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Prince Bandar unloads last Aspen-area property

Rick Carroll
The Aspen Times
Prince Bandar bin Sultan sold his final piece of Starwood property, a single-family home, for $5.87 million in August 2015.
Pitkin County Assessor’s Office/Courtesy Photo |

Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, once one of the Aspen area’s most royal residents — who had some lofty property tax bills, too — has sold his last property in the gated Starwood neighborhood.

The sale, recorded Wednesday in the Pitkin County Clerk and Recorder’s Office, showed the Bandar-controlled Bricol N.V., the name under which the property was owned, collected $5.87 million from LKM Family Trust, which is based in Australia.

Brian Hazen, the seller’s broker who works for Coldwell Banker Mason Morse Real Estate, declined comment about the transaction. Maureen Stapleton of Aspen Sotheby’s International Realty represented the buyer.



The price tag was hardly a match for the Saudi Arabian prince’s previous Starwood sales, yet signaled his exit from the exclusive subdivision on the outskirts of Aspen.

In 2007, he sold his 14,395-square-foot Starwood home for $36.5 million to Las Vegas and Florida real estate developer Jeffrey Soffer.




In 2012, he sold his Hala Ranch for $49 million to hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson. The sale included the 90-acre main ranch as well as Bear Ranch, which spans 38 acres. The 15-bedroom, 16-bath, 55,965-square-foot home at Hala Ranch originally had been listed for $135 million in 2006, making it the most expensive real estate listing in the U.S. at the time. In the 2000s, county commissioners passed regulations restricting home sizes to 15,000 square feet.

Meanwhile, last week’s sale was of a 5,200-square-foot house that Bandar had once used to house an engineer for the properties, according to a person knowledgeable of the deal. The home is located at 565 N. Starwood Drive and sits on 2.98 acres.

Bandar has been known for keeping his local estate deals quiet, and all of his ranch employees had to sign confidentiality agreements. Even so, he was a major philanthropic player in the Aspen area with major donations to Aspen Valley Hospital, Aspen Youth Center, Aspen Education Foundation and other nonprofit concerns. He originally bought property in Starwood in 1992.

He once had some of Pitkin County’s highest property tax bills, paying well into six figures annually. Bandar was the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. from 1981 to 2005.

rcarroll@aspentimes.com