SELLERS: Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas
LOCATION: Aspen, Colo.
PRICE: $9.9 million
SIZE: 8,121 square feet, 7 bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: Quick on the heels of the record-breaking sale of their Los Angeles estate for $15.947 million to Netflix co-founder and CEO Ted Sarandos and the former ambassador to the Bahamas Nicole Avant, divorcing Tinseltowners Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas have hoisted their semi-remote mountain compound outside Aspen, Colo., on the market with an asking price of $9.9 million.
The erstwhile couple acquired the 12.3-acre spread about 10 miles out of town on the backside of Aspen Mountain in two separate transactions that totaled, as per our deeply unscientific research and rudimentary calculations, $5.05 million. The first purchase went down in February 2002, when property records we peeped at show they coughed up $3.55 million for a two-acre parcel with a 12-room residence of 6,324 square feet with five bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms and garaging for three cars; the second came six months later when they shelled out $1.5 million for a neighboring 10.3 acre spread with a one bedroom and one bathroom guest house and an historic log cabin, also with one bedroom and one bathroom.
In the voluminous, rustic-luxe open-plan living spaces in the two-story main residence, under a series of high-pitched gables and a vaulted ceiling with an intricate system of arched trusses, a freestanding stone-fireplace divides the lounge from the dining area. The adjoining kitchen is outfitted with sleek stainless steel cabinetry, a butcher block topped island with raised, four-stool snack counter and slightly too hippy-dippy ceramic tile countertops and accents. High-quality, commercial-style appliances include a glass-fronted double-door fridge-freezer and hilariously hokey, saloon-style swinging doors mark the entrance to a generous walk-in pantry. Numerous glass doors in the main floor living spaces open to a wrap around brick terrace with built-in fire pit, hot tub and postcard-perfect panoramic views of the mountains and surrounding woods. Listing photographs show a separate billiards room and an impressively large wine cellar and tasting room. Guest and family bedrooms include an upper-floor bunk room with at least two sets of bunk beds crafted from logs while the main floor master suite features wood-paneled walls, a vaulted exposed wood ceiling, glass sliders to a private deck and an attached bathroom with unnervingly twee twig-accented cabinetry, a tiled soaking tub set in a windowed corner and a separate glass-enclosed steam shower with built-in bench seating.
The guesthouse, a short snowmobile ride from the main house, has extra-wide plank wood floors, loads of built-in book-shelves, a wood stove and a Craftsman-inspired center island kitchen that’s almost or as large as the one in the main house. An historic log cabin cottage, set on a birch tree shaded flat pad just below the guesthouse, has a small deck and a wood-burning stove in the low-ceilinged but skylit and wall-to-wall carpeted living room, where someone has — at least as far as this property gossip is concerned — rather unwisely affixed fairly lights and probably faux greenery to the muscular support beams on the exposed wood ceiling.
With the couple’s historic Los Angeles estate sold and their multiresidence Aspen compound now up for grabs, the fate of their newly spiffed-up Central Park-facing, two-unit combination unit at the full-service French Second Empire-style Prásáda bulding on New York City’s Upper West Side, which they purchased in May 2005 for $3.995 million and at the time had four bedrooms and four bathrooms plus a nanny suite, remains to be seen.
Listing photos: Bowden Properties
