Of all the sectors – energy, agriculture, high tech – that promise some kind of recovery to Colorado in the year ahead, what’s the one thing that, in the eyes of the rest of the world, that sets Colorado apart? “People think of us for skiing and for big ranch properties,” says George Harvey, Telluride-based agent who came out to ski Aspen during college, and never returned east. “It’s the sheer, drop-dead beauty here.”

Telluride Regional Airport, with a $54 million makeover that included a jet-friendly runway, is drawing a high-end clientele. Brett Schreckengost, courtesy Telluride Regional Airport.

Harvey has worked the Telluride market for 27 years, building a clientele that includes numbers of international buyers. Like other agents who have toughed-out the mountain market, he’s now seeing a pickup — 25% in year-over-year sales; 50% in dollar volume — that could be a harbinger of better times. Included is an increased number of international buyers. “To own here is seen as very prestigious,” Harvey noted, adding that he’d recently worked with buyers from the UK, Singapore, and Brazil. more »

Where was “The Sound of Music” filmed? In Austria, of course…but also in Colorado, on sprawling Wilson Mesa across from Telluride, where a carpet of aspen trees wraps the base of three scenic fourteen-thousand-foot peaks, including what may be Colorado’s most often-viewed fourteener, Wilson Peak.

Lazy Dog Ranch includes a home office, located off of the master bedroom, with a built-in solid wrap-around wood desk.

That summit, featured in Coors Beer ads and hundreds of other advertising portrayals, is the backdrop of a ten-acre property that Telluride Realtor George Harvey is showing this season: Lazy Dog Ranch, priced at $2,650,000. Thirty minutes from Telluride’s old-Colorado downtown and closer to newly updated Telluride Regional Airport, the ranch is centered around a unique custom home built in the mid-1980s, showcasing contemporary alpine architecture that was extensively updated in a 2008 remodel. more »

When John and Jackie Dendahl began shopping for a resort property near Breckenridge as a getaway from their home in Roxborough, their Realtor made two suggestions: ‘Why not look over in Winter Park and Grand County?’…and, ‘Why not buy that place as a quarter ownership?’

Coldwell Banker agent Stuart Huster of Grand Quarters (left) shows the resort home Jackie and John Dendahl bought on quarter ownership in Elk Track.

This week, the couple was up enjoying their new cabin-styled duplex at Elk Track in Grand Elk — on the third tee of the Craig Stadler golf course, 20 minutes from where Winter Park skiers were enjoying 10 inches of new powder. Unlike ‘time shares,’ the Dendahls have real ownership in their place – can rent it, trade it, deed it, sell it. The mortgage, along with monthlies for maintenance and amenities, are divvied up among the four owners by a management company. more »