We’ve been looking at land for a few years around the Denver metro area. Ideally, we wanted about 5 acres with mountain views and privacy. We’d track new listings in REColorado and check out anything that looked promising. Usually we would end up disappointed when we visited the property to see that it didn’t really have the view shown in the photographs or the view was obstructed by power lines or it had zero privacy from the neighbors. Every now and then we’d find something that we thought was worth considering, but we only seriously explored two options.

The first real candidate was on 5 acres, had views of the front range, and a couple of mature trees. It was located on the corner of two dirt roads, but just a short distance from paved primary roads. We visited the site multiple times and walked the lot with the realtor. We had a builder come out and look at the lot with us and we started discussing purchasing offers. The asking price was over our target price, but we thought we’d try to get the owner to come down enough to make it work. Ultimately, another offer came in and we decided to let that piece of land go.

About a year later, we found another property. It was smaller than what we were originally looking for at only 2.3 acres, but it was heavily wooded and bordered a 5 acre parcel where the neighbor was all the way at the other end. We decided the privacy of the trees made up for the smaller acreage and the view made up for everything else. It was a panoramic mountain view that stretched from Pikes Peak to Mt Evans and everything in between. It was hard to appreciate the view from the actual lot with all of the trees standing, but the neighbors on both sides were happy to let us preview the landscape from their decks. It’s one of those views that you really can’t even capture in photographs, you have to see it in person to understand just how amazing it is. The property was at the end of a gravel road cul-de-sac, a short distance from the main paved road on the side of a mountain at about 9,700 feet in elevation. The land was steeply sloped and in addition to all the native pine trees, was adorned with rock outcroppings – some of them much more massive than others. It wouldn’t be an easy property to build on, but after consulting a local builder and excavator, we decided this was going to be home…in about 5 years after our kids both finished high school.