Longtime resident and local philanthropist George Stranahan has put Flying Dog Ranch on the market for $56 million.
The 245-acre estate in Woody Creek is divided into four parcels, two of which are sterilized save for the ability to build a barn on each; a third parcel — a 59-acre site bordering the national forest — is approved for a 10,500-square-foot house plus a barn; and the main parcel allows for three homes totaling slightly more than 14,500 square feet, along with an existing historic ranch house, according to Ed Zasacky, a broker at Aspen Land & Homes/Sotheby’s International Realty.
There is also more than a mile of water running through the property, courtesy of Collins Creek and Woody Creek.
“It’s one of the last special places in this upper valley. All of the others have been bought out — Owl Creek Ranch, you name it, they’re gone,” said Zasacky, who listed the property on behalf of Stranahan on Thursday.
If the ranch is sold as advertised, it would make it the most expensive property in the Roaring Fork Valley. Two years ago, Crystal Island Ranch outside Carbondale set the valley’s residential sale record of $47 million, and Bar/X Ranch, which included 13 home approvals, established the highest mark for open land at $48.5 million.
“We’re looking to probably set a record, but it’s also a very unique parcel and one of the last original ranches in the Aspen area,” Zasacky said.
However, a record could also be set by the sale of the nearby Aspen Valley Ranch, a 731-acre estate with 14 luxury-home approvals that is listed for $88 million.
Stranahan, 77, recently purchased a home in River Valley Ranch in Carbondale. He described it as a “reasonably large house” in a remote spot ideal for growing older.
“Once it’s listed, there is a sense of finality,” Stranahan said. “I’ve been here 40 years. I’ve done everything there is to be done. I’ll miss it, but I didn’t leave anything undone.”
An heir to the Champion spark plug fortune, Stranahan is the founder of the Aspen Center for Physics, the Aspen Community School, the Woody Creek Tavern, Flying Dog Brewery, a former co-owner of The Aspen Times, ex-publisher of the Mountain Gazette, a founding partner of Colorado’s first legal whiskey, and many other ventures. He has owned and lived at Flying Dog Ranch for approximately 40 years.
Zasacky, his land broker, said potential development on the property has a lot of flexibility, in large part due to Stranahan’s recent deal with Pitkin County, in which he agreed to virtually sterilize 88 acres on the ranch and relinquish ownership of 331 acres of mining claims in exchange for transferable development rights.
“The ranch has a long vesting period, and that’s because of the many things he did for the county and for all of us with his conservation work in Lenado and putting conservation rights on the property,” Zasacky said. “It was well deserved.”
He said potential suitors could include someone looking to build a family compound or someone who buys the ranch and sells off a portion or portions of it.
And Flying Dog Ranch is not shielded only from changes in the county’s land-use code longer than most properties — it is also shielded from the rest of the world.
“You could set off a couple of sticks of dynamite and no one would care,” said Zasacky.
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