Denver Business Journal - Evergreen's 'crown jewel' Greystone Estate lists for $26.75M

The century-old Greystone Estate consists of seven separate buildings on a sprawling 55-acre property.

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Nestled in the forested mountains west of Denver, an Evergreen estate with a rich history has hit the market for $26.75 million.

Greystone Estate, located at 222 Greystone Road in Evergreen, is more than a century old and consists of seven separate buildings on a sprawling 55-acre property.

Stan Kniss with Fantastic Frank Colorado is listing the estate, which hit the market on Sept. 26, calling it the “crown jewel” of Evergreen and the surrounding area.

The estate’s current owners, Richard and Pamela Bard, have owned Greystone for more than 30 years; Richard remembers going up the half-mile drive up to see the property in the early 1990s after telling his Realtors he wanted a “castle in the woods.

“Without actually seeing the house, I already decided I was buying it,” Bard said.

Denver socialite Genevieve Chandler Phipps, the ex-wife of steel magnate and Colorado Senator Lawrence C. Phipps, first envisioned a mountain estate for herself and her daughters in the mid-1910s. She hired Denver architect Maurice Biscoe to design the estate and lived in a tent onsite so that she could be involved in construction, even hand-selecting grey stones from other parts of the property for placement in the Manor House, which was finished in 1916.

“She was such a powerful force, even at a young age. She knew what she wanted, and she went after it and created this incredible environment,” Kniss said.

Since its construction, Greystone Estate has cycled through a handful of different owners, including William Sandifer, who helped plan the Empire State Building, and his wife Sadie, a cousin of former first lady Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Johnson.

Many notable dignitaries and celebrities have stayed as guests at Greystone Estate over the years, such as Liberace, Groucho Marx, Frank Sinatra, Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Dwight Eisenhower and Bob Hope.

Under their ownership in the 1990s, the Bards spent four years living in the guest house while they planned and renovated the Manor House. Bard said he spent no less than $10 million on renovations, including new electrical, heating and plumbing systems, a new roof and much more.

“So much of what we did was restoring the glories of the property and the way it was meant to be,” Bard said.

In 2001, the Bards added a 5,746-square-foot pavilion to the estate for their daughter’s wedding that Bard described as a cathedral, with its vaulted oak ceiling.

Bard is the founder and managing partner of private equity firm Bard Capital Group and has appreciated his ability to host family gatherings, charity events or business events on the property, in addition to his offices. Among his notable guests was Shimon Peres, former prime minister of Israel, and his son.

“His son told us he’d never seen his father relax that much,” Bard said.

The main Manor House is more than 12,000 square feet. In addition to the pavilion, guest house and Manor House, the other buildings on the property are the pool house, a stone cottage, carriage house and a historic log cabin that was relocated from Wyoming in the 1980s. Across all six of the residential buildings, there are 18 bedrooms.

Outdoors, residents and guests can enjoy the estate’s tennis courts, pool, pond, Ponderosa pines, aspens and access to Upper Bear Creek.

Kniss said that the estate’s setting is private, while also being relatively close to Denver.

“You can be in downtown Denver in 40-45 minutes. You can be skiing in an hour. There [are] parks and trails and open space and all different kinds of things within just minutes of Greystone Estate,” Kniss said.

The Bards are ready to hand the property off to new owners and plan to buy a new place in Denver and possibly in Arizona or California.

“We're hoping to find someone else who can use it and enjoy it as we have. It's hard to believe that we’ve been here for 31 years,” Bard said.

“This really is a legacy estate. You can tell by the history of it, so I imagine that the next owner will approach it from the same perspective,” Kniss said.