A former monastery tucked into the mountains outside Aspen has quietly set a price record, as Palantir Technologies co-founder and chief executive Alex Karp paid about $120 million for the vast Snowmass property.
The sale surpasses all previous home deals in Pitkin County, Colorado, and reflects the rapid rise of nine-figure transactions in one of the country’s most exclusive resort markets.
The roughly 3,700-acre estate, known as St. Benedict’s Monastery, sits about 30 minutes from Aspen and was owned for roughly seven decades by an order of Trappist monks.
The property was listed last year for $150 million by Ken Mirr of Mirr Ranch Group, who handled the sale with his daughter Haley Mirr and Michael Latousek of Douglas Elliman. Mirr declined to identify the buyer publicly but told the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the sale, the purchaser intends to use the property as a residence.
The main monastery building, dating to the 1950s, spans about 24,000 square feet and was designed with arched windows and architectural details inspired by a 12th-century Cistercian abbey. A roughly 6,000-square-foot retreat center was added in the 1990s using reclaimed timber and local stone.
Scattered across the land are early-1900s houses, cabins, barns and outbuildings, while much of the acreage remains undeveloped and is bordered by national forest, with multiple creeks running through it.
Mirr said the deal stood apart from the typical luxury transactions that dominate Aspen headlines.
It isn’t “your typical sale of a property in Aspen with a 20,000-square-foot home on it,” he told the Journal.
Because of land-use restrictions in Pitkin County, he added that the marketing focused on buyers who valued the site’s history and scale rather than redevelopment potential.
“We were looking for someone who prized it for what it is,” he said.
Interest was driven by the size and rarity of the offering and its proximity to Aspen and Snowmass, Mirr said.
“It’s extraordinary to find 3,700 acres in that area that has been relatively untouched,” he said.
The buyer, Karp, is a billionaire whose data-analysis company Palantir, headquartered in Denver, is closely associated with US defense and intelligence work and was founded in 2003 with backing from Silicon Valley figures including Peter Thiel.
Karp, an avid skier, joins a small but growing group of ultra-wealthy buyers pushing Aspen-area pricing into uncharted territory.
Last year marked the region’s first nine-figure home sale, when Steve Wynn and Thomas Peterffy paid $108 million for an estate near Red Mountain.
The monastery transaction comes amid tightening inventory and rising prices across Aspen and Snowmass.
Sales of homes priced at $10 million or more rose 19% year over year as of November, according to data tracked by Tim Estin of Aspen Snowmass Sotheby’s International Realty.
One Aspen property, spanning 74 acres, is currently listed for $300 million — the priciest now for sale in the US — underscoring how quickly the market’s ceiling continues to climb.
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