In this very special episode, we’re looking at one of our brokerage’s most unique and meaningful transactions: the sale of St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, CO. Covering over 3,700 acres, this property was about more than just land. It represented a community, spirituality, and decades of stewardship at the hands of the Cistercian monks. Selling it was no small feat.
Have you ever needed the pope to approve a ranch sale? In this episode, Haley and Ken unpack the complexities of selling a monastery, and what it took to find a buyer who could carry its legacy forward.
Want to watch this episode? Check it out on our YouTube Channel!
Haley (00:06):
Welcome back to the Land Bulletin Podcast, where every other week we bring you experts in the field to impart their knowledge when it comes to the ranch and sporting property market, buying and selling advice, the latest best stewardship practices, as well as topics that impact landowners every day. I'm your host, Haley Mirr. Let's jump in.
Welcome back to the Lamb Bulletin Podcast. It's Haley Mirr here and helping me out today to go over one of the most impactful transactions in the firm's history and one of the most interesting St. Benedict's monastery. And what better person to have on the show than Ken Mirr, who I think this took up maybe a half a decade working on this almost. It
Ken Mirr (00:48):
Wasn't quite that long, but yeah. No.
Haley (00:54):
Yeah. And it was kind of bittersweet for it to be over, so it's kind of fun to talk about it again. Before we go into the transactional piece, for those listening who might not be familiar with this transaction, can you tell us a little bit about St. Benedict's monastery, a brief history of the property, the monks who are there, and what the area is kind of like in that valley?
Ken Mirr (01:17):
So the property itself is what they call in old snowmass, Colorado, which is very close. It's like a hillside over from a snowmaski area. You can see the ski area kind of across the hills from the monastery and 20 minutes from the airport and probably 40 minutes really from downtown Aspen and Basalt is a close town, but it's really its own protected valley. And I think probably the reason it's protected is because of the monastery. It was founded back in the 50s and it's part of a lot of different Catholic religious orders. And I'm not Catholic, so I learned a lot through the brothers and the monks. And these are sistertian monks that were created years ago and I think originally out of, I believe it's France. And they follow some of the rules of St. Benedict, but there's just different nuances over the years.
(02:34):
So they founded the property in Snowmass. And by the time we got to it, and they started to commission a closure because there were 585 or 80 plus year old gentlemen up there. And it was time basically they couldn't recruit and the expense to operate a monastery of that size and 20,000 square foot of buildings and all the other aspects on 3,700 acres, they made that decision. A very difficult decision I might add is to sell that. But the goal was if they're going to do that, they would relocate the monks and they would then, that funding would allow them to give to other spiritual costs around the United States and in the Roaring Fork Valley itself, as well as to impact the 150 monasteries around the world that were under the Sistersian trapist order. And so that area of snowmass was heavily influenced as 3,700 acres, which was a lot of properties.
(03:40):
This was a valley that tight surrounded all by mountains and in a dead end into the national forest into the wilderness area. And so you can imagine over the years, people driving up this valley and so much of it was protected by the monastery that others who ended up buying up there thought, “Well, I'm going to protect my ranch too.” So there were a lot of surrounding ranches that were placed in conservation easements over time up here. And it's just stunning and beautiful and everything that you can imagine when you think of a setting like that. So it was important to the valley there. And this was Capitol Creek, Upper Capitol Creek, but it was an area that was kind of stalled in time, essentially, irrigated fields and things like that and levels and just gorgeous. And so it influenced it. And plus it's a large piece of property.
(04:46):
In fact, by the time we were starting the market, that was the largest piece of privately owned land really in the valley in Pitkin County. And it ultimately turned out to be the largest sale at Pitkin or in Aspen County. We never thought of it as that, but it was ended up selling for $120 million. And so it was biggest sale and historical from that standpoint, but we didn't really focus on the number. We were just focusing on the acreage that could be kind of protected. And anyway, it was just … You work on the thing for results. You don't work on those things for money. And the greatest result was just being engaged in the process that we were involved with in the last three years of my life. Big chapter. And the reason it took so long, I think, too, is just had to deal with the largest of the property, learning about it.
(05:41):
And we had to get it surveyed. We had a lot of things to learn about the property, the water rights. We had to get title. And we had to learn about this whole land use quote. Before we could actually put it on the market, we had to understand. It wasn't like sometimes we have properties where we're representing a family that's owned this forever and all the attorneys and all these files that were just perfect. We had to get the files. We had to kind of restart this and relook at all these aspects of it. Yeah.
Haley (06:12):
They had a library. I'll never forget, they have a library in the basement of the monastery with all physical files in canisters that we had to go bit by bit and see what they had because they were donated the ranch in the '50s. So this was going to be the first transaction that they ever had to go through, which is … Think about owning something that long. There's no record or digitized
Ken Mirr (06:41):
Version.stuff down, right? I mean, this thing wasn't digitized. I mean, it was so cool starting from ground zero that you're gathering data, and this happens every once in a while as properties we get to work on because you've got to understand it all. And so you got to understand the story of the property. Then you got to understand the goals of the monastery. And this is a public relations issue too, because people actually tend mass up there. So there's this deep attachment by the community, and that was really kind of the hard point. And also the connection between the brothers and the land, really difficult. I mean, there were so many sensitive issues or sensitivity that you had to be aware of in working with this that you couldn't engage in a conversation with a buyer that you thought would be reckless with the property because it would just create a lot of problems for the heritage of the monks and what they've done up there.
(07:45):
So I think just we talk about the challenges a lot of times on properties that we had. This one was a big one, just kind of learning the story of the property. And I think we talked about the goals and the legacy of the brothers that are up there, as well as though it's not just the people there. This is all part of an order that stretches around the world. And interesting thing about this whole process too, we had to work with Canon Law and we had to get approvals from the Vatican to do this. Never had to do that before. A lot of times you take on a listing and you say, “Well, what's the name of the entity? Oh, are you approved to sign this based on your operating agreement or whatever?” Well, a little different when you're working with a monastery. What's the operating agreement?
(08:41):
Yes. Yeah. It's tied to-
Haley (08:44):
We were fortunate. We had a team of lawyers representing the monastery who were awesome.
Ken Mirr (08:50):
We did.
Haley (08:51):
And because it's something, to your point, the entities, the operating agreements, all these things, it's not that simple. You really have to create very specific contracts and agreements for the specific transaction. This wasn't a Colorado formed real estate contract. This is different.
Ken Mirr (09:15):
No, no. Well, exactly. So there's a lot of different things here and what you could warrant and do. And at the same time, you're selling a property. A lot of times we're selling ranches, you got a farmhouse, you got a barn, you got things like that. This is a monastery. And so the facilities, we had a retreat center. These weren't things that somebody was necessarily going to buy and live in. And so even the … It was the first thing I ever had the opportunity to sell where I couldn't say with a hundred degrees specificity that this could be used for that, right? Or how many homes could you build on it? What could you do necessarily with the monastery? None of these things had open and shut kind of decisions, and the buyer currently made a commitment to do this with not knowing … He didn't say, oh, let me get approvals to do this.
(10:25):
And that's what we wanted. We didn't want somebody to sit there and take us through a planning process that could take two years to get them the right to do this. So those were major challenges. And in the end too, the monastery themselves said, “We don't just want this to be in the MLS and thing. We need you guys to figure out who's the buyer for this. ” And yeah, maybe, but certainly places like Aspen and Jackson do have their number of high net worth people that live there and appreciate those areas. And that's very true, but this wasn't a made to order, just place it in the MLS. There was so much involved in this, like I said, from the planning and those things, from the surveying to public lands issues to water issues. And then on top of that, we really had to deal with some of the conservation elements here because we believed that the best route for anybody to get this thing accomplished and do something was to perhaps pursue a conservation type of development with the county.
(11:36):
And we had talked with and had many meetings with the county people at open space, and so got to know them very well. And it was just for me and what I've learned in my life of working in these areas, this has been really a cornerstone property. I think
Haley (11:58):
Another thing that was challenging, I mean, there was a lot of things about this that was challenging, but how do you value something like this? Like, holy cow.
Ken Mirr (12:12):
We listed a certain number. I think we were at 150 and I spent time trying to figure out, okay, I sold a large open space acquisition that occurred prior to this and it was more like 600 acres, but I could abstract a little bit from that and I utilized that to a degree and then found other pieces that maybe have been broken down to like 500 acre increments. And so I started looking at, well, we could maybe rationally say you could do this. I mean, you think if you found a state law or things like that, you could do 35 acres on everything. And so, oh my gosh, there's over 3,500 acres, so let's build a hundred homes.
(13:02):
In the end, I thought, well, maybe you could do seven or eight, or I don't know how many really, but that's how I broke it down because of what the county and all the things that took on the square footage. And so I tried to stay somewhat conservative. I think somebody told them, “Oh, it's 500 million or whatever.” But we spent the time, I'd worked in public lands in my career valuing in holdings and wilderness areas and very unique properties over. And then in my period of time just as a broker working on things like in the middle of Zion National Parks and very kind of corners, again, very unique properties, you just get a sense of how to adapt it and you can't … Anyways, and we were darn close to what we thought that number should be, even with the lack of commitment from the county and other things.
(13:57):
So yeah, value was really important. And I thought we did a darn good job from that standpoint.
Haley (14:07):
I would say so. Let's look at the makeup of, this was a premier listing. This is something from historical perspective to pricing to scarcity of something like this in that valley. What was the makeup of the people that were showing interest in something like this? Because to your point, I know we had a couple developers reach out and things like that, but this was a very specific type of product.
Ken Mirr (14:39):
So you realize my feeling was it would be a cash buyer, so somebody who had the capacity to do this because lending and very uncertain without certain approvals. So that was a real goal. Finding somebody who was a conservation buyer that said, “I don't need a 20,000 square foot home on this. ” So that was a goal. Somebody who would appreciate the landscape might appreciate hopefully the conservation outcomes and just understanding where this sits and how important it is to the integrity of the surrounding community. And so we took a global approach to this. I started thinking, “Well, okay, if you had a 3,700 acres near Resort in Austria or Germany or Switzerland, what would somebody really want? And how do you speak to that type of buyer?” So we were trying to approach a global buyer from that standpoint that said, “Where do you find this anywhere in the world?” And let alone a resort of this nature too.
(16:05):
Certainly for some people, Aspen is a place that they like to be. The interesting about Aspen, for the people that do have the money, the properties seem to appreciate and value over time and places like that in Teton County and Jackson all have retained their values. So it wasn't a standard market where I wanted somebody to raise cows or … So you push a little bit, “Oh, we have all this grazing of things. Oh, we have this kind of wildlife.” But for me, I thought it was be somebody that appreciated all of those things, but was kind of a melting pot of just the idea of owning land and being able to caretake this amount of land.That was the kind of person I was looking for.
Haley (16:53):
Yeah. And I think we found someone who will be that steward and appreciates all those things that you just mentioned. Before I go into outcome, were there any other kind of things from a solution standpoint that … I know we talked about the leverage international reach. We talked about the transaction journey. I mean, we could talk about some of the … I don't know if you want to mention falling in and out of contract, having a few offers being … We continued to stay the course and we found the right person. It definitely took a couple iterations.
Ken Mirr (17:30):
Yeah. The few folks that all had it were very well … I mean, vetting a property like this, when we call vetting, is just making sure you're hopefully working with the … A buyer has the capacity to do this as a desire to do it, has some connection to it. You just don't want the first person that shows up and says, “I got money. Let's do it. ” You're really just trying to say, “Guys, this is a fit, let alone can they buy it? ” And the people that were engaged, but one reason or another, early on, maybe we got a little cold feet, but I just remember being out with … When you hear the response as you're with people and finding them, we had to turn away a lot too, just because just they weren't ready or they … When we did find the buyer we sold it to, there was a really strong commitment by this person to do this.
(18:30):
And that so resonated with not just us, but with the monastery itself. But the few people that we did work with, I will say, were just so blown away that they could be involved with a property of this scale in that locale. It was just that unique. So yeah, you learn a lot by doing that and you hope the first person, so often we always think the first person that's looking at it, that puts it under contract, we're going to close. It wasn't the case in this. And I think there's a lot … We had to be so upfront with people too, and did our best to say, “Hey, you're going to talk to the county. You're not going to know exactly what you're going to do here. I mean, there's a risk here in this element of what you're trying to accomplish here for this amount of money.” So we learned to give and take a little bit to make all that happen.
(19:23):
And I think we did a good job in kind of working with the buyers to do that. And we are very open, very open with, “Here's the county, here's what they think, here's what we see. You got to interpret this yourself. We're not going to interpret this kind of for you because we don't want to risk that element.” But you've got significant old water rights and all the things that it has and wildlife migration corridors and it's just like, you just can't find it. It's so rare.
Haley (20:01):
Right. And I think just the scarcity, the size, the history, the structures, to your point, being comfortable with the regulatory framework of that county and that area, all of that kind of had to come to play. But I do think so looking from how it all kind of ended up, I'd love a story. We found the right person, we know they're going to be good stewards. We went through all of those layers of approvals that were beyond the scope of what we've ever done. And then we arrive at this bittersweet moment where this community is losing these men that have stewarded the land, who have stewarded their lives. That piece, we've always … I know the one time I went to mass without you up there and I left crying because it's this moment where you're like, “Oh my gosh, people always thought it was going to be what it is.
(21:09):
” But we also, it was our fiduciary duty to protect the brothers and the order and get the ending that they were looking for,
Ken Mirr (21:19):
Which I think- You felt that commitment. You really did. And some of those gentlemen, when we went to the last mass, and it was a celebration, but it was also, these are chapters that you don't get back. And I was able to sense from the community of people who have attended there and been associated with that property a lot longer than I did. And I appreciate their position and everything. Yeah, the community and meeting all of them at the last mass. And I tried to stay under cover there. I mean, we had journalists calling all the time asking for more information, and I appreciate the interest and I understand why the community wanted to know more, but I'm also aware that this is a private transaction too. And so it was very hard to hold all these things together, rumors and innuendo and all those things.
(22:23):
And at the same time, you go, “I have a real obligation to just protect just like public relations, the church.”
(22:34):
You just felt that. And the brothers who are there and one of them in particular, they have a cemetery on it. We had to address the cemetery and he said, “There's another plot here for me. ” And he buried most of the individuals in that cemetery and he wanted to be there. And we worked out things that even for him to be able to stay there, there were things that you don't … It's not like a commercial transaction. You have peoples and heritage and things that are involved that even the buyer really took and acknowledged. And so it made it really cool. I remember going up and you're driving through the trails to get up to Capitol Creek Trailhead, which was one of a fabulous hike up there. And as we're driving up, the Aspen trees get bigger and bigger and thicker. And just the bewilderment of buyers as they come up there to see that.
(23:38):
And then you've got a local rancher making his livelihood grazing up there and their willingness to work with them. You had people who were riding some outfitting for horseback riding and they continued to work with them. So there was a lot of just give and take that needed to happen. So when you say all the things you want to say and then … And I get it, when you're working in this level of pricing of ranches and properties and people with a lot of wealth, but there's still people and people make decisions and are committed to that framework that we were trying to commit to. So I just think it all worked out lovely, I think. And then once we were able to close all that, you find that … And nobody knows some of the things, but the church, the monastery gave a lot of money to just local charities that they looked at.
(24:43):
And nobody's waving their banner here saying they did this, that they did it quietly, and then things like that. And so I could not feel better about it. We got to go to the main monastery in Spencer, Massachusetts and spend time with them and had dinner with them and just the level of commitment and just what you get to learn. And I just think it's in great hands. It's the next steward to work on. The church is happy. I know some of the people there that may not be able to use that anymore, that monastery or the chapel. I really do, but it was time for them. And you find in life in any of these situations, you just learn the longer you're involved in anything, like even with families that you never think are going to sell the ranch and things just change and conditions change.
(25:35):
And I think we all have to be aware of that. And sometimes when I even work on conservation easement projects, we'd use the word in perpetuity, and that's a long time. And so I just felt very fulfilled in meeting my obligation to climb because I feel what the net result for them was a great outcome, a very good outcome. I think in the end it'll be a very good outcome for the valley up there. And we continue to move on. And it's just, I think I've told you many a times, that's just another chapter in my life. And how do you explain these things and how do you get to position to make the help with these kind of properties? And you realize, you think, well, hopefully I did the good things along the way. You learn how to treat people too in these transactions, but ultimately you know enough about from values to everything else to make people comfortable with that investment and really learn how to represent your client the best way you can.
(26:42):
So I think it's just a … I'm not done yet, so this is the last transaction, but certainly a memorable one.
Haley (26:53):
Yeah. Hats off to you. I think the brothers, the church, the Father Vincent, they all are super grateful. Our other partners that worked on the project with us, it was definitely a
Ken Mirr (27:08):
Team effort. Oh, Michael Latousek.
Haley (27:09):
Michael Latousek.
Ken Mirr (27:11):
Got out. A nice Catholic boy original from Chicago.
Haley (27:16):
I couldn't have done it without him. And
Ken Mirr (27:19):
Then his brother, Tommy, who introduced us and Tommy's son happens to be … His name is Leo and now we have Pope Leo. So very- It's
Haley (27:27):
All connected.
Ken Mirr (27:29):
It just was made to be, right? It meant to be.
Haley (27:32):
And I'll say the moment I felt the most at ease is when we went to Spencer and one of the brothers who was the most stressed throughout the transaction, because they pledged their life to God not to help with the big real estate transaction. It was the first time I sensed calm in him because he had returned home and he was with his brothers and he was in the place he was meant to be. So it was all full circle and it was just a really incredible transaction to be a part of.
Ken Mirr (28:08):
Well, yeah. Well, you got Father Vincent too, who was the abbot, who was just- The Best.
(28:14):
Amazing what he had to go through. And Steven, the lay people who represented and advised the church, and Steven Lovelett, who went to Holy Cross and spent time out there and he's in real estate, I mean, he's our right-hand guy. All the conversations over the years we had to have with him about this and that, and a commission on closure that made these decision. And then all the people even up that helped to even get the ecclesiastical, we called ecclesiastic approval from the Vatican. There were a lot of people that put a lot of effort here. We weren't the only ones, certainly. And just the commitment of the monks over the years to the property is just insane. I mean, monks built the monastery. They were actually monks and they had designs from 14th century church monasteries that they followed in practice and then they never … They managed it too.
(29:16):
They managed it. They plowed the roads, they did the seals- Did the ditches. They made cookies. They had an eggery at one point to make money. They did all kinds of stuff and just their connection to the land was so compelling. And they have a cemetery up there too in remembrance of that. Yeah, there were a lot of aha moments that you just like, “Okay, there's something else you're controlling this. ” Yeah,
Haley (29:52):
There were some moments of spirituality for sure throughout it. But it's like any ranch in a lot of ways, we're here We are to represent our clients, help them figure out that next path forward and find the next steward. Because as Father Damien said, or was it Brother Raymond? Who said it?
Ken Mirr (30:13):
Brother Raymond. Yeah.
Haley (30:14):
As Brother Raymond said, we're only here for a little bit of time and that's the time we have to protect these sacred places.
Ken Mirr (30:23):
You're the stewards. He doesn't think I'm as owner. He thinks I'm the stewards.
Haley (30:27):
Well, Ken, as a reminder, since you are going up to Aspen, you should give him a call and drop off a meatball sub.
Ken Mirr (30:37):
Yeah. We love meatball sandwiches. Yeah.
Haley (30:40):
Yeah. Well, thank you. I know this isn't the last transaction. This was just a very cool one, but it was fun to revisit it.
Ken Mirr (30:51):
Yeah. Tolan, we just did. We didn't get to talk a lot about Dawson with the Nature Conservancy. Hopefully we'll- We'll do another episode. In a lot more detail, all that kind of stuff. And they just continue. As we just continue to do what we do, people find that they trust our ability to do something and commit. It's not like we bring on a hundred listings here. We try to do good ones that make an impact.
Haley (31:22):
Well, we definitely made an impact. And if you're listening and you have other questions about this transaction or how did you handle X, Y, and Z, or you're looking to list or you're looking to buy and some of these challenges we ran into speak true to you too. Let us know. We're happy to chat with anyone. But thank you, Ken, for speaking to this transaction. And hopefully we get another monastery under our belt one day.
Ken Mirr (31:48):
Hey, thanks, Hey.
Haley (31:50):
Thanks. Thanks for joining us today. To learn more about the Ranch Real Estate Market or our ranch marketing process, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter on our website at murranchgroup.com or give us a call at 303-623-4545. See you next time.