme park rides (for Walt Disney Imagineering), casino fountains in Las Vegas, and a lethal ping pong ball gun…but only one house; and it looks as if it landed here from another planet.

Current owner Jan Oxman and Jim Smith of Golden Real Estate show the Kessinger House, beside North Table Mountain.

“It’s like two Easter eggs,” says Golden Realtor Jim Smith, who has double-domed 17830 W. 53rd Drive and its 3.75-acre site near North Table Mountain, on the market at $550,000. Kessinger’s creation by architect Stan Nord Connolly has two polyurethane orbs melted over paraboloid porticos…circled by portholes that give the kitchen the semblance of standing at the bridge on Starship Enterprise. more »

What’s a good sign the downturn in the mountain resort market has about run its course? When locals start picking off the bargains – exactly what luxury builders are reporting now in Steamboat Springs. Scarcely a home has been built there all year – but projects launched three years ago are suddenly getting sales; with locals and Front Range families weighing in.

A penthouse loft overlooks Howelsen Hill and the trout-laden Yampa River on one side; trendy new dining and shopping along Steamboat’s Lincoln Avenue main street on the other.

“Steamboat was historically priced better than other luxury areas, and locals understand that the value is there now,” Realtor Angela Ashby of Prudential Steamboat Realty said during a trip around town. She’ll be on hand all this week at one of two open houses that make that point – one offering big, luxurious single-family attached homes at the base mountain; the other, a LoDo style loft that’s surrounded by so many trendy shops and restaurants that it earns a walk-score in the nineties. more »