Colorado Mountain Home Inspired by ‘Walden’ Asks $29 Million — wsj.com

The Vail Valley estate, which comes with a boat dock and large pond, was designed by architect Annabelle Selldorf for the widow of casino executive Butch Kerzner to fulfill his wishes

A mountain home in the Vail Valley of Colorado is coming on the market for $29 million. SCOTT CRAMER

In the winter of 2005, Vanessa Kerzner and her husband, casino executive Butch Kerzner, donned snowshoes and trekked to the site in Colorado’s Vail Valley where they would build their new home. “We looked out and he just said, ‘This is it,’ ” Ms. Kerzner remembered.
Less than a year later, Mr. Kerzner died in a helicopter crash on a business trip in the Dominican Republic at age 42. Ms. Kerzner had to decide whether to continue with plans to build the home, the design of which had been inspired by her late-husband’s favorite book, “Walden” by transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. “He was traveling a lot and wanted a place to be very quiet and in touch with nature, out of the craziness of New York City life,” she said.

Ms. Kerzner, 54, chose to go ahead with the plans, and the roughly 10,515-square-foot home was completed in 2009. Designed by the architect Annabelle Selldorf, the seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom home sits on roughly 70 acres and looks out on Vail’s Gore Range to the east and the New York Mountain Range to the south. Parts of the facade are adorned with touches of locally sourced beetle kill pine wood, copper shingles and stone.

The home also has a detached gym and a boat dock on a large pond where Ms. Kerzner and her family fish and swim in the summer and ice skate in the winter. Surrounding the property is a 9-mile network of private and semi-private trails, many of which are owned and operated by the Cattleman’s Club, the local homeowners’ association. The property is located about 7 minutes from the shops and post office in the small town of Edwards, Colo.

Ms. Kerzner, who remarried in 2011, is now listing the home for $29 million. She said she is selling to downsize to a smaller home in the area because her children are either in college or about to go to college. The home is owned by a trust held by Ms. Kerzner and her two children.

Two additional 35-acre lots owned the Kerzners are listed separately, asking $4.35 million and $4.65 million each, and could be added to the estate, according to exclusive listing agent Tye Stockton of LIV Sotheby’s International Realty.

Leaving the home will be bittersweet, Ms. Kerzner said. “This spring, I was sitting there with my husband having a drink, and all the sparrows were dancing above the pond,” she said. “We put on classical music and I started crying… I feel like I will never be able to find a place like this.”

Ms. Kerzner’s late husband was the chief executive of hotel and casino operator Kerzner International Holdings and the son of Sol Kerzner, the South African casino magnate. Ms. Kerzner said she spends most of her time handling investments of behalf of her family and serves on the boards of several charities.