"We shape our buildings, and afterward, our buildings shape us." Winston Churchill
Welcome to the Wilson Peak Retreat website!
This unique private compound includes two separate private residences: a glassy "Mountain Modern" Main House, known as the Passive Solar Concept House, and a separate matching Guest House, known as the See Forever Cottage, on two separate subdivision roads, with separate entrances -- one well above the other on the hillside in the forest.
lifestyle + rental income + long-term capital gain = an unbeatable investment
As a result of this unique siting of these two separate luxury residences -- at separate addresses on separate roads -- buyers seeking rental income from either or both luxury residences on the compound are assured of unusually strong rental income(s) based on historical rentals on the property, in good times or bad. And with virtually no loss of privacy for the occupants of either residence on the compound. No other property on the market in Telluride offers the same level of privacy between its residences, nor can compare to these historical rental incomes.
Even reserving some of the best weeks for themselves, second homeowners can expect the Passive Solar Concept House (the Main House on Fox Farm Road) to generate $75,000 - $100,000 in vacation rental income annually, plus another $12,000 - $18,000 annually in long-term rental income from the See Forever Cottage (the Guest House on Sunset Circle). For more on this, see our Financials page here on this website.
Buyers who prefer to reserve the Main House exclusively for themselves and their family and friends -- without offering the property for vacation rentals -- can easily do so, and still benefit greatly from having caretakers in the See Forever Cottage year-round. Only the Wilson Peak Retreat compound offers the two residences on separate subdivision roads, assuring complete privacy for the owners, as well as their caretakers.
Here are some of the amenities offered:
"You may see that walls are vanishing... Walls themselves because of glass will become windows, and windows as we used to know them as holes in walls wll be seen no more. Ceilings will often become as window walls too." Frank Lloyd Wright, "Tne Natural House," Times Mirror/New American Library, 1954.
Just recently, on July 20, 2011, the Wall St. Journal ran a lead article in its Homes section entitled: "Growing Panes: Homeowners Go Big on Glass Walls." The Journal article illustrates that unconventional homes featuring expansive glass walls and "planet-friendly" passive solar design elements are more popular than ever with home buyers throughout the country. You'll enjoy the article. Just click on the link above.
You can also see recent national press coverage of the Passive Solar Concept House by Yahoo!® News. Click here.
Now, for the first time, the Wilson Peak Retreat property is being offered at a new price of just $1.25 million for the entire compound, including all the beautiful furnishings in both residences, and throughout the grounds.
Both the Main House (the Passive Solar Concept House) and the Guest Cottage (the See Forever Cottage) are located on Lot 47 in the Telluride Ski Ranches, on a very special view lot -- a private compound spanning two separate subdivision roads on the wooded hillside. These covenanted Ski Ranches lots wisely cannot be further split or subdivided, to prevent increases in density throughout the subdivision. Accordingly, the two private residences in this private compound are offered together, as one purchase and sale. The two residences at the compound were originally completed in 1980.
Prior to the recession, the property was assessed by San Miguel County for $1,905,025. Recently, in response to macroeconomic conditions affecting real estate even here in Telluride, the fair market value (without the furnishings) was adjusted to $1,458,432 for 2012 by the Assessor's Office.
Unlike in the Town of Telluride or in the adjacent Mountain Village, there is no Real Estate Transfer Tax (RETT) due on sale for Ski Ranches properties. And the Ski Ranches homeowners' dues and assessments have always been low compared to other upscale local subdivisions, as there is no common area "built environment" to maintain in the Ski Ranches. Instead, everything is maintained in its natural state, and the Ski Ranches, with its strictly residential zoning, offers a welcome haven, and superb close-in access, to everything worth doing in town, or in the adjacent Mountain Village, which is the center of Telski's ski and golf operations.
Furnishings
Virtually all the beautiful furnishings in these two luxury residences, and all the high-end outdoor furnishings, were purchased or commissioned expressly for the Wilson Peak Retreat. These unique, upscale furnishings, with a short exclusions list for the owner's personal things, are all included in the sale.
For example, the striking verdigris finish wrought iron and glass table lamp, with matching wrought iron bookends, in a special sunburst pattern, on the entry table at the Main House, were created expressly for the property by a renowned Santa Fe artist, and are offered as part of the purchase and sale of the Retreat. Also included in the sale is a massive, custom-made rustic wooden outdoor dining table with six faux-finished Caluco® chairs, complete with matching 6" upholstered Caluco® cushions, located on the upper terrace at the Passive Solar Concept House.
You can read more about all the financials affecting the property; including, e.g., historic rental incomes, by visiting our Financials page.
Throughout this website, you'll find all kinds of cost benefits in purchasing this private compound, compared with purchasing just about anything in the Town of Telluride, or in the adjacent Mountain Village. The Wilson Peak Retreat compound, in addition to its beauty, privacy, and spectacular views, offers a rare combination of ecology and economy.
"Every house worth considering as a work of art must have a grammer of its own." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
A concept house, like a concept car, is intended as a prototype, to showcase new materials, new technologies, new ideas.
Frank Lloyd Wright envisioned homes that could be so much more than "boxes within boxes." With the crucial advent of "double-glazed" insulating glass for residential applications, suddenly walls could be windows, and windows could be walls, and thus Wright had the opportunity to realize his vision.
Here at this private enclave, one can see just how successful these talented local architects really were in implementing passive solar design technologies -- at both residences.
Someone once said, once you've lived in a house like this, you can never go back to a conventional house with little windows.
Both the Main House and the Guest House are sunny and warm in the winter, and cool in the summer. Through their Window Walls, they connect the occupants in an unique way to the beautiful views and grounds outside. They're inexpensive to operate, and very little energy is wasted.
Touring inside the Main House for the first time, visitors find a house that seems sculpted from the elements, rather than merely constructed onsite.
As we entered the new century, the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) offered an exhibition entitled "The Un-Private House," featuring a variety of homes like this one, built and unbuilt, from all over the world. The book accompanying the exhibition is on display in the library at the Main House here at the compound.
The MoMA exhibition, in the summer of 1999, celebrated unconventional houses, homes that were unusually open or loft-style, homes employing passive solar design, homes that featured sliding walls that brought a kind of kinetic energy to the design of the home, homes with a lot of glass, homes with exterior walls that slide open, etc.
The exhibition celebrated the idea that times had changed, the "typical" family had changed, demographics had changed, and it was time to re-examine our ideas of what a house must be, and what a house could be. Reviewers nicknamed the summer-long show in New York "The Millenium House" exhibition.
Here at this family-friendly compound, full advantage was taken of the unusually private lot to build an "un-private" house; i.e., a glass house that blurs the boundary of inside and outside, and with equally open architecture interiorly.
In this way, the architect successfully "pushed out" the boundary of privacy for the occupants beyond the house itself, all the way to the perimeter fence surrounding the entire compound. Living in the Main House, the occupants enjoy even more privacy from the world outside the private enclave than in a conventional home, despite the fact that the interiors are unusually open, and the exterior walls are made of glass. Quite an accomplishment.
Scientists use the phrase "proof of concept" to describe how a new idea or concept can be tested by building a prototype. The Main House was built for just that purpose: a model home that would allow the designer/builder to demonstrate to the local market all the things that could be done with passive solar design to create a home that was not only greenbuilt and energy-efficient, but beautiful, comfortable, livable, and practical.
The Main House was the architect's "proof of concept." One would be hard pressed to find a new home today that is more successful in implementing passive solar design and natural or "organic" architecture in such an aesthetically pleasing and livable form.
We've tried to organize this site into useful categories, such as Main House, Guest House, View Lot, etc.
When you click on any photo in the galleries on the left side of the various pages, they'll expand into a photo album with full sized photos that you can easily browse through for that gallery, navigating left or right using the arrows in the photo albums. When you reach the end of a particular gallery, you'll be returned to the page you started from.
For a virtual tour of the Guest House, see the Guest House page.
The Contact Us page has an easy fill-in-the-blank form to send us an email, and someone will get back to you right away. Also listed there is our phone number, fax number, and direct email address. Feel free to call us anytime, including evenings or weekends.
There's an easy-to-follow page offering an introduction to Passive Solar Design, and then explaining how this design standard is implemented in both the Main House and the separate, detached Guest House which is located on another road, on the hillside above. The text on the design page is accompanied by photographs illustrating how these unusual houses achieve unusually high thermal mass and meet other passive solar design goals, beautifully.
You can see from the striking photographs throughout the site that living in houses like these -- so carefully and thoughtfully designed by their architects -- is like living in a work of art, or sculpture. Over the years, many visitors have observed that the aesthetics achieved with these passive solar homes here in the compound are nothing short of stunning. Combined with the unique view lot spanning two separate subdivision roads, with end-of-the-road privacy at both residences -- whether approaching the compound from above, or below -- the effect is simply extraordinary.
See for yourself by arranging a private showing, and we think you'll agree.
Thanks for visiting!
