When the Walton family bought the Denver Broncos in 2022, they paid the most anyone had ever paid for an NFL team.
Now, they’re spending the most anyone ever has on a Denver home.
Public records show a limited liability company with an Aspen address is spending nearly $50 million on a residence in Denver’s exclusive Polo Club neighborhood. The Walton family is behind that LLC, multiple sources told BusinessDen.
Up to this point, the most ever spent for a single residence in the Mile High City was $17.7 million in late 2022.
The buyer of that home? The Waltons. It’s one of two they’re demolishing to make way for the new mansion.
Land already secured — for $28 million
The home will be built on what had been two adjacent parcels along Polo Club Lane and Polo Club Road.
In November 2022, the property along Polo Club Lane sold for $17.7 million. About 6.5 acres, it had an 8,500-square-foot main house on it, along with a 1,000-square-foot guest house and five-car garage, according to the listing.
The deal remains the most ever paid for a home within Denver limits. It trails only a couple deals in nearby Cherry Hills Village, a separate municipality. A mansion that former Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson paid $25 million for, and later sold at a loss, holds the record for the Denver metropolitan area.
But the buyer of the lot on Polo Club Lane wasn’t done.
Three months later, in February 2023, an adjacent lot on Polo Club Road sold for $10.5 million. It was a stunning deal. The home on 1.32 acres had sold for just $4.2 million in 2021, two years prior.
Both properties, more than 7.5 acres combined, ended up owned by Maroon Partners LLC, at a combined cost of $28.2 million.
LLC that owns site bought Florida property from Bill Gates trust
Maroon Partners LLC was incorporated in Delaware and, in the sale paperwork, listed an office address in Aspen. Leonard Oakes, a real estate attorney in the mountain town, has signed public records as an “authorized signatory” of the LLC. He didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Maroon Partners has spent big elsewhere. In 2022, the entity spent $26 million to buy a South Florida equestrian estate from a trust linked to billionaire Bill Gates, according to The Real Deal, a real estate publication.
And the entity owns one other Denver home about a mile from the Polo Club properties. That one was purchased for $5.1 million in August 2022 — the exact month that Rob Walton, his daughter Carrie Walton Penner and her husband Greg Penner, along with some smaller partners, closed on the acquisition of the Broncos for $4.65 billion
Rob Walton is the son of Walmart founder Sam Walton. Penner is the chair of the company’s board. He is also CEO of the Broncos and the designated “controlling owner” of the team.
In interviews with BusinessDen, the sources that linked the Polo Club purchases to the Waltons did so under the condition they not be named. A Walton representative acknowledged a request for comment by BusinessDen but did not provide any.
The Walton family was linked to Colorado before buying the Broncos. The family bought a ranch near Nederland in 2014, and recently put it up for sale with an asking price of $48.5 million. Rob Walton sold an undeveloped site in Aspen in 2022 for $30.8 million, after buying it in 2000 for about $9 million, according to Mansion Global. A Walton-linked LLC bought multiple structures across nearly 8 acres in Cherry Hills Village in May 2022 for $22 million.
New home to have eight beds, 11 baths
The residence proposed to be built across the Polo Club lots is expected to cost $20 million, according to statements of valuation submitted to Denver in June by a project manager with Service First Permits.
Adding the land buys brings the cost of the home to $48.2 million.
The statements of valuation were submitted in conjunction with other documents seeking permits to build the new home, which would be 17,975 square feet in total, although only 11,400 square feet of that is described as “habitable” space. The remainder is described largely in documents as “exterior heated hardscape area.”
The eight-bedroom, 11-bathroom home would be one level, with the exception of a basement wine cellar and storage space, according to the plans. It would be divided into three buildings: a main residence, a guest house and a pool house, although the structures would be set close together.
The main residence would have the six bedrooms and eight bathrooms, as well as a living room, two laundry rooms, a kitchen and large pantry, according to the plans. The guest house would have two additional bedrooms, each with their own bathroom, and a living room in between.
The pool house, which some of the plans label as a “recreational wing,” would have a gym, sauna, TV room and golf simulator bay, per the plans. The pool would be just outside.
Plans also call for a greenhouse elsewhere on the property.
CLB Architects of Jackson, Wyoming, is the architect listed on the project plans. Vail’s Beck Builds is listed as the general contractor. Design Workshop is the landscape architect.
“A sanctuary close to the city”
Josh Steck, an agent with Compass that has worked multimillion-dollar deals, said Denver hasn’t seen anything like the proposal before, but it’s not a surprise that Polo Club is where it’s happening.
“If you’re going to do it, that’s the place to do it … It is very challenging to get that much land that close to the city,” Steck said.
Cherry Hills is another popular spot for well-heeled buyers, and has larger lot sizes than Denver, but 7.5 acres even there “is hard to do,” Steck said. And Polo Club’s proximity to the thriving Cherry Creek business district is a major draw.
It’s easy to pass Polo Club without thinking about it. Brick walls separate the neighborhood from busy University Boulevard. Billionaire Phil Anschutz has been a longtime resident.
Liv Sotheby’s International Realty agent Delroy Gill, whose priciest deal has been a $8.6 million sale in Cherry Hills, called Polo Club “a sanctuary close to the city.”
“When you spend $20 million on land, you probably have the finances to make whatever you want come to life,” Gill said.
Gill noted that other neighborhoods south of Cherry Creek, such as Bonnie Brae, are also performing strongly. He’s preparing to list a newly built home at 890 S. Milwaukee St. on Thursday for $7.5 million, and said he expects it to sell for slightly above that — likely the highest price per square foot in the city in the past year, he said.
Gill said the ultra-luxury residential market — defined as properties costing at least $6 million — is seeing “a lot of consolidation,” as buyers sell some of their holdings and think big on the ones they keep. Buyers are also returning to cities after favoring more remote spots following the pandemic, although they still don’t want to feel confined, he said.
“Proximity and acreage are what is causing the price surge right now,” Gill said.
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