As a Colorado native, when you drive by I-70 you will see this crazy looking house surrounded by trees way up a mountain. Lot of people call it many things, I use to call it the Jetson’s house before I finally decided to figure out why it’s there and built like that.
Quick Summary of the house: The house was built in 1963 by architect Charles Deaton who also designed the Arrowhead Stadium. The Sculptured House is featured in the 1973 Woody Allen movie Sleeper, where the home’s cylindrical elevator with sliding doors is used as a fictional device called the Orgasmatron. Sleeper is still one of his top ten grossing films to date generating about $18 million in sales at the time, but when that figure is adjusted for inflation, it grossed about $52.5 million, making it Woody Allen’s fifth most financially successful film. Deaton said “On Genesee Mountain I found a high point of land where I could stand and feel the great reaches of the Earth. I wanted the shape of it to sing an unencumbered song.” It was designed as a sculpture first; the floor plan for the home was drawn up later (thus it was given the name, “Sculptured House”).
It was bought in 1999 by software millionaire John Huggins for $1.3 million. Although Huggins is now an angel investor, he was formerly chief financial officer of software company Johnson-Grace, which developed a streaming-media application and was later acquired by America Online in 1996.
As John Huggins neglected the house for years, several teenagers threw rocks breaking all the windows outside. It was reported that animals such as a fox and owl moved in and made it their home. In 2006 the property was sold to Denver Businessman Michael Dunahay for $3.43 million. Michael lived at the property until the house went into foreclosure in November 2010. Michael still owed $2.77 million on the mortgage of $3,130,000. He often threw charity parties at the house where he would invite people over to watch Sleeper. Several events including a party for the Colorado Rockies went on there. Michael said he was really sad to let the house go and didn’t even move out when he was suppose to.
The home was purchased in November 2010 by Denver investor John Dilday at the foreclosure auction. John reported he had 3 potential buyers and in just a couple months the property sold again to the current owners Larry Winkler and Toni Winkler. There was an interesting article on Denver Post about how Larry is going to try and make the house more energy effecient instead of spending over $400 on their Xcel bill after 2 weeks of moving in.
Gallery of several pictures I collected around the internet on multiple sites
