By Debbie Kelley
The Gazette
In auction lingo, it's called a trophy property, and next month, the highest bidder will walk away with one of the West's most prized pieces of real estate.
A 280-acre residential compound outside Woodland Park belonging to antivirus software developer and multimillionaire John McAfee will go on the auction block May 10, with no minimum bid and no reserve price.
"He's told me he'd like to see it sell for $20 million, but no reserve means it goes for what it goes for," said Keli Konczak, a real estate agent with Prudential Colorado Real Estate in Woodland Park. McAfee hired her to sell, the conventional way, several smaller parcels of land, ranging from half an acre to 30 acres, he owns in Teller and Park counties.
Money is not McAfee's object in selling his Teller County estate, said William R. Bone, president of The National Auction Group, which is conducting the auction. The Gadsden, Ala.-headquartered auctioneer is the nation's largest seller of private, high-end properties.
"He just decided to sell it, and the price it brings is secondary. It's going to be a real bargain for somebody - it's truly one of America's most magnificent mansions," Bone said.
McAfee has invested about $25 million in the property, according to Bone. In the late 1980s, McAfee marketed the world's first virus-protection software for personal computers and became the industry's chief virus spokesman. He rarely grants interviews.
"The house contains so many works of art and unique features. I can show you doors he paid over $125,000 for and bathtubs he paid $25,000 for," Bone said.
Built in the early 1990s, the home will be sold with many of the furnishings - treasures McAfee has collected in his travels and one-of-a-kind antiques dating to the Ming Dynasty.
There are contemporary jewels as well. A theater, added about four years ago, has a 110-inch screen with a state-of-the art projection system, leather theater seating and a control room.
There are five master suites. One has stone walls, a glass balcony and a two-person, open-air limestone shower.
Other highlights include a solarium, a fitness center, an office with a wraparound desk and matching shelves and a towering great room with arched windows offering a dramatic view of Pikes Peak.
Outside are numerous bronze, metal and wooden statues and fountains reflecting McAfee's Buddhist practice.
The list of what's on the property that abuts Pike National Forest is as long as the winding road leading to the mountain hideaway.
It has been a yoga retreat center, where McAfee has taught relational yoga classes. He founded the style, which he says brings yoga into everyday life. He has written four books on the concept.
Along with the main home of 10,000 square feet, the land has three guest homes, two apartments, nine cabins, a gazebo, four ponds and breathtaking mountain views. The property has been one of McAfee's six or so declared residences.
"I'm sad to see it go - it's a magical place," said Ravi Raman, a yoga practitioner from Seattle, Wash., who has attended three yoga retreats there.
Few properties in Colorado stack up to the McAfee mansion, Bone said. In 2004, his auction house sold Wall Street financier Henry Kravis' house in Meeker for $16 million. The buyer was golf pro Greg Norman. McAfee's estate, Bone said, is even more spectacular.
A buyer, Konczak said, could develop the land.
"Somebody could build a new subdivision, and with those incredible views, it would be something," she said.
Why McAfee is selling the property, at auction, no less, is up for speculation. Bone said McAfee has made a hobby of building palatial estates. This will be the fourth home Bone's auction company has sold for McAfee in three years. A 1,044-acre oceanfront plantation McAfee owned in Hawaii brought $3.13 million in March 2005. In February 2006, a villa on the shores of Laguna Madre Bay in Port Isabel, Texas, was auctioned for $2.2 million. Last April, another oceanfront estate on the Hawaiian island of Molokai brought $1.7 million.
"He enjoys the creation of beautiful properties - he's trying to build something perfect, and that gives him pleasure," Bone said.
The sale of the Colorado estate is a surprise to many, though, including Jim Duville. McAfee hired him as a property caretaker 13 years ago.
"He always told me this would be his place forever," Duville said. "It threw everybody when he decided to sell it."
Bone and Konczak said McAfee told them he is selling because he doesn't spend much time at the Colorado retreat. McAfee now resides in Arizona and New Mexico. In a Gazette interview last year, McAfee said he also was pursuing a new love of flying ultralight aircraft.
Raman said the move makes sense for a true yogi.
"It's the utmost display of nonattachment to things. To walk away from such a beautiful house and property is part of what he teaches - follow your heart. Perhaps he's found another path to pursue."
McAfee is retaining a few ties to Colorado, including an investment in a broadband communications company in Woodland Park and sponsorship for the second year of Hill Climb racing champion Justin Schumacher of Woodland Park.