A Piece-ful Victorian

What: Eight bedrooms, five full baths, five half baths in 8,000 square feet.

Where: Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Amenities: Remodeled and expanded, with a new caretaker unit over the garage. Three master suites. Tiffany fireplace surround, stained-glass windows, linen wallpaper and scroll molding. Dining room seats 20 people, hot tub has a changing area with showers. Lower-level media room. Period furnishings included.

Asking Price: $2.9 million

Opening Bid*: $2.5 million

Agent: James A. Cook, Colorado Group Realty (970) 870-8800

Due Diligence: This Victorian mansion has had a contentious -- and well-travelled -- past. Built in 1880 in Lyons, Kans., by a local judge and his wife, it was cut into two separate residences when the couple divorced. The wife's portion was moved to the back of the lot, where it fell into disrepair and was torn down. The husband's portion cycled through a series of owners, was turned into a boardinghouse, and then abandoned. Larry and Brook Cole, who co-own a Hutchinson, Kans. automotive paint business, bought the husband's side of the house in 1991 for $1,500 and cut it into six sections. They bought a lot for the property under the gondola tower in the ski resort of Steamboat Springs, and personally drove each of the sections separately from Kansas to Colorado over a mountain range. "It aged me," says Mr. Cole. The reassembling of the home, which took several months, drew much local publicity; at one point, a jokester left a mannequin's legs clad in ski pants, "Wizard of Oz" style, under one of the sections. The couple spent about $1 million restoring the home and furnishing it with period antiques; they sold it in 2001 for $1.4 million to James Ecker, a physician, who operated it as a bed and breakfast. He did not return phone calls asking for comment, but his real estate agent says he's selling because he no longer wants to be in that business.

Additional Photos

*The opening bid is Weekend Journal's estimate of a reasonable starting point for negotiations to buy the property, based on past sales, prevailing market conditions and interviews with local real-estate experts.

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