Marise Cipriani has owned the 5,000-acre ski and golf resort community for 22 years, and said “it’s time for me to move on.” The property features a 400-acre ski area, three miles of private fly fishing, an 18-hole golf course, 40 miles of hike and bike trails, and approvals for more than 1 million sq. ft. of commercial space and 4,349 more homes.
Marise Cipriani, the 22-year owner of Granby (Colo.) Ranch, is listing the 5,000-acre ski and golf resort community for sale, the Denver Post reported.
Cipriani turned 60 on Septemper 28. On the same day in 1995, the Brazilian developer finalized the $12.5 million deal to buy the struggling property, which was then called Silver Creek and had languished in bankruptcy court for eight years. She had grand plans back then, proposing a $100 million four-season resort that would cater to families. After spending millions securing water rights, developing a golf course and facilities, improving the ski area, building trails and selling more than 500 of a planned 4,300-plus homes, Cipriani said “it’s time for me to move on,” the Post reported.
“It hasn’t been easy, but on the other hand, it’s been very rewarding. I love the vision of it. I really can see that somebody can take it now to the next level,” she said. “Granby Ranch has to exist beyond me.”
The trials were plentiful over the last two decades. It took about six years to figure out water and relationships with the Town of Granby. She worked with the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service for federal land within her property. She installed infrastructure, upgraded the ski area and built a base village, developed a golf course and sold homes and condos. She changed the name from Silver Creek to SolVista, then to Granby Ranch. She closed the historic Berthoud Pass ski area in 2001, citing financial struggles and the cost of redeveloping the base lodge on the mountain pass, the Post reported.
The 2008 recession hit Granby Ranch hard, as it did for most luxury mountain communities. Grand County took a while to recover, but the resort-anchored county is roaring back with several new construction projects in downtown Winter Park, Fraser and Granby. Even with the recovery finally sparking renewed interest in Granby Ranch, last year was the hardest for Cipriani, the Post reported.
In December last year, a mechanical issue with a Ski Granby Ranch chairlift threw 40-year-old Kelly Huber, and her two kids–from the lift, killing the Texas mom and injuring her children. The Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board concluded that recent changes to the electrical control system of the Quickdraw Express caused rapid speed changes in the “unprecedented” event that caused the Huber family’s chair to slam a lift tower. It was the first-ever fatality at Granby Ranch, the Post reported.
“There is not one single day where I don’t think about the family,” Cipriani said. “You know how people are, they were telling me ‘You are going to be sued.’ I said I don’t know but that’s not the point. The point is how hard this is for the family.” Cipriani said there has not been a claim filed by the Huber family, “so there’s nothing to settle,” the Post reported.
Last month Grand County sheriff’s deputies briefly seized resort properties at the ski area and golf course, citing unpaid property taxes by the resort’s Granby Realty Holdings and Granby Amenities. Cipriani called it “a misunderstanding.” Her team, which includes her daughter, Melissa Cipriani as chief executive of the resort, paid more than $104,000 in back taxes in early October and another $382,000 on October 19, the Post reported.
Cipriani has enlisted CBRE to market the property. The Granby Ranch property—more than 5,000 acres with a 400-acre ski area, three miles of private fly fishing along the Fraser River, an 18-hole golf course, 40 miles of hiking and bike trails, and approvals allowing for more than 1 million square feet of commercial space and 4,349 more homes—“can be looked at many different ways,” Cipriani said.
These trophy properties are intriguing to deep-pocketed investors looking for an asset that will span generations, said Jeff Woolson, the managing director of CBRE’s Golf & Resort Group. “Granby Ranch is an asset that is irreplaceable and with a location only an hour-and-a-half from Denver,” Woolson said. “It’s got a fabulous fishery, which is more and more of a rarity. This is really something special.”
Woodson doubts the property will list for a specific price. Typically, these big properties will be priced with parameters; a sort of guidance for bidders, he said. Cipriani is leaving the pricing up to Woolson and his team, the Post reported.
“For me, this is much more about the decision to sell,” Cipriani said. “That was more important for me as a human being than figuring out what I’m going to sell it for.”
For now, Cipriani hopes to spend more time with her husband, Celso, a businessman who still lives in Brazil and commutes to their Boulder home. She sees Granby Ranch as “poised for great growth and opportunity,” the Post reported.
“I believe under new stewardship and guidance, the vision and full potential of Granby Ranch will be realized,” she wrote in a letter sent to homeowners on Tuesday morning. “It is with heartfelt gratitude that I thank all those who have shared in this vision to make Granby Ranch their home. I will take forever the memories and experiences of this magnificent place with me, as I enter the next chapter of my life, a story, as of yet, unwritten, and continuing to reveal itself with each turn of a page.”
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